Answers to Prayers
What things soever ye desire, when ye prayer, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
Mark 11:24
One lesson that Jesus would teach us is the victorious assurance that God answers every true petition. Skeptics may question it, humanists may deny it, and intellectuals ridicule it. Yet here is Christ’s own promise: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7). Trust that promise with all your soul.
Your Father possesses everything. He “shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). Let His Holy Spirit help you in your prayer life just as He promised in Romans 8:27: “he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”
With God nothing is impossible. No task is too arduous, no problem is too difficult, no burden is too heavy for His love. The future, with its tears and uncertainties, is fully revealed to Him.
He understands how much affliction and sorrow you need in order that your soul may be purified and preserved for eternity. Turn to Him, and you can say with Job, “But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:10). No, we are not the masters of our own souls. We must not put our will above God’s will. We must not insist on our own way or dictate to God. Rather, we must learn the difficult lesson of praying as the sinless Son of God Himself prayed, “Not my will, but thine, be done.”
The Scripture says that the one mediator between God and man is Jesus Christ. We must know Him, and we must pray in His name. Our prayers must be directed according to the will of God, and the Holy Spirit will do that for us.
Our Father and our God, I praise Your mighty name for these things You have done for me . . . I know that nothing is too difficult for You. You can save the lost, raise the dead, and heal the hurting. Now, in the name of Jesus, I claim Your promise that You will do these things I ask. Amen
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).