12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Let that sink in for a minute before proceeding. Pray that God would give you wisdom and discernment to interpret Christ's words correctly.
This passage has always provoked me, but I haven't ever given it much room in my soul to really work until this past week. I've been doing life with my Lifegroup (my small group community here at Texas A&M) and really diving into the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. As I've grown and progressed in my walk with Jesus I've seen time and time again that He is faithful and fulfills everything that He has promised us.
That brings us to this passage in John in which Jesus tells us that He will do anything that we ask Him. He wants to work in our lives and through our lives. If we believed what Jesus had to say here, how would we live differently? We would become a people dependent on prayer and communion with God.
Whenever a close friend gets sick or we need a good grade on a test we have no problem with giving God a quick ring on our ill-used prayer line and ask Him to help us out, but when we offer those prayers, are we expecting His answer? Matthew 28:18 states that all authority has been given to Christ, Colossians 1:16 says that in Christ all things were made and now hold together. With those two scriptures in mind, we have evidence that Jesus has almighty sovereign power over everything, and thus is capable of answering any prayer. Romans 8:26 takes it a step further and says that the Holy Spirit inside of us prays for us, so in fact God is interceding on our behalf already.
God has an ample and vast supply with which to answer our prayers, and all He asks is that we believe He is able. We are called to ask confidently. James says when we ask God with doubt in our prayers we are like a ship tossed about in the waves. A lack of confidence reveals a lack of faith.
I know I can't fix anyone, and I don't want to. What I do mean to accomplish is that each of us would reexamine our prayer lives. Are we trusting God to reveal Himself in our lives? Do we live in such a way that we need Him? Do we have faith?
I promise you this: If you ask confidently in faith there is no limit to what God can do. Matthew 17:20 says that we can hurl mountains into the sea with faith the size of a mustard sea. Pray on these things and ask God to come through in big ways, have faith, and He will.
-matt
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