This whole thing about asking and receiving has been and will continue to be misunderstood until Christians study and find the deeper truth. The believer has the false belief that prayer is designed to convince God to change their circumstances. If you listen close to how some “Christians” pray, it will become apparent to you that they do not have a revelation of the absolute truth of God’s provision.
They’ll pray long, loud, and repetitively on a matter and then end all of that religious double speak with “if it be your will”. How powerless that type of prayer is.
Again, prayer is not us trying to convince God to do something, it’s designed to prepare you to be involved in God’s activity. Faith is seeing the finished work of Christ at the cross and resting there. First, you have to get a full revelation of the power of your conversion, knowing all that was FINISHED at calvary.
John 16:23,24 reads as follows.
23 And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. 24 Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
So right here the religious crowd comes with the “ya but” ministry, or the gotcha ministry. See! Right there it says we have to ask. So here’s the retort to that. Use one of the grace “ya buts”. Ya but, you didn’t study those verses, you just read them out of context to try and make a legalistic point. The word “ask” in those verses is the Greek word “Atayo”. That word means “putting a demand on what is due”. So lets put those verses in context. Here they are with the further explanation.
23 And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall “put a demand on what is due” to the Father in my name, he will give it you. 24 Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: “put a demand on what is due”, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
Makes a difference right? If my prayers are wrapped up in that which I already possess there’s no joy from the answer, because it’s not supernatural. What’s so supernatural about all this is that it’s already done.
Many believe we are to embrace a lifestyle of discipline and performance rather than of passion and significance. This gospel was never meant to be reduced to discipline. It was always meant to be lived out of passion. A person who lives out of discipline will be admired. A person who lives out of passion will cause transformation in other’s lives.
This quote from Graham Cooke is powerful. “Performance Christianity is one of the biggest problems that we have in the church today. People feeling they need to perform in order to receive something from God or in order to be taken seriously. We put on this kind of image. We try to perform. We try to be seen as being powerful. You know what, it is just so tiring and irritating. Everyone sees through it anyway. So what’s the point of that?”
Grace is what God has already done for us independent of any worth or value on our part. If it’s tied to some goodness on our part then it’s not true grace. God, by His Grace has already provided everything we will ever need. Our faith does not move God. If God hasn’t already moved by His Grace then your faith can’t make Him do it.
It’s time to get this truth. God has already done His part. When Jesus cried “It is finished” (John 19:30), He meant just that. He provided everything we could ever need. We aren’t waiting on Him to give, He’s waiting on us to receive.
Time to fully realize that God loves us for ourselves, not for our efforts to please him. He values our love more than our performance. He valued our lives more than he valued his Son’s life. This is proven in what He did for us. Here’s a word God gave me regarding this. “He sacrificed the very life for those who caused the death of the very life He sacrificed.”
It is not arrogant for us to receive what Jesus did for us. We are fully entitled to take what Jesus deserved, because He took what we deserved. He took all the pain, suffering, sickness, disease, sin, and torment for us and made a trade with us for all the joy, peace, love, grace, mercy, and favor that God provided. What a deal. We would be foolish to turn it down.
2 Peter 1:3
3 By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know Him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.
Now don't just skim over that scripture. Study it deeply. God has given us EVERYTHING by His divine power. Everything we need for living a godly life. We received it by COMING TO KNOW HIM. Not by performance or rule keeping. This gospel of the Grace of God is not about right living. It's about right believing. Grace and Peace.
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