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Sender:
Arlene, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
"I
just want to know more about intercession. How do we know
whether our prayers are according to God's will? How will
we know if He answers our prayers?"
These
are excellent questions. We cannot pray with faith and
confidence if we don't know whether or not we are praying for
something that is within God's will. The Bible says, "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) So, if we know that what
we are praying for is within God's will, then we have every
reason to pray with confidence and expect an answer to our
prayers.
How
do we know whether we are asking for something that is according
to God's will? Well, God's Word and His will are in agreement.
So, we must go to the Word of God, the Bible, and find out if it
gives us reason to believe that we are asking for something that
is God's will. Now, two things that are helpful to know here are
as follows:
1.
Jesus taught us to pray these words to God: "Your
kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in
heaven." (Matthew 6:10) So, it is fair to say that
the things the Bible teaches us about life in heaven are a good
indication of God's will for life in the earth. First, there is
no sin in heaven. We read: "Nothing impure will ever
enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or
deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's
book of life." (Revelation 21:24) Second, there is
healing of all sickness and disease in heaven. We read that the
Tree of Life is there, "And the leaves of the tree
are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any
curse." (Revelation 22:2) Third, because
there is no curse in heaven, sorrow and grief along with death
are vanquished there. We read, "There will be no more
death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things
has passed away." (Revelation 21:4). SO THEN, to
pray for God's will to be done in earth as it is in heaven means
we can pray with faith and confidence for sins to be forgiven,
hearts and minds to be purged of sin (i.e., sanctified), bodies
to be healed of sickness and disease, grief and sorrow to be
lifted from lives, and even death to be stopped until God's
appointed time to take us to Himself.
2.
It is important to understand that the basis upon which we pray
for these things is the atonement of Jesus for us. To simplify
that statement, our sins against God cost us something. Our sins
result in the curse pronounced by God's law against sinners, and
that curse includes broken fellowship with God, loneliness,
spiritual bondage to sin, sickness, weakness, grief, sorrow,
poverty, death, and eternal damnation. However, Jesus had no sin
and therefore did not have to suffer the curse of the law
against the sinner. However, He willingly became our substitute
in death. To say that He died for us means that He took the
punishment pronounced by God's law against us. Therefore, by
faith in Jesus, we are free from the curse pronounced by God's
law against the sinner. The Bible says, "Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for
us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a
tree.'" (Galatians 3:13) This is how Jesus turned
God's judgment seat against us into a mercy seat for us. This
means when our prayers appeal to the atoning death of Jesus for
us, we can pray with confidence for the forgiveness of sins and
for deliverance from every curse brought into our lives because
of sins -- that is, the list of ills I mentioned earlier in this
paragraph.
To
get a clear understanding of the atonement of Christ for sinners
and the benefits that we can lay claim to through prayer, let me
direct your attention to perhaps the most quoted passage of
scripture regarding the death of Christ and its benefits for
us. We read in Isaiah, "Surely he took up our
infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him
stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was
pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our
iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed." (Isaiah
53:4-5) The word translated "took
up" in this passage is the Hebrew word nasa,
and it literally means that He "lifted up and carried
away." From God's point of view, In Jesus' death at
the cross, Jesus "lifted up and carried away" our
sins, weaknesses, sickness, diseases, and all of the effects of
sin in our lives -- even including death. This is why Jesus
could say, "I am the resurrection and the life. He
who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever
lives and believes in me will never die." (John
11:25-26) This, of course, means that those who accept Jesus'
atonement for them will never die spiritually. We know that at
God's time, we have an appointment with physical death: "
. . . it is appointed unto men once to die . . . ."
(Hebrews 9:27) However, the point here is that sickness does not
have authority in our bodies, and that when the time comes for
us to leave this world, we do not have to leave sick since we
are redeemed from the curse, and sickness is a part of the curse
pronounced by God's law against the sinner.
There
are those who would challenge the interpretation I have given
above of the passage from Isaiah 53:4-5. Since it is best
to allow scripture to interpret scripture, it is helpful to see
how this passage was understood and applied in the New
Testament. This passage from Isaiah is quoted in part in
Matthew's gospel where the writer shows how God's provision
through Christ provides for human needs. We read, "When
evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him
[Jesus], and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all
the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the
prophet Isaiah: 'He took up our infirmities and carried our
diseases.'" (Matthew 8:16-18) Matthew is saying
here that Jesus, in His ministry, healed the sick and liberated
those trouble in their minds and emotions by evil spirits
because He knew that He would take the infirmities (that is,
weaknesses) and diseases (that's all sicknesses) of all humanity
upon Himself at the cross. Therefore, from the point of view of
God's justice, Jesus had a right to remove infirmities and
diseases from those He ministered to as He knew He would take
them in their place at the cross as their substitute.
How
does all of this apply to our prayer lives? When we pray,
we can appeal to the atonement of Jesus for God to identify,
deal with, lift and carry away from our lives and the lives of
those for whom we pray everything that is of the curse -- that
is, sin and all of its effects. The other side of the coin
is that when God lifts from our lives the curses brought by sin,
He grants us His blessings in their place. In the words of
Peter, God grants to us through Christ "everything we
need for life and godliness . . . ." (2 Peter
1:3) It is God's will, then, to provide everything that is
needed to sustain us in life and godliness. Beyond that,
God is extravagant. Paul wrote to Timothy that we are to
put our hope in God "who
richly provides us with everything for our
enjoyment." (1 Timothy 6:17) This has
direct bearing on our prayer lives. Jesus encouraged His
disciples with these words: "Ask and you will
receive, and your joy will be complete."
(John 16:24) When we
understand that we are redeemed from the curses pronounced by
God's law against the sinner, we should not be timid about
praying for things that will enrich our lives and bring us
joy. This applies to our prayers for others too who have
accepted the benefits of Christ's atoning death for them.
God wants to extravagantly bless His children.
One
caveat. Even though Jesus took our sins and the effects of
all our sins at the cross, the Bible teaches that we must
confess our sins and turn from them in order to receive the
benefits of His atoning death. John writes, "If
we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us
our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (1
John 1:9) Peter, in his sermon on the day of Pentecost,
said this: "Repent
and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift
of the Holy Spirit." (Acts 2:38)
Clearly, then, there are conditions to receiving answers to
prayer. If we do not confess our sins and turn from them,
Christ's atoning death brings us no benefit. Therefore, we
have no covenant basis on which to expect God to answer our
prayers. This agrees with the words of God through
Isaiah: "But your
iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have
hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear"
(Isaiah 59:2). However,
when we meet the conditions of confession and repentance, God
will cleanse us from our sins and thereby position us to receive
answers to prayer.
This
point becomes important in praying for others. One might
ask, "Since we do not know what is in someone else's
heart, how can we pray for others with confidence that God is
answering our prayers for them?" In
answer, if our hearts are clean before God and we are sincere
and earnest in our prayers for others, God will at times show us
things about those we pray for that will help us target our
prayers for them effectively. He may, for example, show us
that there is sin in their lives, unforgiveness toward others,
or emotional traumas affecting their view of God and of
themselves, all of which can stand in the way of receiving from
God. (God "shows" us these things through direct
revelation by His Spirit as though He were "speaking"
or "thinking" to us, which 1 Corinthians 12:8 calls a
"word of knowledge.") This way, we can pray for
the primary need first so that we will be most effective in
helping others receive what they are asking prayer for, which is
often a secondary need. For example, praying for God to
help someone forgive another person who has hurt them may be
just the key to helping that person receive healing for a
physical or mental illness.
I
hope this helps answer your questions. May I
encourage you to familiarize yourself with scriptures regarding
Christ's atonement for us and the benefits that the Bible
encourages us to lay claim to through believing prayer.
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