In 1976, my wife Ruth and I began pastoring a church that was almost two years behind on its building payments to the bank. The church was struggling financially, to say the least.
During that challenging time, one week we personally owed exactly $90. I don’t even remember what the need was. It might have been our utility bill. Whatever it was, we needed $90 the next day. Ruth and I joined in prayer that God would send the $90. We told no one except the Lord of our need. It was a prayer “in secret.” The next day, we received two checks in the mail—one for $50 from my sister and brother-in-law, Merlin and Judy Mitchell, and a check for $40 from our friends, Jim and Betty Hall. Both had felt impressed of the Lord days before to send the checks, and both checks arrived on the very day we needed them, totaling exactly the $90 for which we had prayed.
God is a loving Heavenly Father who cares about every detail of our lives. The miracle of prayer is that the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator who is present everywhere wants to have a relationship with each person in His creation.
How can we expect God to care about everything in our lives? Many people struggle with the concept that God should concern himself with small details. But people who can’t comprehend such a relationship with God are making two significant mental errors.
First, they don’t understand the nature of God. They mentally create God in their image rather than recognizing that the opposite is true.
When a person advances in life to a position of importance, such as being a leader in government or having responsibility for a business enterprise, regardless of how many resources are at his disposal or how many people are available to help him, he still has the same number of hours and minutes in a day as everyone else. That is why people with great responsibilities have assistants who protect their schedules from trivial interruptions.
As people become more influential and have added responsibilities, they have increasingly less time for details. Many people conceive of God as being like that. Of course, nothing is too big for God, but in some ways, what is even more wonderful is that nothing is too small for Him. It is precisely because God is infinite that He can devote himself to the infinitesimal.
Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, King David wrote:
“O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all.…for You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.…Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.”1
God knows our thoughts before we think them and our words before we speak. Jesus taught us that God not only knows us by name, He also knows how many hairs are on our heads.2 Nothing is hidden from Him.
The second reason many doubt that God concerns himself with the details of their lives is that they don't understand the value of people. Again, King David said:
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”3
Blaise Pascal, the brilliant French mathematician and philosopher, rightly observed that the greatest star or planet in the universe is of less consequence to God than one human being, because stars and planets have no capacity to know their Creator and worship Him.
God has revealed himself in His creation. The world around us shows that He exists. It reveals His power, wisdom and goodness. God has given man a conscience to know right from wrong. Because we can see His work in nature, we have no excuse for not believing in Him. But nature and conscience by themselves do not reveal God to us enough to make His plan for our lives clear.
God has spoken in different ways throughout history. In early history, He spoke through His messengers, the prophets. The Bible is the recorded revelation of God to His people. But man could not truly know God until Jesus, God the Son, came to earth. Jesus came to clearly show us what God the Father is like. Philip, one of Jesus’ followers, said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father.”4 Jesus replied, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”5 Jesus Christ is God’s living Message—He was God in human form. The Book of Hebrews says, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.”6
After Jesus came and lived on earth, died, rose from death and went back again to heaven, God the Holy Spirit inspired the New Testament writers to record and explain Jesus’ and the apostles’ lives and teachings to the first Christians.
Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would guide us “into all truth.”7 The Holy Spirit helps us understand the truth beyond our natural ability.
The Bible provides proof in itself that it is God’s Message to humanity. But a person is only persuaded of the Bible’s divine authority through a work of the Holy Spirit as He convinces our hearts of the truth.
The Bible teaches these important conditions to receiving answers to prayer:
- Praying for God’s purposes.
- Asking in faith.
- Praying in Jesus’ name.
First, pray for God’s purposes.
The apostle John wrote, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”8
The clearest answers to prayer Ruth and I have seen in our lives have almost always taken place when we have been pursuing God’s purpose, in obedience to His call, and have recommitted our lives to His will.
Promises abound in the Bible, but almost all of them have conditions. Staying in a guest room of a friend’s home, I noted a plaque on his wall that read, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.”9 The verse continues with the condition: “...to those who are called according to His purpose.” God especially works in the life circumstances of those who are committed to His will.
Proverbs 3:5,6 reads: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”10 Notice that God’s promise to direct our paths depends upon our trusting Him with all our hearts and acknowledging Him in all our ways.
In 1979, Ruth and I were serving as missionaries to the Samoan Islands. Ruth had major surgery with complications, and we were forced to return to the United States for a year. We were considering moving from Springfield, Missouri, to St. Paul, Minnesota. We had no money for the moving expense. We also needed the Lord’s clear direction as to whether we should even move.
We asked the Lord for both His guidance and supply, praying that if God wanted us to move to Minnesota, He would send us $1,000 the next day. The next afternoon a letter was in the mailbox from Wilbur and Mary Timme in Aurora, Colorado. I did not recognize their names. They had been in a missionary service I had preached at First Assembly of God in Aurora. They had taken home one of our missionary prayer cards and began praying for us every day. In the letter they said, “We were praying for you today, and the Lord spoke to us that He wanted you to do something, and you couldn’t do it unless you had this.” They enclosed a check for $1,000.
Second, ask in faith.
“Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”11
My family is genetically predisposed to migraine headaches. My grandmother and father suffered for many years with them, as has my sister, brother and even my teenage nephew. In each case the headaches began at a different age. I did not start having them until my early 40s. At that time I began to have severe migraine headaches about every two or three weeks. Only people who have suffered from this ailment know how disabling they can be. In my case I had to stay in a darkened room for an entire day and sometimes longer before relief came.
After suffering persistent migraines for several years, I was asked by the World Missions leadership of our church, the Assemblies of God, to serve as communications director. I had traveled in ministry for 14 years until that time. Thankfully, I had never dealt with a migraine at a time when I had to preach and never had to cancel a speaking engagement or service. But now I was facing the prospect of working every day in an office environment.
For more than a month I sought the Lord in prayer concerning His will about accepting the missions committee’s invitation. No other circumstances confirmed to Ruth and me whether it was God’s will to accept this ministry assignment.
I knew that others had worked in similar circumstances with migraines. But the prospect of working each day in an office, never knowing when I might suffer from a blinding headache, was something that gave me great hesitation and concern. I took this need to the Lord in prayer and simply said, “Lord, I don’t believe I can handle working in a daily office environment with these headaches, even though I know my father did for many years. I don’t know what Your will is. If this invitation is Your will, would You just do one thing? Please heal me of these headaches.”
As I came to the deadline of giving a decision to the executive committee, I accepted the assignment. That was in August 1997—more than six years ago. I haven’t had one headache since. There is no doubt in my mind the Lord healed me of that affliction, an answer to a very specific but simple prayer of faith.
Third, pray in Jesus’ name.
It is important to observe that God hears everyone’s prayers.
Benjamin Franklin, one of the most influential of our founding fathers, was one of only three signers of the Declaration of Independence who was not a member of a Christian church. He was one of the least religious of our nation’s founders. But as the years went on, his views changed. In Franklin’s autobiography, he reveals admiration for evangelist George Whitefield, who clearly had an impact on his life.
In May 1787, delegates from each state came to Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation, the document under which the government had functioned during the revolution. This meeting resulted in an entirely new document—the United States Constitution, which is why that Philadelphia gathering is referred to as the Constitutional Convention.
James Madison kept meticulous notes of the convention’s events and debates and recorded word for word a stirring speech by the 81-year-old Benjamin Franklin, who addressed George Washington, president of the Convention:
“I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writings that ‘except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.’ …I therefore beg leave to move—that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business.”
In the book of Acts we see God responding to the prayer of a nonbeliever named Cornelius. Cornelius was unaware of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God’s Son. But he prayed to God and gave offerings to the poor. One day an angel appeared to Cornelius and said, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God.”12
God hears everyone’s prayers. But critical to praying most effectively is the third condition, praying in Jesus’ name. The Bible says, “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”13
The reason we can come directly to God is because that privilege has been provided to us through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
Praying in Jesus’ name is not a matter of using the right ritual but in having the right relationship with God. That right relationship can only happen through God the Son, Jesus Christ, who sacrificed His life to pay the penalty for our sin.
Shortly before His death, Jesus said to His disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.”14 He also said, “I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.”15
This web site contains the book of Mark, from the Bible—the earliest record of the life of Jesus Christ. It can easily be read in about an hour. As you read this book, you will learn why Christ was born and why you were born. As you learn about His life, you will find that He touches the very center of your life.
To read The Life of Christ, click here.
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1 Psalm 139:1-4,13,16, NASB
2 Luke 12:7
3 Psalm 8:3-5, NIV
4 John 14:8, NASB
5 John 14:9, NASB
6 Hebrews 1:1,2, NIV
7 John 16:13, NIV
8 1 John 5:14, NIV
9 Romans 8:28, NASB
10 NIV
11 Hebrews 11:6, NIV
12 Acts 10:4, NIV
13 1Timothy 2:5, NASB
14 John 15:16, NIV
15 John 16:23,24, NIV
