Receiving When You Pray

Foundations of Faith Series #6                By Darryl Manning                April 22, 2001

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Mark 11. ²⁴Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Here is some alternate wording for the key words in this scripture that are taken from Thayer’s Greek Dictionary.

²⁴Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask (call for, crave, desire, require) for in prayer, (earnest prayer, supplication, worship) believe (have faith, credit, entrust) that you have received (taken hold, lay hold of, taken in order to carry away, seized, appropriated to one’s self, taken a thing due)  it, and it will be yours.

I want to challenge each of us today. Read Jesus’ teaching on prayer above and tell me that you really believe what Jesus said. We are great at claiming we believe all of the Word of God. We claim that God is not a man that He should lie. However, our actions show what we really believe.

This morning in prayer, God challenged me. He said, “Why don’t you ask for something hard?” I about fell in the floor. I’ve been asking God to fill our church with praising people. I’ve been asking Him to give us  double income for our church. I’ve been asking Him to pay off my personal bills. I thought those were hard things. I have been struggling to have faith to believe for those things and God says, “Why don’t you ask for something hard?”

What about you? What have you been asking for? Have you been asking at all? Have you been asking for big things or small things? Notice Jesus’ teaching did not restrict the items we could ask for. He said, “whatever” we asked for could be ours.

Now if we really believed that statement we would ask, ask, ask, ask, ask. We would throw the restraints off our requests and ask for bigger and better things. Our problem is we cannot believe God really wants to give us the desires of our heart.

We have believed the lie that Satan gave in the beginning: that God doesn’t give His best; that God withholds the best things from us; that God is not really the good God He has made Himself out to be. Since the beginning God has been trying to show us that the devil has been lying to us and He really will give us all things. Listen to a few of the statements God makes in this regard:

Ps. 37 ⁴    Delight yourself also in the LORD,      And He shall give you the desires of your heart.

Jn. 16:24  …Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

Matt 7: ¹¹If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

Ps. 84:¹¹For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. ¹²O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.

Rom. 8: ³²He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

If you think about the scriptures above, God has already proven He will give us all things by giving us His own Son. If that is the case, and God really does want His children to have the desires of their heart. It is time for us to get some desires that will reflect the greatness of our God.

The truth is we are afraid to establish a desire because we are fearful God will disappoint us and we will not receive what we want. We go through life desiring the minimum when God wants us to have the maximum.

The truth is that we have the minimum because that is all the faith we have. Our desires in the natural are so small compared to the promises of God. We want a nice little house that we are not ashamed of. We want a simple car that doesn’t embarrass us. Some might not even have that much of a desire. They just want a car that runs. Some may only want a car that they can repair themselves so they can keep it on the road. (Be it unto us according to our faith.)

Many times what we think is a desire is merely a passing wish. We vaguely wish for a better car but have no idea what we really want. If we really wanted a new car, we would look at new cars. We would identify the make and model we wanted. We would test drive the car. We would find a color we preferred and identify the extra equipment we wanted. If we did those things we would find we really did have a desire!

In fact, if the salesman can ever get us to this point, he usually has a sale. Now why not get to this point and then take our desire to God in faith? If we really believed Jesus’ teaching, we would do just that! Then we would begin expecting our new car to be provided every day. (As a gift or through wisdom to earn the money to purchase it.)

Now we get to the final aspect of this message. Jesus said if we are to get the things we ask for in prayer, we must receive them at the time we pray. Now you ask how can that be? Let me give you an example.

You have been praying for money to pay your car payment when your banker calls you up and says, “Something exciting has happened. You need to come to the bank so I can tell you about it.” You hurry to the bank not knowing what to expect. The banker informs you that someone has deposited a million ($1,000,000.00) in your account anonymously. The banker has checked with the depositor and no mistake has been made. You really have a million dollars in your account plus the $5.65 you had previously. The banker gives you a printout that shows you have $1,000,005.65 in your account.

Now what do you do? If you have no faith in the banker you go home and continue praying for money to pay your car payment. However, if you have faith in the banker, you go home and pay off the car. You pay off your house. You pay off your credit cards. You might even go purchase a brand new car and house that are befitting a millionaire. You would rejoice and celebrate and tell all your friends of your great blessing.

Folks, our God is better than a banker. His Word is greater than a computer print out. We have an account in heaven where all the blessings of God have been credited to our account. We are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. The promises of God are Yes in Christ. It is time we claimed our promises when we pray and see them become reality. It is time for God to show forth His glory in us for the world to see!

Lets quit moaning and groaning about the blessings of others and doing without. Let us not be complaining like the “elder brother” at his prodigal brother’s coming home party. Realize that the Father is saying to us “all that I have is yours.” (Luke 15:31) 

·       Let us increase our desires until they become big enough to bring real blessing to our family and our churches.

·       Let us increase our desires until they become big enough to bring blessing to our community and our state.

·       Let us increase our desires until they become big enough to bless even the whole world.

·       Let us increase our desires till they become worthy of our Great God.