21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. 22 So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. 23 In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 24 Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
25 “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. 26 In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28 I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.” (John 16:21-28 ESV)
I recently was convicted by the Holy Spirit that I need to pray believing everything I am praying in faith for, has been fulfilled in God already. God was telling me NOT to be wishy-washy in praying to God about the things I need and want God to do for me. So if I want so-and-so person to be saved in faith, I need to pray for just that. If need my financial needs to be met this next month, I need to pray for just that. Not throwing in qualifiers or if statements. But, I can’t help thinking that some of us do exactly that: we beat around the bush as we pray, failing to realize that Jesus gives us the power to pray boldly for things from God in his name so that our joy would be full in our lives.
So, how do we do this?
We do this by praying we can love Jesus. In Day 12 of our devotional readings, we learned from John 14 that we obey Jesus because we love him. We sin against Jesus because our love for him is not as great as our love for the sin that we do. When we love Jesus more than the desires of our heart, our desires become to love Jesus. So, we pray for things that imbue our love for Jesus.
When we pray with love for Jesus, our prayers begin to reflect his desires. When our prayers reflect his desires, and God fulfills them because we’re asking in Jesus’ name, we become joyful. When things Jesus desires are happening because of our prayers, it makes us joyful.
Pray specifically for things that will show Jesus your love for him and write down how God fulfills those prayers.
Comments