1 John 3:22 --- and we receive from Him whatever we ask because we [carefully and consistently] keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight [habitually seeking to follow His plan for us].
Today's verse is one that is quite interesting and can be tough to tackle if looked at outside the context of the verses before and after.
So, right before this one, 1 John 1-21 deals with: We are His children, we should be purifying ourselves, we cannot live lives of ongoing sin, occasional stumbles Jesus covers us just no practicing of sin regularly, practice righteousness instead, we must love one another, be willing to die for our brothers/sisters, be willing to give/live for them as well, we must love in deed and in truth (not just word & talk), we know we can have assurance over our feelings by the evidence of how we do all these things and finally God is bigger than our feelings/heart and knows all things so we go to Him above all, no matter how we feel.
Whew… that was a lot and only really covered the main points. Okay so what comes right after this current verse about answered prayers?
So, right after verse 22, we have 1 John 3:23 -- This is His commandment, that we believe [with personal faith and confident trust] in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and [that we unselfishly] love and seek the best for one another, just as He commanded us.
Now, sandwiched between all that came before (verses 1-21) and the top piece of bread (verse 23) we find that whatever we ask for we'll receive because we keep His commandments and do things that are pleasing in His sight.
So, does this mean if we check the list of all these things, then God becomes our personal prayer vending machine? NO! Not at all, because if you genuinely have gone through previous verses and you genuinely are following His commandments set out in verse 23, you realize you're in relationship with Him. He is your Father. Not just a mystical genie granting wishes because you somehow did the magic ritual of hop on one foot, spin around, rub the lamp twice, then bark like a dog. NO!
Here's what I've learned through personal experience. The more time I spend with Him, the deeper our relationship gets. At first, I kept commandments strictly out of obedience, but the more I walk with Him the more I find myself keeping them because I want to please Him. I want to be more like Him. The more I am with Him and around Him and immersed in Him, the more my heart desires and longs for the things He desires.
I used to pray for enough money or a job that would free me up to do ministry full time. That was something I desperately desired for years. It never came. As a matter of fact, my job has gotten harder over the past few years. Being in healthcare with Covid stuff has been wild. Then 2021 hit, the greatest storms of my life swept in and wrecked me to the foundations of who I am. It was there a decision was made to trust God, throw my understanding out the window, acknowledge God in every single area of my life, then ask and listen for what the next step would be from Him.
Know what happened? I got closer than I've ever been before to Him. The closer we got, the more my focus came off money to do things for Him and I started to simply desire to love others more.
Just one example. I found myself wanting to love my beautiful, precious wife Amanda how she deserved, which I knew was more than I had in me. You know what? When I prayed for this, God answered it. He filled me with a love that utterly changed how I saw her, how I interacted with her, how we got along. It took the focus off me and put it onto her. It continues today to transform our marriage and how we interact.
Now please understand, I am not trying to get all holy roller, high and mighty, look at how wonderful and pure I am.. No no no… I have many faults. I stumble. We have arguments. We shuffle bills around, we get upset when the other wins at Farkle or Scrabble. I'm up 2 games of Farkle by the way!! LOL. So, far from perfect but deep inside my desire changed because of my relationship with the Lord.
If we can just get to the place where we choose consistantly to walk with God in relationship, we start to realize He is our FATHER. That's when things begin to change. This doesn't happen through head knowledge (how much we study/know) or heart knowledge (how we feel/our emotions) alone, but through those two together, equaling relational knowledge. Getting to know Him more and desiring to be like Him more.
Then we can stop desperately running ourselves ragged trying to check all the boxes, to get all the exact right things we need to put into the cosmic god vending machine. This creates such frustration, when prayers don't get answered because we work SO HARD to do right, to check the boxes, to go to church, to serve...but the focus or intention is ultimately on self and on being obedient to gain something, not out of a desire that is becoming more in line with His.
Now there are a million sides to this thing I haven't touched on. I'm just sharing what my intimate time with the Lord this morning revealed to me. Be the Berean, get into the Word and see what God shows you on this.
I close out with something I found in Wiersbe's Commentary:
"A believer should keep His Father’s commandments because this pleases Him. A Christian who lives to please God will discover that God finds ways to please His child. “Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart” (Ps. 37:4). When our delight is in the love of God, our desires will
be in the will of God."
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