How can I get my prayers answered by God?

(Vv. 22, 23). Walking in the happy confidence that we are doing those things that are right in His sight will give great liberty in turning to the Father in prayer. Keeping His commandments, we shall ask according to God's will and shall be able to count upon an answer to our prayers. If it is guidance for our path, or power to overcome some snare, or sustaining grace for a trial, we shall ask and receive from One Whose power is as great as His love, and Whose ear is ever open to the cry of His children.

We want to look at a few particulars. There are certain conditions upon which God answers prayer. We often ask for things which are not expedient for us. If a wrong thing is urgently asked from God, and it is at last given, it always ends in sorrow. "He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul" (Ps. 106:15). Our petitions must be in accordance with His will. His will is perfect, and when our prayers are in harmony with that will, in a line with it as it were, we know that we have our petitions. "Very well," you say, "how am I to ascertain what is the will of God? "There are various ways of finding out. Take the promises that God has given — "exceeding great and precious promises." I have never yet counted them, but it might be a profitable occupation for any who wish to do so. Anyhow, every promise that God has given us is a declaration of His will. He means that we should claim and have it. Therefore if you bring your request on the ground of a promise of God you have a sure foothold.

In John 15 the Lord has given us another condition - "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." (v. 7.) This is sometimes spoken of as a lower kind of prayer, but the slightest examination of the terms our Lord employs will dispel the misconception. True it is asking what we will, but this is preceded by a double condition. The first is, "If ye abide in me." Now abiding in Christ is the constant maintenance in our souls of our dependence upon Him for life, strength, and everything; a dependence as complete as that of the branch on the vine for its power to bear fruit. "Apart from me," He says, "ye can do nothing," anymore than the branch could bear fruit after it was severed from the vine. Whatever of life towards God, service in testimony, fruit-bearing of every kind, that flows out from His people, has its source in Him, and can only flow out through them, as the connection is maintained by abiding in Him, realizing that they are dependent on Him, that in this sense they live, move, and have their being in Him. Then He adds, "And my words abide in you." The two things must go together - abiding in Him and His words abiding in us. The first gives the secret of the power and the second the knowledge of His mind; for when His words abide - dwell in us - they become the source of His thoughts to us; yea, they form His mind, and as a consequence what we will is according to His will. This reveals to us that our prayers - the prayers that have power with God - flow from God's own mind as revealed in the Scriptures. An example of this may be found in the life of David. When the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to tell David that not he, but his son, should build Jehovah's house, and gave him promises concerning his own house, his throne, and kingdom, he went in and sat before the Lord with his heart overflowing with gratitude, and praise, and prayer; and, among others, he used these remarkable words, "Thou, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, hast revealed to thy servant, saying, I will build thee an house: therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee." (2 Samuel 7:27.) That is, David's prayer concerning his house was founded upon and formed by the gracious communications which Jehovah had been pleased to make. So likewise our truest prayers are those which spring from the word of God, the words of Christ, as in John, dwelling in our hearts, because we then pray in communion with, as well as according to, the divine mind, and hence necessarily also in the Holy Ghost.

In the gospel of Matthew another aspect of prayer is presented - "All things, whatsoever ye ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." (Matt. 21:22; see also Mark 11:24.) James too speaks of the necessity of faith in asking, and adds that a waverer must not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Now faith can only spring from confidence in God about the thing sought, and this confidence in God will only follow upon the conviction that what is prayed for is according to God's will; and, it may be added, the assurance that we have the mind of God can only be produced by the Holy Spirit, and by the Holy Spirit, speaking generally, through the written Word. Once having this assurance, we await with the certainty of expectation the answer, according to that word of the apostle John: "This is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us: and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him." (1 John 5:14-15.) This passage is important as showing that faith finds its sure foundation in the knowledge of God's will - a will that is unfolded to us in the Scriptures.

The apostle John warns us of a common hindrance to prayer. He says, "Beloved, if our hearts condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight." (1 John 3:21-22.) Self-judgment and confession, if there has been failure or sin, are therefore pre-requisites to effectual prayer, even as the psalmist says, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." This will again link itself with the statement of James - "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." The righteous man being, we judge, one who is practically such; one who, in the language of John, "keeps God's commandments." For walking in obedience is not only the path of holiness, but it is also the source through the Holy Spirit of intelligence in God's mind, and thus of confidence in prayer. The very example of Elijah that James adduces is an illustration in point. In the history Elijah announces by a word of the Lord that there should be no rain upon the earth for "these years;" and again, after that period, that there should be rain. And now we learn from James that both the one and the other were answers to his prayers.

Once again, turn to John 16:23. "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you." Here is a fifth condition. If prayer is in Christ's name it will be answered. What is it to pray in His name? It certainly does not mean to pray about any and every thing that we please, and then wind up by saying, "All this we ask in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ." It means that what we ask for must be something to which the name of Christ can truly be attached, something which He would ask for were He in our circumstances. This calls for spiritual discernment, which can only be acquired in nearness to the Lord. So asking for any thing in His name implies that we are in close communion with Him.

Very well, we are making progress. We have seen three things that are necessary for obtaining answers to prayer — (a) that it should be in accordance with the will of God, (b) asked in the name of the Lord Jesus, and (c) asked in faith. This oriental scene teaches us something more. This man's request seemed unreasonable. It was a strange hour for a guest to come, and the friend thought it was too much trouble to provide food for him. In friendship's name he would do nothing, he gave because of his importunity. He thought, "If I don't give him what he wants he will knock all night." But it is not so with our Father, who ever delights to give. "And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asks, receives; and he that seeks, finds; and to him that knocks, it shall be opened." What an encouragement to us! and may we be as earnest as the man who would not take no for an answer. He kept knocking, knocking, knocking, pressing his friend until he was forced to give what he required. And so the Lord says, "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." The form of words increases in intensity in these three clauses: —

"Ask" — every child knows how to do that. It is just a simple laying of the need before the Father. But suppose the answer does not come; there is a delay. What then? "Seek " — there is something more there. "Knock " — it grows in persistence and importunity. We have need to listen to these things from His lips.

“Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.” Disobedience to God, ignoring of personal conscience, is the one hindrance. If there is transparent honesty, rather, in acting rightly as before God, the soul will have real confidence toward God, no mistrust, no suspicion, no ill‑at‑ease embarrassment. Our prayers will be in no spirit of mere selfish greed, but of confidence that God will answer them the best way for us. We shall ask in faith, rather than complain that things are not as we want them. And we shall receive: there is no doubt whatever about it: God has pledged His Word. If one should not receive, then it only follows that obedience is compromised somewhere.

Presenting our requests, subject to His will, is always right. Of this we have an example even in Gethsemane; so Paul for his thorn in the flesh. And the answer will be more glorious and blessed than the request, even when it does not as asked answer it. See John 12 and Ps. 132: so Psalm 21, and even Paul's request about the thorn. Let us trust His love, and this will not come short, and if He has given us faith to expect a specific answer, bless God for it. Only our will must not come in; even if it was answered (this was the case of the quails), but as a rule not, as James teaches. But where there is earnest faith, God will surely hear, though He may give us safeguards against our own will in it.

Thus, then, there were spiritual impediments, not to Daniel's prayer, not to its being heard and granted, but to the answer reaching him. Here there is good encouragement. For we are apt to suppose that our breath in prayer is lost if an answer is not received at once. But exercise of heart in prayer is never fruitless, though the result may be long delayed. "Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God," was said to Cornelius; and we know not how long he had been kept waiting before Peter was sent to him with the answer: it may have been years (Acts 10). As in Daniel's case, so in Cornelius', and so in ours, there is a time as well as a mode of answering, which rests in the wisdom and grace of God. But so subtle is the working of unbelief that saints often pray and pray earnestly, but yet the last thing that they seem to expect is that God will grant their requests! Old Zacharias had prayed that he might have a son; so it appears from Luke 1:13. He had faith to pray, but not to believe that God would grant his prayer; for when the angel Gabriel tells him that his prayer is heard and that his wife should bear him a son, instead of rejoicing and worshipping, he asks, "Whereby shall I know this?" But our God is very gracious; for this unbelief He chastens Zacharias with dumbness for a season, yet does not withdraw compliance with his petition. Prayer is a great reality, and we know not what unseen transactions are taking place over supplications which we suppose to have been unnoticed or unheard; but let us be assured that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. The case of Zacharias is an instance of what perhaps often occurs — that saints are in their faith and hope not up to the level of their own prayers.

God does not always answer our prayers by granting the thing that we request. Frequently, by not granting our requests, He indicates that His answer is, No. In the history of one Old Testament character — Elijah — we have examples of prayer, both answered and unanswered, of a most striking and instructive sort.

In prayer we can be assured that God sends the best answer He can. Paul prayed thrice for his thorn in the flesh to be removed. But better than granting the petition, God gave the answer, “My grace is sufficient for thee; for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” So that he gloried in the thing he besought might be removed.