1 JOHN 5: 14 – 15: This is the confidence which we have before Him that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.
Beloved, for every day we spend on the earth terrestrial, we should count it as a gift and for a purpose. It is indeed a privilege to be alive and to be alive in His presence. I sincerely believe that each and every one of us has a reason to thank God. However, it is possible for someone to think that there is no reason to come before God daily with dancing shoes, praising lips and befitting offering unto the Lord for the great things that He has done. It is possible for someone not to see a reason why they should praise God. I know this because I am not immune to every of the challenges that is common to those who are alive in this side of eternity. I know that there are questions and prayers that have not receive the kind of answers that we expect. I also know that there are wishes and desires that God would have given answers that is contrary to our expectations. For these reasons, it is possible for us to have doubts in our minds whether God still answers questions. Beloved, I made bold to say, that inspite of what the situation may appear to be saying, that God does answers prayers. Yes, He does. Thus, let us rejoice today and see every day as another opportunity to come unto His presence with thanksgiving for His faithfulness, mercies, goodness and preservation.
1John 5: 14 -15 tells us that God hears and answers. But a look at the text clearly shows that the passage is made up of conditional statements. It says “if we ask”, “according to His will”, then “He hears us”. So, the first condition we must fulfill is ask. If we would ask ourselves, do we actually ask God or murmur or complain. The truth is that we must know how to ask from God without complaining. In order words, we must learn to make our request known to Him without complaining, and then answers would come for our request. Phil. 4: 6 says” Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God”.
One lesson from the above passage is the importance of thanksgiving when we are making our request to God. An attitude of thanksgiving frees us from every weight of care that can blur our ability to appreciate God for His wonderful works in our situation and by implication deceives us into seeing and magnifying areas where we are still awaiting answers to our request. Thus, when we cultivate the attitude and habit of going to God daily with thanksgiving, what we are saying to the devil is that we would not allow him to use our weakness to derail us from God’s love.
Remember, even our Lord Jesus Christ when he was faced with the challenge of the death of Lazarus, the first prayer he said was that of thanksgiving. We read in John 11: 41 – 42 “So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked upand said,“Father,I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here,that they may believe that you sent me.”
I hope someone reading now would say to God, father I thank you because of my life, family and my salvation.
Shalom
Dr. Yinka Okude
Pastor-in-Charge
RCCG Jesus Sanctuary, Northampton
HYMN: PRAISE TO THE LORD, THE ALMIGHTY, THE KING OF CREATION!
