1 John 5:14-15
“This is the confidence that we have in Him, 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 the petitions that we have asked of Him.”
If we ask anything” (v.14b).
Boldness encourages us to ask of God
Boldness encourages us to ask, unreasonably! This is because nothing is out of bounds. Jesus said, “according to your faith be it unto you”. Caleb asked (of Joshua), “give me this mountain” (Joshua 14:9-15)! He was 85 years old! He was about for a long time! But it had not killed the vision or the calling. Calling is not dead until we kill it off! While there is life, prayer can prevail with God. Ask for miracles not for money!
To ask boldly is our birthright
To approach and ask our Father God boldly and frankly is the birthright of all who are accepted by faith. So let us get on with it and do it! We are not strangers and need not act strangely towards Him. We are not orphans and so may approach heaven with boldness crying, ‘Abba Father’ (Gal. 4:6; Heb. 4:16). This confidence is ‘in Him’. This thought is summed up in the hymn by William Cowper, “Satan trembles when he sees; the weakest saint upon his knees.”
To ask boldly is confidence
But it is even more powerful than that because our prayers are not a device to impose our will on God or to change God’s mind in our favour. It is rather the confidence, “that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us”. We are to seek God. This search flows from the soul as naturally as the body seeks after water: “As the deer… thirsts for God, for the living God so my soul…” (Ps. 42:1-2).
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