HE HEARS US!

 

At the end of the day, Christianity is like a rock. It's foundations having been set, it has persevered for 2018 years now. Despite opposition from various angles; from the outright oppression by the Roman empire, to today's veiled but no less menacing pluralistic, postmodern, materialistic (global) society. It's amazing that not only are Christians still around, they claim the highest number of adherents among any religion and are actually thriving.

Amazing!

Perhaps just as amazing is the fact that Christianity hasn't survived by being inventive with it's belief system. It's not like we're still here because we've changed our message to suit every cultural scenario we've found ourselves in. (That is not to say we don't contextualize the gospel.) We've survived by doing (and believing) pretty much the same thing all this while - although different denominations certainly disagree on certain stuff.

For example we've been praying for two thousand years.

For two thousand years the way to communicate with God has been through prayer, generations have come and gone, empires have risen and fallen, and yet we pray. In English or Latin, Greek or Zulu - we pray.

I know for a fact that when you and I woke up today, our thoughts immediately turned back to God. We realized the need to begin the day by communing with God, and so we brought out our Bibles (or phones), dusted our devotionals and sat (or knelt) before God Almighty to speak to him.

Consider for a moment that you're one more person in a long line of praying people. Consider also that at the moment you sat (or knelt) millions more were sitting (or kneeling) with you in prayer. Incredible right? It's called being a body.

There are however times when it seems like you're cut off from God. Like you pray and you pray, but you feel he doesn't hear you. Those times can be rough, it's so easy at those times to despair and if there's one thing we must not do, it's despair.

Recently I've been having a rough patch myself (there are millions of us I'm sure). I talk to God, and come away wondering if he really heard me. What if, just what if I've been wasting my time all this while?

So this morning as I got up to pray as those before us have done everyday, God drew my attention to two verses, two wonderful verses in John's first letter.

1John 5:14-15 (KJV)
14: And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:

15: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.

The peace and reassurance these verses brought me this morning are not measurable. This is the confidence! It's not just a hope, or a theory, or a hypothesis. It's the confidence.

I can be confident and you can too, that he hears us when we pray. Even when we feel like he doesn't, he hears us - his hearing isn't tied to our feelings. And much more than that, if we know that he hears, then we know that we have whatsoever petitions we desire of him - according to his will.

His will of course we can find in the pages of scripture. Thus we not only pray, we study. And when we secure his will and pray along those lines he does what we ask of him. John is so certain, he says we have what we ask - not we might, or we could, but we have.

Friends let this be our confidence, and having filled our hearts with this truth let us pray. At home, at work, in the bus, on the go. Wherever and whenever we whisper a prayer. He hears!