Ask and You Shall Receive

Day 25 - March 30

You do not have, because you do not ask God.  — James 4:2

We have talked about self-centered prayer, which doesn’t please God. What are some of the other problems we see in prayer? One big problem I see is just that we don’t ask. The Bible tells us to seek, to knock, to ask, and very often we fail to ask God for the very desires of our heart.

A good example is a friend of mine named Ron. I had prayed for him for about nine years and really wanted him to come to know Christ. For some reason, I just quit praying on his behalf, and then about a year before the Twin Towers exploded, I began to renew my prayer for Ron. On 9/ll, Ron happened to be about a mile from the Pentagon. When the explosion hit, he did not know what to do. Immediately he went home and called me; he said, “I need to meet with you.” When we sat down together, he said, “God has spoken to me, and I realize I could have been there. I want to ask Jesus to come into my life.” We need to pray for people.

Often, the reason that we don’t have our prayers answered is that we don’t ask. What does your church specifically have in the way of things that you are requesting this year, from God, that the elders have approved, that everyone in the church is praying for? Do you REALLY think that God is going to answer your prayers if you don’t even bother to ask? God WILL answer prayers if we come to Him and pray in accordance with His will.