In 1 John 5:15, John writes, that because “we know God hears us – whatever we ask we know we have what we asked of him.”
It’s like being king Solomon in 1 Kings 3:5, when God says to him in a dream, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you” – and what Solomon asks for pleases God so much he replies in verse 12, “I will do what you have asked.”
God hasn’t changed since then too, because in 1 John 3:21-22, John writes, “Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.”
The only obstruction preventing that from happening is our own hearts condemning us (20). Which is understandable, because we’re constantly faced with our weaknesses, wrong desires, and the endless feeling that we’re not quite with it when it comes to what God wants of us. But John dealt with that in verse 20, because he writes, “whenever our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”
And the “everything” God knows is that he sent his Son to “set our hearts at rest in his presence” (19). He wants us feeling as free as Solomon, to ask for whatever we want. So what would please God so much that it’s a pleasure for him to answer us?
John gives us a clue in 1 John 5:16, that “If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life.” Well, that pleases God all right, because just as “Jesus laid down his life for us,” we’re now “laying down our lives for our brothers” (3:16). And loving our brothers (3:23) ties in perfectly with asking “according to God’s will” as well (5:14).
It’s in what we’re asking for that pleases God too, because here we are praying for a brother that “God will give him life,” which is exactly what God sent his Son for, “that we might live through him” (4:9). So we’re asking God to get a brother back on the road to eternal life, when we can see (but he can’t) that he’s stumbling into enemy territory.
Stumbling we can pray for and God will answer, but not for “a sin that leads to death” (4:16). So what’s the difference between “Sins that do/don’t lead to death”?….(next blog)
