“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you many know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” 1 John 5:13-14.
The Apostle John uses the word “know” seven times in the last section of this letter. Clearly, there are things God wants you to know! Two of the most important truths any Christian can know are found in the above verses. In fact, if you are shaky on these two things, your Christian life is going to be unstable and full of doubt. The first truth is to KNOW you have eternal life. The second is to have confidence that God HEARS and ANSWERS prayer!
John wrote this epistle so we could know we have eternal life. Eternal life begins the minute you accept Christ as your Savior. Knowing this truth is crucial to your relationship with God! You must see that your salvation was all a work of God from beginning to end! The Bible says that before God began a work in our souls, we were His enemies, dead in our sins, objects of wrath, lost and without hope in the world, sinners by nature and practice. BUT God, “When we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly,” Romans 5:6. And, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, no one can snatch them out of my hand.” John 10:28. Salvation is based on grace alone, flowing from the heart of God, without anything in you motivating God to love you! Even the faith to believe is a gift from a loving Father!
When you are unsure of your salvation, your life will be filled with:
- Worry and fear
- Good works – a relationship based on performance, causing discouragement and pride
- Shaky faith
- Distance from God, not closeness
- Focus is on your efforts and not what God has done, man is exalted.
- No confidence in prayer.
That leads us to the second truth: Answered prayer! John links these two truths together. “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: That if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of Him,” 1 John 5:14-15. This seems like a blank check! How can we have confidence God hears and answers our prayers? If prayer stands at the point where God and humans meet, then we must learn about prayer! What kind of prayers does God NOT answer?
- You don’t have because you don’t ask
- You ask with wrong motives
- God opposes the proud, gives grace to humble
- If I regard sin in my heart, the Lord will not hear me
As believers, God wants us to have the confidence of His children when we approach Him in prayer. We are welcome there, we can come boldly to the throne of grace. What is prayer? In a way, it is an expression of helplessness. Contrary to our American way of life that is self-reliant, active, doing things, accomplishing something, we come before God for strength and help. The hardest thing to surrender is my right to myself, my program and my agenda. And why should we pray? Because Jesus did!!
Only as we spend time with God, as we begin to delight in Him and desire His glory, will we begin to want the same things that He desires. The longings foremost on God’s heart will be the same on our hearts! “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart,” Psalm 37:4
Your friend, Jean (Taken from a sermon by Terry Priestap)