Day Six: What’s my problem?
Scripture: Matthew 21:22, ESV
Principle: Prayer requires faith in Jesus.
This verse, and others like it, have led many people to the wrong conclusion, that they lack faith. They pray for something and then don’t get it. So what is the problem? This is not one of those verses that is difficult to understand. It seems pretty clear that if we pray in faith, God will give us whatever we want. So if we don’t receive what we prayed for, then the problem must be obvious. It must be a lack of faith. This leaves us feeling dejected and inadequate. When we prayed, we really did believe in faith that it would happen. But the problem isn’t a lack of faith, but a misunderstanding of faith.
Prayer and faith are not magic. Many Christians read this verse and see this as a way to get anything they want. They just have to pray in faith and God has to do what we say. That is not what Jesus intended when he said these words.
“Faith is not the coercion of God into action by our believing that he will do our bidding. Rather it is the cooperation with God in the action, which, by his initiative, he has indicated that he wills to perform.”15
What Jesus means is if we, his children, cooperate with God’s plan, we will receive what we pray for in faith. When Jesus teaches the disciples to pray, he taught them to pray that God’s will would be done not their own. “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10, ESV) When you pray that prayer, you can know for certain you will receive it. God’s will is always accomplished and can never be thwarted.
Application: If you have been guilty of trying to coerce God into doing what you want, confess and ask forgiveness. Pray for God’s will in your life, but not just a general prayer. Pray specifically, that God would grow your faith. Pray that God would change your heart from bitterness to forgiveness. Pray that God would give you a heart for the lost. Pray that God would remove any pride. Pray that God might help you to love your neighbor or even your enemy. Pray for whatever it is that is keeping you from growing to be more like Christ and if you don’t know what that is pray that God would reveal it to you. This is the will of God—that you would think, speak and act like Christ.
15 Charles H. Talbert, Reading Luke: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Third Gospel, Rev. ed., Reading the New Testament Series (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2002), 191.