December 30, 2020
Praying According to God’s Will
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything in accordance to his will, he hears us.”
1 John 5:13-14
Today, we come to the very last part of 1 John, which is chapter 5:13-21.
In this last section, John states the purpose of writing this letter. It is to let those who believe in the name of Jesus know for certain that they have eternal life. John wanted to give full assurance of salvation to his “little children.”
We can be assured of our salvation if we, first, have been born from above by faith in Jesus Christ, and second, if we are walking in the light, obeying God’s commandments, and third, if we are loving our brothers and sisters.
This confidence in our eternal life should translate into confidence in our prayer. Our confidence is that if we ask anything in accordance to his will, God hears us.
And we get some examples of what praying according to God’s will looks like.
It is praying for others that God will give them eternal life. (v. 16)
It is praying for our own sanctification. (v. 18)
It is praying that we get to know God better by knowing Jesus better (v.20)
It is praying that we remain in Christ. (v.20)
And praying that we would keep ourselves from idols. (v. 21)
Our best model for praying according to God’s will is Jesus Christ. Jesus not only prayed for God’s will to be done, but he lived out God’s will by being obedient to death on the cross.
It was a daily habit of Jesus to get up early and pray to his Father. As followers of Jesus, we can also pray according to God’s will and do God’s will in our lives.
Next year, starting in the first week of January, we want to meet on Zoom every Wednesday at 7 AM to pray.
As Jesus was in the habit of praying before his day started, we also want to develop a habit of praying before we start our day.
Since one of the themes we want to explore as a church is honoring Christ in our work, we will go through 52 Workday Prayers written by Mark D. Roberts, the executive director at Max De Pree Center for Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary.
Each week on Wednesday, we will look at what the Psalms tell us about our work. And we will pray according to God’s will revealed in the Psalms. Praying according to God’s will would enable us to live out God’s will in our life, especially in our work.
Pastor Joe
Wednesday, December 30, 2020