28 March, 2024

When Our Prayer Requests Are Not Granted (Part 1)

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by | 30 March, 2008 | 0 comments

By H. Lynn Gardner

When I faced the real likelihood of death because of my pulmonary fibrosis, a minister told me his church had seen many healed because of prayer. He told me they would pray for me and I would be healed. Nevertheless, I did not find healing until I received a double-lung transplant.

 

People prayed for our son Mark”s safety, yet a truck accident claimed his life.

Why doesn”t God grant some of our prayer requests? Job struggled with this issue. God”s silence led him to ask in frustration, “What profit do we get if we pray to him?” (Job 21:15).1 Left unanswered, such questions can raise serious doubts in the minds of believers and can even become a rationale for unbelief on the part of others.

Jesus made several promises that, if taken out of context, sound as if he will grant our every request. C. S. Lewis had no problem with the fact that God did not grant our every request, but he did find Jesus” sweeping promises somewhat puzzling.2 We need to carefully study the promises Jesus made in order to understand what he really promised.

People often speak of unanswered prayer. Is this the best term to use? It may wrongly suggest that God is either unable or unwilling to respond to our prayers when he may well answer in ways we do not recognize. Therefore, I prefer to speak of ungranted prayer requests.

Whenever we study the words of Scripture, we need to be careful not to take them out of their context. This is particularly true of Jesus” prayer promises. Context controls meaning. Each promise should be read in the light of the statements surrounding it. To whom was the promise given? Does the context limit or qualify the meaning? What does the rest of Scripture teach?

 

Prayer Promises of Jesus

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:7, 8).

Removed from its context, this appears to be an unqualified promise that God grants all requests. However, when we look at the context, we notice several things. We find that Jesus is referring to the fact that as parents we naturally want good things for our children. Likewise, our good and wise heavenly Father wants only to give good things to his children. Only a bad father would grant a child”s every request. We also see that, in the context, it is as we hunger and thirst after righteousness and ask for spiritual help that God will grant our request, including giving us the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13).

Jesus did not mean he would grant our every desire and wish, giving us exactly what we request. However, when we ask for the kinds of things mentioned in the Beatitudes and the Lord”s Prayer, he promises to answer.

Jesus promised, “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven” (Matthew 18:19). In this context, Jesus is talking about handling disagreements in the church and how to conduct church discipline. Unity and prayer are essential in following God”s will in seeking to bring about reconciliation and restoration of relationships.

He does not simply guarantee that when any two people today agree on anything, perhaps even a foolish or sinful request, that God must grant it. It would be terribly unwise to conclude from this passage that we have the power to dictate to the God of the universe through prayer. Instead, he promises his disciples that discipline carried out as he teaches will have divine endorsement.

“And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith” (Matthew 21:22). “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). After withering the fig tree, Jesus says if the apostles have faith they could cast this mountain into the sea. We have no record in the Bible of Jesus or anyone else casting a physical mountain into the sea. Jewish rabbis used “moving mountains” as a figure of speech for doing something extremely difficult or seemingly impossible.

Jesus explained to the apostles that just as they needed faith to work miracles, prayer required faith on the part of the one who prays. He is not talking about faith in “faith” or merely an affirmation of belief. He means a relationship of genuine trust in God characterized by living in submissive obedience to God”s Word and his will. Jesus does not mean we can manipulate God or use prayer like a magic wand, but that prayers offered in trustful submission to an all-powerful God can overcome what seems to be impossible.

Jesus made several promises in John 14, 15, 16 to the apostles the night before his death. Some of these promises were limited to the apostles. He said the Holy Spirit would give them supernatural guidance in fulfilling their special mission. The apostles filled an unrepeatable role as Jesus” representatives in establishing his church. Certainly not all promises Jesus gave to his apostles can be claimed by Christians today. God”s promise to Abraham and Sarah to give them a child in their old age does not mean senior citizens today should (or would want to) claim that promise for themselves.

Even when Jesus was speaking to the apostles, in some cases the context makes it clear that the promise has a broader application to believers in general. Whether these promises about prayer apply primarily to the apostles or to us as Christians in general, such prayers are subject to the qualifications Jesus mentioned. Rather than reading these as unqualified promises, attention must be given to the conditions listed.

Our Lord told the disciples, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13, 14). After leaving the earth and going to the Father, his work would continue through greater works done by his disciples taking his saving message and mission throughout the world.

Bringing another person to salvation in Christ is a greater work in eternal benefits than physical healings. To ask for something in the name of Jesus means to pray “in accordance with all that the name stands for. It is prayer proceeding from faith in Christ, prayer that gives expression to a unity with all that Christ stands for, prayer that seeks to set forward Christ himself. And the purpose of it all is the glory of God.”3

Jesus stated, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7). Abiding in Christ means surrendering to Christ”s spirit and will and living in obedience to his words and with all that Christ stands for. Far from assuring us that our every wish will be granted, being totally committed to Christ means we will desire that his will be done in our lives. Our prayers will be in agreement with God”s will because we share the mind of Christ.

Jesus told the apostles, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you” (John 15:16). Here Jesus speaks specifically to the apostles who were chosen to be his representatives to lead in his evangelistic mission. The fruit of this work would be new converts for Christ. God would respond to their prayers in the accomplishment of this mission.

Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:23, 24). After Jesus finished his work on earth, his disciples would have access to him through prayer and would make their requests in his name. God would grant what they needed in their mission when they asked in Jesus” name. After his exaltation, the disciples could no longer ask him direct questions for information, but they could pray in his name.

 

Prayer Promises of 1 John

In his brief letter, the apostle John promised, “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him” (1 John 3:21, 22). John makes it clear that our requests must be in accord with God”s will. “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).

God answers our requests according to his will. As we grow in Christ”s likeness by keeping his commandments, our wills become more aligned with his will. God does not answer our prayers because we have a clear conscience, but because such a good conscience shows that we keep his commands and do what pleases him.

Scripture stresses that God hears the prayers of the righteous. “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (James 5:16; cf. Proverbs 15:29; Psalm 66:18; Job 27:8; Isaiah 1:11-15). Because of our relationship with Christ, we can pray with a confident boldness knowing our Father hears and will answer according to his will.

 

Read Part 2: Why doesn”t God grant some requests? How should we respond when he doesn”t?

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1Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version.

2C. S. Lewis, Christian Reflections, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967), 148.

3Leon Morris, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), 646.

 

 

 

H. Lynn Gardner is retired after serving many years on the faculty and as academic dean of Ozark Christian College, Joplin, Missouri. This article is adapted from his book Where Is God When We Suffer? available from College Press at collegepress.com.

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