Audacious Prayers - When Your World Explodes – August 22 Readings: John 16:23-24 – Ask and Receive

John 14-16: When Your World Explodes

Jesus knew, the night before his death, that the disciples' world was about to be blown to pieces. He would be arrested, tried, and crucified. They'd committed themselves to Jesus and he would be gone. In this powerful message, Jesus prepared the disciples to live in peace and spiritual power when the world around them was falling apart.

We will take the next three weeks delving into this passage.

Today's Reading: John 16:23-24       

23 “In that day you will not ask me anything. Truly I tell you, anything you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. 24 Until now you have asked for nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

Through the Bible Readings: Song of Songs 1-2, Romans 11:11–36, Psalm 99, Proverbs21:1–3

 

If you wish to read through the Bible in a year, follow these readings. 

Devotional: Audacious Prayers    

It was drilled into me all my life that the Bible has no contradictions, and I believe that in the sense it is intended. There is another sense, though, in which the Bible is constructed on the basis of what I call “true contradictions.” The more technical term for these is antinomies. I believe these are the key to understanding Scriptures. We have one God who exists eternally in three separate and co-equal persons – a true contradiction. Jesus was fully God and fully human at the same time. God is sovereign over the affairs of the world and at the same time we are morally responsible for our choices. In each of these, both truths cannot be true but the Bible affirms them both. God’s thoughts are higher than ours and in the divine logic there is a solution that defies human logic. When we deal with these antinomies, these true contradictions, we must hold both sides of antinomy as true and affirm them in our minds. Heresy results when we take one side of these true contradictions and trumpet it to the exclusion of the other side.

Prayer is a true contradiction. Some view it as an opportunity to control God, to manipulate him into giving us what we want. They confess their desires and “speak them into existence” expecting God to jump in line. Others have asked why we should bother praying. God is going to do what God is going to do as the sovereign Lord of the universe. What effect do our prayers have? If God controls this world and has already determined the end from the beginning, what is the purpose of prayer?

 C.S. Lewis wrote a powerful essay about two types of prayer that are shown in biblical prayers, styles that seem to stand in contradiction to each other but are a true contradiction revealing the full orb of God’s glory in prayer. Type A prayers are the sort we see in this passage – ask and receive. Pray in faith believing God will give you what you ask for. “Ask anything in my name.”  While these verses have been misappropriated, misapplied, and misused, they are God’s word, God’s promises, God’s truth.

There is another kind of prayer, Type B. This was evidenced in Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane in Luke 22:42. He had asked for the biggest prayer anyone ever prayed for and then he said, “Nevertheless, not my will but your will be done.” Type B prayers seek to align with the will and character of God.

The Bible affirms both prayers. In fact, our prayers, if they are to be biblical, ought to be bold and audacious. They ought to be grand, touching eternal issues, demonstrating that we believe in a God who can do anything. In the end, though, we recognize that we are the creatures, not the creator and we yield to his will. 

Father, help me to pray big prayers, audacious prayers, prayers that shake heaven and earth. But also, in the end, I remember that your will is always best. 

Think and Pray:

Which type of prayer is more likely to mark your prayer life? 

Do you pray prayers that demonstrate that you believe our God is big and can do anything?