1 John 3:21,22 - Whatever we ask for

3:21

Sometimes our hearts do condemn us, but not all the time! We are already fully justified by Christ, there times when we do not feel justified, but even in those times we are justified, we are right with God, because of the blood of Jesus. However, there are times when we are justified and we know that we are justified, we feel accepted by God. John now turns to living in those times. In those times we have confidence before God.

3:22

In those times of knowing the peace of God we have confidence before God, and we receive from Him anything we ask. Now for a moment I’ll put a caveat on that. If we take the whole Bible teaching on prayer, indeed the teaching on prayer in John’s gospel, we know that this means when we ask according to God’s will, this is not treating God as a “dial-a-miracle”. Indeed, the second half of the verse makes that clear. However, let me now dump the caveat. We spend too much time on “the problem of unanswered prayer”. When we are walking in step with the Spirit we are living in partnership with God. When we do so we have more authority, more power, that we ever imagine. We need to learn to live in the fullness and richness of the salvation God gives us. When we walk in obedience to God, we are walking with all of God’s kingdom behind us, not to achieve our own aims but to achieve His aims. You see, when we set out doing God’s will we come under attack. When this happens we start getting full of fear and wanting to give up, or feeling that we cannot carry on. We need to start to realise the full extent of the resources behinds us.