The Truth About Prayer

Prayer malfunctions in the hands of Christians when we seek selfish desires instead of fruit-bearing in the mission of advancing the Gospel. John 15:7 tells us that if the words of Jesus abide in us, we will pray with power and effectiveness, both for our good and God’s glory. Four truths about prayer come from meditating on this Scripture in its wider context.

Fruit Bearing
God designed prayer to give His disciples the joy of bearing fruit while God Himself gets the glory. Jesus said, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:7-8).In verse 16. Jesus says to His disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he may give to you.”
The logical connection between the two parts of this verse is important. Jesus says, in effect, “I have given you a fruit-bearing mission in order that your prayers might be answered! ”You would expect His words to be just the reverse: God will give you what you ask in order that you might have a fruit-bearing mission. But Jesus says it the other way around: I give you a fruit-bearing mission in order that the Father might answer your prayers. The point: Prayer malfunctions when it is not used in fruit-bearing. Therefore, since I want you to pray and to get answers to your prayers, I chose you and I appointed you to go and bear fruit. If you are not devoted to fruit-bearing, you have no warrant for expecting answers to prayer.

Kingdom Desires
Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” And what could be more natural than the desire to eat? There are dozens of instances in the Bible of people praying for desires—for protection from enemies, escape from danger, success in vocation, fertility in marriage, recovery from sickness. It’s not that those desires are wrong, but they should always be subordinate to spiritual desires; Kingdom desires; fruit-bearing desires; Gospel-spreading, God-centered desires; Christ-exalting, God-glorifying desires. And when our natural desires are felt as a means to these greater desires, then they become the proper subject of prayer. Just before Jesus said to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” He said, “Make it your heart’s desire that God would hallow His name and that the Kingdom would come and that the will of God would be done on earth.” When your heart is caught up with these great desires, then having something to eat is not merely a natural desire, but a means to some great God-centered end. And then it is the proper subject of prayer.

Used for His Ends
If prayer is not for gratifying natural desires but for bearing fruit for God, the major challenge of prayer is to become the kind of people who are not dominated by natural desires, the kind of people who do not use God for their own ends but are utterly devoted to being used for His ends.
This is why Jesus says, “If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.” The words of Jesus abiding in us make us those kind of people.
Here are a few examples that show this in John’s writings:
In 1 John 1:10 he says, “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” If the words of Jesus were abiding in us, we would have known ourselves better—that we have sinned. The words of Jesus abiding in us is the key to a true and humble assessment of ourselves that keeps us in line with God’s purposes.
In 1 John 2:14 John says, “I write to you, young men, because … the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” So the words of Jesus abiding in us triumph over Satan and free us from the deceptions that would put us at odds with God and make natural desires dominate our lives.
In John 14:24 Jesus says, “Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.” So if we keep the words of Jesus—if they abide in us—they will define for us the path of love, precisely the path where prayer was designed to bear fruit.
The abiding Word of Jesus puts us in tune with the fruit-bearing purposes of God to glorify Himself.

Saturated by His Words
So the fourth and final truth about prayer is that the more we are saturated by the words of Jesus, the more our prayers will be answered.
The challenge of prayer in the year ahead is the challenge to become the kind of people who do not live at the level of mere natural desire, but who live to bear fruit for God—to hallow His Name, seek His Kingdom and do His will.
The key to becoming that kind of person is letting the words of Jesus—the Word of God (John 3:34, 14:10, 17:8) —abide in us. Being filled and saturated by the words of Scripture brings us so close to the mind of God that we pray in tune with His purposes and receive whatever we ask.

John Piper is pastor for preaching and vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minn.
All Scripture quotations are taken by permission from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Adapted from the sermon “Ask Whatever You Wish.” ©John Piper
from the January 2008 issue of “Decision” magazine

The Attractiveness of Sin

Galatians 5:13-16
"You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
"So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature."

Romans 13:14
"But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires."

I was brought to these passages, among others, in my study of John Owen's "Sin and Temptation," as he speaks to The Challenge of Personal Godliness (subtitle) . Though the original writing dates back to the 1850s, I have found its admonitions wholly pertinent in my life, and very applicable to our present circumstance.

I was prompted, then, to write this note b/c I fear that we, as American Christians, often feel justified in our flirtations with sin, often for the sake of entertainment. I have grown more and more convicted in what I do with my "free" time, as it is often filled with "innocent" movies, unspecific searches on YouTube, and casual walks in the mall, to name a few. None of these things are evil in and of themselves; however, they are easily conducive to such evil, and often lend to it simply by the very nature of their occurrence. That is, because I am casually involved in these things, and "mindlessly" engaged, I am so very prone to sin's entanglement. Paul states that, yes, we are free, free indeed; but, may it never be that we use such freedom to indulge the sinful nature, especially in frivolities. We who have been given one singular life to exhaust upon the glory of our Savior would be remiss not to follow His very pattern; even as He lounged with Lazarus, or supped with the Pharisee, He was about His Father's business.

I would challenge you to apply what Paul says in Galatians; rather than indulge the sinful nature, aggravate it by "serving one another in love." Do you find yourself with nothing to do? Get to know your next door neighbor. Call a church member who you don't know as well, or have been avoiding. Engage the Word in an unfamiliar passage (or a familiar passage; shoot, they are just as needed). Be about your Father's business.

I leave you with two quotes from Owen's work:

"When we indulge with delight in thoughts of forbidden things, we commit sin, even though our will has not yet consented to perform the deed." And again: "When there is a readiness on the part of the soul to listen to these silent voices--[those] secret insinuations that arise from deceit--it is evident that the affections are already enticed.

Praying Christ's Victory Over Our Flesh,
Pastor Jeremy