God Answers . . .

 

 TO ANSWER: to react verbally, as to a question or in giving some other kind of response.

God has promised to answer prayer for personal or corporate needs and for the needs of others. But why should Almighty God listen to me? I am a sinful creature who resists Him even after He redeemed me and gave me new life in Jesus Christ. The answer is that very thing; my new life in Christ puts me on praying ground. Because Jesus lives in me and because the Holy Spirit is now involved in what I do, I can talk to God Himself and “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)

Jesus’ death and resurrection tore the veil and allows entrance to that holy place. He reveals the heart of God so that we can grasp the will of God. A wise Christian leader affirms that our prayers are heard, “not because we are in earnest, not because we suffer, but because Jesus suffered. It is because our Lord Jesus Christ went through the depths of agony to the last ebb in the Garden of Gethsemane, because He went through Calvary, that we have boldness to enter into the holy place.”

As for the details of His answers, He sometimes eliminates trials and sometimes He strengthens us in the trials. He answers individual prayers that no one else knows about, like Moses’ prayers for wisdom as he led the Israelites out of Egypt, or Hannah’s prayers for a son (See 1 Samuel 1) or the prayers of the prophets, or the kings, or even my prayer concerning a weight gain over Christmas.

God also answers the prayers of large groups, like those OT believers who prayed for deliverance from hardship or enemies, and those who were oppressed, or many who needed healing, and during the second great war thousands agreed in prayers and God heard and answered.

I pray for my concerns but know that God answers prayer for others. I prayed for a resolution to a family problem, for someone to be saved at my sister’s funeral, for a friend struggling with her theology, for many other needs and God answered those prayers.

Answered prayer leads to worship. Jacob said to his household, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” (Genesis 35:2–3)

Answered prayer also proves that God is God. Elijah challenged those who worshiped a pagan God. He said to them, “You call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the Lord, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.” Then he prayed, “Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” (1 Kings 18:37) God answered with fire!

The OT Scriptures are filled with examples yet also a warning. Disobedient King Saul eventually lost contact with God and resorted to seeking a medium for answers. Answers came, but not what he wanted to hear; he and his sons would be killed the very next day because the Lord gave him over to his enemies. In other words, seek answers from God alone, not soothsayers and fortune tellers.

In the NT, Jesus answered many questions from those He encountered. He also answered challenges from Satan using truth from God’s Word. This is an example for us concerning temptation and also points to how we can know the answers are from God: they will correspond to Scripture.

Does God answer the prayers of unbelievers? Sometimes. Their faith may not be ‘saving faith’ yet for that moment in their lives, they are needy and calling for help. God is gracious. He says, “ . . . This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2) and He is “near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY: God does not guarantee He will do whatever I ask, but He does guarantee this:

“And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” (1 John 5:14–15)

This is a promise from the God who knows the number of hairs on my head and knows what I will say before I say it (Psalm 139:4), the God who knows and cares about all my needs. He listens and He answers. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32) For those reasons, He listens and therefore I keep listening and talking with Him.