Having Confidence in Your Prayers

Did your parents ever tell you something that you believed, and when you got older, you realized it wasn’t true? Like when your mom told you that if you made an ugly face, it would stick that way? I once heard a dad say to his daughter, “No, sweetie, the ice cream truck plays music when it’s out of ice cream.” There are things we think we know, but it turns out we don’t. 

Then we read 1 John, and the apostle tells us there are things we can know, things that are right, dependable, and one hundred percent true. 

John has just written that those who have accepted Christ can have confidence in their eternal future. We can know that we have eternal life.

There is something else believers can have confidence in — answered prayer. 

And this is the confidence that we have toward 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 that we have asked of him. (1 John 5:14-15)

As Christians, it isn’t only our eternity that we’re sure about. We can be confident in our prayers as well. We have the freedom to approach God at any time and spend time with our Father. John promises that he “hears us,” and because God listens to our prayers, we can trust that we will have our requests. 

Of course, the qualifier is that we receive what we ask for “according to his will.” God isn’t a celestial vending machine. We don’t put a prayer request in the slot and push a button to get whatever we want. Prayer isn’t about bending God to our will, it’s about surrendering our will to his. God always answers our prayers, but he does so according to his will, not ours. He knows what we need, even when we don’t.

But if we’re supposed to ask in God’s will, how do we know what God’s will is? Sometimes, it’s only a matter of whether our request lines up with his Word. He obviously wills that we keep his commandments.

At other times, though, we simply don’t know what God’s will is when we pray. One thing I’ve learned to do is to give God my desires. I ask him exactly for the thing I want. This is the confidence we have, that we can approach God in prayer at any time and place, and we can ask God for what we want or need. He already knows our hearts. He knows what we want, so just be honest and ask him for it. 

I’ve also learned to follow that prayer with, “God, these are the things I’m asking for. You know I want them. But, Father, you also know that more than anything in this world I want your will to be done. So I ask for these things, but I also surrender to you.” And nearly every day, I pray, “Father, there will be times when it’s going to be impossible for me in my strength to accept your will. So please, when those times come, help me surrender to you.”

As you live close to Christ, as you read your Bible, as you talk to him in prayer, as you worship and serve him, as you do all that you know is his will, you will come to know and love him more and more. And the more you know God, the more you trust his will. And whatever answer he gives, that is the answer you want. 

Having mentioned answered prayer, John now turns to the importance of believers praying for each other, especially when a fellow believer is sinning. He does this in the first part of verse 16 and verse 17:

If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death… All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death. (1 John 5:16a, 17)

John isn’t talking about physical death here, but spiritual death. Because Christians can have assurance of eternal life with Christ, we know that we can’t sin our way out of God’s hands. Our sins won’t lead to our spiritual death.

When we see a fellow believer falling into sin, our love for them should lead us to ask God to “give him life,” in other words, to lead the believer out of sin and back into fellowship with God and the church. In verse 17, John reminds his readers once again that when a believer sins, that sin does not lead to spiritual death. Throughout the letter, John stresses the eternal security of the believer.

But what about unbelievers?

There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. (1 John 5:16b)

What is John saying here? Who commits the sin that leads to death? And why shouldn’t we pray for them? 

In this context, the sin that leads to death is deliberately refusing to believe in Jesus as God the Son, obey God’s commands, and love God’s children. For unbelievers, any sin leads to death. But here, John has a specific group in mind. He’s talking about the false teachers who are harassing the church, the same group he’s mentioned throughout this letter. 

John isn’t saying that prayer for these people won’t work. Neither is he commanding us not to pray for the lost. We should pray for them.

What John is saying is that we shouldn’t pray that God would ignore the sin of those who deny Christ or teach false doctrine. We shouldn’t ask God to forgive their sins without any need for repentance on their part. If that happened, the false teachers would simply continue to reject Christ and lead others away from him. Instead, we should pray that they will turn from their unbelief to the truth. Pray that they will receive the forgiveness we’ve experienced.

Prayer is an extraordinary gift from God. You have the incredible opportunity to bring your cares before the Creator of the universe at any time. Your Father hears you. He knows you and loves you, and he loves spending time with you. Our God is a giving God, and he loves giving you what he knows you need. 

Thank you, Father, for the gift of prayer. 

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