For this week I just want to take a portion of my message and elaborate on it. We finished the study of the book of 1 John with John emphasizing in his last words what he wanted us to know. In vs. 14-15 John takes on the issue of praying so that God will hear. He mentions that if we ask anything according to God’s will he will hear us. Most people focus on God hearing whatever we ask and that is true. What we don’t focus on is asking according to His will. Most people ask with wrong motives.
It is easy to treat our prayers like a list for Santa. “God can you do this? God can you give me this? I will go to Africa as a missionary if you grant this one request.” The problem is that isn’t what John is saying. He is telling us to conform our prayers according to God’s will. What does this mean? It means that we must develop a eternal perspective as opposed to an earthly perspective.
An Earthly perspective is one that look at us as the end result. An Eternal perspective looks at God as the end result. I illustrated this in church by using an analogy of our hour glass. An earthly perspective looks at the hours glass as our lives and the sand as our days. An eternal perspective looks at the hour glass as God’s story and the each pebble of sand as our life. Before you get depressed about this think that the time we spend here on earth is like a grain of sand compared to the time in eternity with God. When God answers our requests it is always done on the basis of what is good for our eternal life. This is why the answers to our prayers don’t often come as quick as we would like.
Do you have an eternal perspective or and earthly one when you go before God in your prayers?
