God's Will: Pray Accordingly

Hebrews 11:6 “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

We all know the scripture quoted above that tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God, but that is not all that scripture says, for it goes on to say that there are two specific requirements that we need to fulfil when we come to God. The first requirement is that we must believe that God exists, for the scripture says that we “must believe that He is”. Obviously every born-again believer meets the first requirement, but it is the second requirement that we as believers, need to ensure that we fulfil. The second requirement in this passage states that we must believe that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. And so we see that whatever we want to receive from God our Father, the requirement is that we must believe that He will reward us by answering our prayer. The only way that we can fulfil that requirement is by being fully convinced in our minds that what we are asking God is according to His will, for the Holy Spirit through the apostle John teaches us that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us and grants us our petitions (1 John 5:15).

James 1:5-8 “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.  (6)  But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.  (7) For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; (8) he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”  

If we are unsure that what we are asking is according to God’s will then we will always be in two minds about our request. In the passage of scripture quoted above the Holy Spirit clearly tells us that if we are double-minded about our request then we can be assured that we will not receive anything from God our Father. It cannot be said any clearer than that. For example, if you are asking God for your healing then you must be fully convinced in your own mind that it is His will to heal you. In other words you have to be single-minded on that which you are asking for in order to receive from God. How many times have you heard the following prayer uttered, “Lord if it be Your will”. It is impossible to ask in prayer believing and include the following statement in your prayer “if it be Your will”. Someone will say but the leper prayed like that and the Lord Jesus healed him, for the leper said to the Lord “If You are willing, You can make me clean” (Mark 1:40). Clearly this leper believed that Jesus could heal him. He just wasn’t sure whether Jesus was willing to heal him. Most believers fall into this category. They believe that Jesus can grant them their request. They are just not sure whether Jesus is willing to grant them their request. So is it correct for the church to pray like the leper did? The answer is that it depends what you are praying for. The leper did not know what the Lord’s will was regarding his healing. The Lord answered his question by telling him that He was willing to heal him, which He then also did. God has no favourites. And so if it was the will of the Lord heal the leper then it is His will to heal all His children. In other words our Lord has made His will known to us regarding our healing. He has said explicitly that He is willing to heal us. For us to now ask Him to heal us if He is willing, is to doubt what He has already said in His word. That prayer will go unanswered. This principle applies to every request that we make known to God. If God has already made His will known regarding that which we are praying for then we cannot pray “if You are willing”, for that would be to doubt what He has already said in His word on the subject and those prayers will therefore go unanswered. We find out what His known will is from the word of God.

Acts 4:24-31 “So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said: "Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them, (25) who by the mouth of Your servant David have said: 'Why did the nations rage, and the people plot vain things?  (26) The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ.'  (27)  "For truly against Your Holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together (28) to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.  (29)  Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, (30) by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your Holy Servant Jesus."  (31) And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.”

Throughout the book of Acts and the epistles you will not find one example of the church praying “Lord if it be Your will”, where the will of God had already been revealed through His word. To illustrate this point I have listed two examples of prayers offered to God by the church as recorded for us in scripture, one where the will of God was known and the other where the will of God was not known. The first prayer quoted above was where the will of God was known. The saints in Jerusalem prayed this prayer when the church had been threatened by the Jewish leaders to no longer preach in the name of Jesus. The church prayed by quoting to God what He had already said on the subject, and then they asked Him to perform His word by granting them boldness and power to proclaim the truth of the gospel. You will recall earlier that we quoted the scripture where God told Jeremiah that He watches over His word to perform it (Jeremiah 1:12). And so their prayer was completely in line with God’s word and no mention was made of “Lord, if it be Your will”. In other words there was no element of doubt in their prayer and as shown in the above passage God, who was watching over His word to perform it, answered their prayer in a mighty way.

Romans 1:9-10 “For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers, (10) making request if, by some means, now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you.”

The second prayer that I have quoted above was where the will of God was not known. This prayer is a record of Paul praying to God, asking Him if He could make it possible for Paul to minister to the church in Rome. And so in effect Paul was praying “Lord if it be Your will”, and in this instance Paul prayed correctly by asking “Lord if it be Your will”. The reason that he was praying correctly was because Paul did not know the Lord’s will regarding his request, for there is no verse of scripture in the bible that dealt with his request. Scripture reveals to us that Paul only preached the gospel where the Holy Spirit led him to go and preach (2 Corinthians 1:17), and so Paul had also not received any guidance from the Holy Spirit telling him to go to Rome to minister. If he had, he could have prayed in faith for God to open the way for him to preach in Rome and God would have answered his prayer because God watches over His word (both written and of the Spirit) to perform it. And so because Paul did not know God’s will in this instance the paraphrase of Paul’s prayer was, “Lord I would really like to go to Rome to minister there. And so Lord, if you can find a way of fitting Rome into your will for my life I would really appreciate it.” As it happened Rome was on the list of cities that our Lord had planned for him to minister in, although Paul didn’t know it at the time. And so Paul received his request from the Lord. But the point that I wanted to make here is that if we are asking something from the Lord where His will has not been revealed to us, then it is correct to pray “Lord if it be Your will”, for there is no element of doubt where the will of God is unknown.

Michael E.B. Maher

Faith Toward God

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