Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, February 10th. The more you seek God's advice in everyday decisions, the better you'll be able to hear His voice when making big requests.
Here's today's podcast as we begin studying John chapter 14. It is very interesting to me and extremely crucial that you now understand the link between these two things. The mighty works that God wants to perform and the means by which they're to be performed, which is prayer. If you'll notice what He says, look at this now. I want you to follow along. Every word's important and placed properly. Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do because I go to the Father.
And what's the next word? And, and whatever you ask in my name that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. You cannot separate the great works that God wants to perform through His people. You cannot separate them from prayer. They go hand in hand. They're knit together.
They are absolutely inseparable. Prayer is God's means of performing His work, His mighty works, His great works through His children. Now the problem with us is we don't really and truly believe that God is willing to do that kind of thing through us. He is willing. He said it. He couldn't have said it any clearer. The works that I do shall you do and greater works than these shall you do. What honors God is for a believer to look in the Word of God and say, that's what Jesus said. That's what I believe. That's what I'm going to live by.
Not, here's what Jesus said. Now when He shows me in some physical miracle then I'm going to believe Him. What you're saying is what He says isn't enough.
He's still got to prove who He is. And I want to tell you, my friend, folks who are living and working by miracles today and have got to see one more and got to have one more and got to experience one more to believe God has little faith. The desire for miracles is an expression of doubt toward the living God who has said, if ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. So on the basis of that promise and its link with prayer, here is what I really want to get to in this message. That is what are the conditions then that I have to meet and that you have to meet in order for God to release this power in and through your life so that He can do mighty works in your life.
First of all, first requirement. Complete dependence, complete dependence upon the merits and the mediation of Christ. Complete dependence upon the merits and the mediation of Christ as the only ground for expecting His answer. The only ground for expecting His answer. Now what do I mean by that?
Simply remember this. The only authority and the only right you and I have to come in the presence of God is as a result of who Christ is, what He did at Calvary and what He's done in our life and who He is in us. And the fact that He is seated at the Father's right hand making intercession for you and me now. You see, you and I have no right to come to God and say, well, Lord, last week I did pretty good. Well, that doesn't cut any ice with God.
Well, not last year. This is how much money I gave. Well, Lord, this is how much I'm giving now. Well, that's wonderful, but that doesn't give me access to God. There's no amount of work, no amount of giving, no amount of anything that opens the door to the Father. He says, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. There is none of the name given among men unto heaven whereby any man must be saved. If he shall ask anything in my name, that is coming by the authority of the person of Christ.
We come to God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ, that is as a result of what He did at Calvary and applied to my heart and made me clean and pure in His sight. And the fact that He sits at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us, that's our access to Him. The second requirement if I'm going to ask big things of God is that I must come separated from all known sin. He says if I regard iniquity in my heart, if I hold on to it, He says I'll not hear you. And so what are we to do? When we sin against God, we have to confess it and to repent of it, to turn away from it.
You may have to turn away from it and turn away from it and turn away from it, but turn away from it. And God understands and recognizes and accepts our repentance as believers. Because you see, if God answered our prayer, when we are deliberately and willfully living in sin and not dealing with it, what He would be doing is sanctioning it. So He'd say, oh, this is what you want, fine, no problem. And what He would be doing is sanctioning our lifestyle so as to bring us to repentance, convict us of our sin, repent of our sin so that God can hear and answer our prayer. There's a third requirement for answering and asking and having God do big things in our life. And listen to this now, and I want to explain it. Faith in God's word of promise, faith in God's word of promise as contained in His word of oath.
I'll explain it in a second. Faith in God's word of promise, and then I'm going to talk about this word of oath. That is, God has made a promise.
He's taken an oath. Listen to what Jesus said. He said, if ye shall ask anything in my name, if you come to me, and we finish, we'll know what in His name contains all of this. If you come to me on my merits and you come to me on my mediation with the Father, and you come to me with no sin separating us, clouding our relationship, and you come to me believing, trusting me, you can count on my word, I will do what you ask.
If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. Now, I want you to turn, if you will, to Hebrews chapter 6. In Hebrews chapter 6, there is an example of what he's referring to.
And the example is that of Abraham, and then we'll move on down below this passage. Beginning in verse 13 of Hebrews chapter 6. For when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply you. That is, from your loins will be one through whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed. I will surely bless you and will multiply you, and thus having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. God made him a promise, and when God takes an oath to promise, God is going to fulfill it. For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. That is, man makes a promise, takes an oath. Then he says, verse 17, in the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his purpose, interposed with an oath. That is, when God makes a promise, you and I have a right to expect and anticipate and risk everything on his promise and his oath to keep his promise.
Otherwise, he's changing, untrustworthy, unreliable, and you never know where you stand. But he says, what I want you to see is this. When you come to God, you must believe him. And he's made a very simple promise, and he says later on in this same book in Hebrews chapter 11, that those of us who come to him must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. You see, if God is who he says he is, and he makes a promise, we have the word of the living God. And he says, if ye shall ask anything in my name, count on it as done.
Think about this. It's out of God's character not to keep his promise. Let me tell you why he can't fail you.
Because listen, the very nature of God, the very essence of God is truthfulness. He has to keep his word. So who can make him? Nobody has to make him. That's his nature. That's his nature. He promises. He's taken an oath.
I will do it. Then why do we doubt him? Think about this. Do you realize that to doubt God is to insult him? Yes, Lord, I know that's what you said, but then God must be saying, oh, do you mean that I won't keep my word? Do you mean that the Bible's not true? Do you mean you can't count on me?
Is that what you mean? Now, we don't say that, but that's the way we live. Listen, we have the awesome privilege of making big requests of God. And he says, if ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it because, he says, whatever you've seen me do, he says, the works that you've seen in me, greater works than these you shall do. And if ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. That's the way God wants us to operate.
He wants us to operate off our knees. Now, I've told you this before, but I'm going to tell you again because most folks have to hear it about sixty times. I lived at, my wife and I lived at 1107 Fairmont Drive in Fort Worth, Texas when we went to seminary. So over in the living room in the corner is where I had my place to pray. And I can remember I was down praying one night, crystal clear, not in hearing the voices, but my spirit.
It's like God said to me, crystal clear. And I was just a kid in seminary. Whatever you accomplish in life, you'll have to accomplish on your knees. Period. Well, the truth is, that's true of everybody.
That's true of everybody. To accomplish things that have eternal values. Oh, there are lots of folks who can accomplish and achieve great things in life that are made of stone, cement, wood, hay, stubble, all sorts of things. But you know that the lasting things in life are the result of God's people praying to God. Asking the supernatural power of God to do His mighty work.
The things that have lasting consequences. Whatever you accomplish, you'll have to accomplish on your knees. You want God to do something in your life that's fantastic?
You have this monumental challenge, this great challenge you're facing? Then go to your knees. Requirement number four, to ask in the will of God. That's what asking in Jesus' name is all about. Listen to what He says. He says, if you shall ask anything in My name, well, I'm coming to Him on His merits, on His mediation with a clean heart, trusting Him. Now, if I'm coming and expecting Him to do it, what do I have the right to ask? Now, think about this.
You and I have the right to ask anything we choose to ask that is in keeping with God's purpose and plan for our life. You see, the simplicity of it overwhelms us. Somehow, if I could just work and if I could just take a little credit, we can't take any credit. It is the loving grace of God. It is the generosity and the kindness of God that I do not understand except to experience it. He says, if you'll ask anything in My name, I will do it.
Here's how He says it. He says in 1 John chapter 5, this is the confidence that I have in Him, that if I ask anything according to His will, He hears me. If I know that He hears me, I know that I have the petition which He desired of me.
That promise is to every single believer. The only thing I have to do is to be sure that what I'm asking is in keeping with His will. You say, well, does that mean that you should never ask anything for yourself?
No, it doesn't mean that. But it means that I have to sift what I'm asking for through the will of God. Lord, is this of you? And He will show you in one of several ways whether it is or not. Sometimes He just takes the desire of our life if it's not His will. If it is His will, He increases the intensity of our desire. Or He may show us in His Word that's not His will.
He may show us that that looks good, but there's a better way and this is His will. But He will reveal His will to us. He says we're to come to Him asking, trusting in His will. Look in James chapter 4 for a moment.
James chapter 4 verse 3. He says, You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. That is, if I ask God, Lord, get me out of debt. Want to get out of debt, God? Why do I want to get out of debt so I can have more money to spend on some other things I want? He says, then forget that one.
It's not going to happen. He says, My motive must be right. And we have the right to ask big things of God as long as we know that they're the will of the Father. And you see, God has so much He's willing to give you and to do in your life if you let Him do it. Don't give up when God does not answer. Ask yourself the question, Lord, why didn't you answer that prayer?
And there's always a reason. Some must ask in His will. The last thing, the simplest thing of all and the most difficult of all. The fifth responsibility I have, if I'm going to ask big things of God is simply this. To pray without ceasing or to put it another way, persistence in our prayer.
That is to be steadfast, to hold on, not to give up, don't quit. Just because God hasn't answered doesn't mean that He's not going to. And I believe this is the area in which most people probably falter in really receiving the big things of God. Now I want you to think about something carefully. Whatever request you and I make to God, it has a value on it. There's some value I place on every request. Some things are major, they have great value.
Some things not as valuable. Here's what I want you to see. If I give up and quit because God doesn't answer this request when I think He ought to or quickly and I just quit, what I'm saying is God, I didn't put much value on that anyway. But if I bring a request to God and He doesn't answer and I keep bringing it back to Him and bringing it back to Him and bringing it back to Him and God, I'm trusting you, I'm believing you.
Here's what you said. It doesn't make any difference what I see going on. I'm going to trust you. I'm not going to listen. I'm not going to look.
I'm going to believe exactly what you said. And bring it to Him and bring it to Him and bring it to Him and bring it to Him. God is going to honor that. I want you to look at another passage of Scripture in James chapter five. Look there for just a moment. And look if you will in verse seven.
He illustrates it this way. He says, Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it until he gets the early and late rains. A farmer doesn't go out and dig it up in two weeks to see why it's not growing. He waits. You know why?
Because he knows that when the rains come, then he's going to see the fruit. I want to say it again. How long I pray for something and how diligently I bring it to God, what that does, we send a message to God, this is how much it weighs.
This is how much value I put on it. God, I'm not giving up. It's so valuable, God, I'm not giving up. This is how much I think it weighs, God. I'm not giving up no matter what I see or what I hear.
You think God doesn't honor that? But if I come up here and I say, Lord, my keeping on, keeping on, keeping on, keeping on sends a message to God. This is valuable. This is crucial.
This is critical. Never give up. And that's what Luke eighteen is all about in the story of the woman who pleaded with the judge. And he said to us, Pray and don't faint.
Here's what I want you to think about. Every single person who's listening, we all have a mind and we all have this awesome power to make a choice. A choice to either believe what He says or not believe it. And if you're willing to believe what He says, you'll find out what God can and will do in your life.
But if you don't, you never will. And you'll live your life wondering, what would He have done if I'd have just trusted Him? If I'd have just believed Him? If I'd have just taken Him at His word and said, God, I don't know what you're going to do with my life, but here I am and whatever you say, I am going to believe it. Believing and expecting and anticipating we have the right to make big requests when we come by His mediation, His merits alone with a clean heart, trusting Him, asking in His will and never giving up until God has answered our prayer. What a wonderful potential every single person has. And listen, all you have to do right where you are is do this. In this mind of yours, you make a decision. I will believe God for His best. God bless you.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-06-07 01:54:27 / 2023-06-07 02:01:58 / 8