God’s Will In Prayer

There is often great confusion as to the will of God. People think that what God wills must inevitably take place. This is by no means the case. God wills many blessings to His people, which never come to them. He wills it most earnestly, but they do not will it, and it cannot come to them. This is the great mystery of man's creation with a free will, and also of the renewal of his will in redemption, that God has made the execution of His will, in many things, dependent on the will of man. Of God's will revealed in His promises, so much will be fulfilled as our faith accepts. Prayer is the power that comes to pass, which otherwise would not occur. And faith is the power by which it is decided how much of God's will shall be done in us. Once God reveals to a soul what He is willing to do for it, the responsibility for executing that will rest with us.

Some fear this is putting too much power into man’s hands. But all power is put into the hands of man in Christ Jesus. The key to all prayer and all power is His. When we learn to understand that He is just as much with us as with the Father and that we are also just as much one with Him as He with the Father, we shall see how natural and right and safe it is that to those who abide in Him as He is the Father, such power should be given. It is Christ the Son who has the right to ask what He will: it is through the abiding in Him and His abiding in us (in a Divine reality of which we have too little apprehension) that His Spirit breathes in us what He wants to ask and obtain through us. We pray in His Name: the prayers are ours and as really His.

Others again fear that believing that prayer has such power limits liberty and the love of God. O, if we only knew how we are limiting His freedom and His love by not allowing Him to act in the only way He chooses to act now that He has taken us up into fellowship with Him through our prayers and our faith.

A brother in the ministry once asked, as we were speaking on this subject, whether there was not a danger of our thinking that our love to souls and our willingness to see them blessed were to move God's love and God's desire to bless them. We were passing some large water pipes, which were carried over hill and dale from a large mountain stream to a town at some distance. Just looking at these pipes was the answer; they did not make the water willing to flow downwards from the hills, nor did they give it its power of blessing and refreshment: this is its very nature. All they could do was decide its direction: by it, the town’s inhabitants said they wanted the blessing there.

And just so, it is God’s very nature to love and bless.

Lower and lower, His love desires to flow with its life-giving and renewing streams. Yet, He has entrusted prayer to determine where the blessing will arrive. He has given His faithful followers the responsibility to bring living water to barren lands: God's desire to bless relies on man's willingness to direct where the blessing should fall. Such honor belongs to His saints. 'And this is our confidence in Him: if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests we have made of Him.'

1. Christ’s Will Surrendered

What a contrast within the space of a few hours! What a transition from that quiet elevation.

He lifted His eyes to heaven and said, FATHER, I WILL, to that falling on the ground and crying in agony. My Father! Not what I will.’

In one scene, the High Priest is depicted beyond the veil, engaged in powerful intercession; in another, the sacrifice on the altar grants access through the torn veil. The high-priestly Father leads, anticipating the sacrificial Father! "Not what I will" was spoken to foreshadow the future mediation after the sacrifice. Truly, it was the prayer at the altar, "Father! Not what I will," that gave rise to the prayer before the throne, "Father! I will." The complete surrender of His will in Gethsemane empowered the High Priest on the throne to ask freely, enabling His followers to share in that power and ask freely as well.

For those seeking to learn prayer in Jesus' school, the lesson from Gethsemane is deeply sacred and invaluable. It can dishearten a superficial believer in faith. If even the fervent plea of the Son was not granted, if even the Beloved had to say, "NOT WHAT I WILL," how much more must we say it? This suggests that the promises the Lord made just hours earlier, "WHATSOEVER YE SHALL ASK, WHATSOEVER YE WILL," were not meant to be taken literally.

A deeper insight into the meaning of Gethsemane would teach us that we have to hear the sure ground and the open way to the assurance of an answer to our prayer.

Let us draw nigh in reverent and adoring wonder, to gaze on this great sight - God’s Son, thus offering up prayer and supplications with strong crying and tears and not obtaining what He asks.

He is our Teacher and will open up to us the mystery of His holy sacrifice, as revealed in this wondrous prayer.

To understand the prayer, let us note the infinite difference between what our Lord prayed a little ago as a Royal High Priest and what He supplicates in His weakness. There it was for the glorifying of the Father He prayed and the glorifying of Himself and His people as the fulfillment of distinct promises that had been given Him. He asked what He knew to be according to the word and the will of the Father;

He might boldly say, FATHER! I will. Here, He prays for something regarding which the Father's will is not yet clear to Him. As far as He knows, it is the Father's will that He should drink the cup. He had told His disciples of the cup He must drink: a little later, He would again say, The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?' It was for this that He had come to this earth.

In the indescribable pain that engulfed Him as the forces of evil surrounded and He began to experience death—the embodiment of God's judgment on sin—

In the Garden of Gethsemane, the "cup" Jesus referred to symbolized the immense suffering and anguish He was about to endure, including:

Physical Suffering: The brutal physical torture and crucifixion that He would undergo.

Spiritual Suffering: Bearing the weight of humanity's sins, experiencing God's wrath, and feeling a profound sense of separation from the Father.

Emotional and Psychological Suffering: The betrayal by Judas, the abandonment by His disciples, and the scorn and rejection from the people He came to save.

His human nature recoiled at the terrifying reality of becoming a curse. In this moment of suffering, He expressed a wish that, if possible, God's plan could be accomplished without Him drinking the dreadful cup: "Let this cup pass from me!" This wish demonstrated the profound truth of His humanity. The "Not as I will" clarified that this wish was not sinful: as He fervently declares, "All things are possible with Thee," and returns to even more intense prayer for the cup's removal, it is His thrice-repeated "NOT WHAT I WILL" that captures the essence and value of His sacrifice.

He had asked for something He could not say: I know it is Thy will. He had pleaded God's power and love and had then withdrawn it in His final, THY WILL BE DONE! The prayer that the cup should pass away could not be answered; the prayer of submission that God's will be done was heard and gloriously answered in His victory, first over the fear and then over the power of death.

In this denial of His will, this complete surrender of His will to the will of the Father, Christ's obedience reached its highest perfection. The sacrifice of the will in Gethsemane derives its value from the sacrifice of the life on Calvary.

As Scripture saith, it is here that He learned obedience and became the author of everlasting salvation to all that obey Him. It was because He there, in that prayer, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, that God highly exalted Him and gave Him the power to ask what He will.

It was in that Father! Not what I will, that He obtained the power for that other FATHER! I will' It was by Christ's submittal in Gethsemane to have not His will done, that He secured for His people the right to say to them, ‘Ask whatsoever ye will’.

Let me look at them again, the deep mysteries that Gethsemane offers to my view.

There is the first: the Father provides His Well-beloved the cup, the cup of wrath.

The second: the Son, always so obedient, shrinks back and implores that He may not have to drink it.

The third is that the Father does not grant the Son His request but still gives the cup.

And then the last is that the Son yields His will, is content that His will be not done, and goes out to Calvary to drink the cup.

O Gethsemane in thee, I see how my Lord could give me such unlimited assurance of an answer to my prayers. As my surety, He won it for me, with His consent, to have His petition unanswered.

This is in harmony with the whole scheme of redemption.

Our Lord always wins for us, the opposite of what He suffered.

He was bound so that we might go free.

He was made sin so that we might become God’s righteousness.

He died so that we might live.

He bore God’s curse so that God’s blessing might be ours.

He endured the not answering of His prayer so that our prayers might find an answer.

Yea, He spake, Not as I will; that He might say to us, If ye abide in me, ask what ye will; it shall be done unto you.

The Eternal Spirit, through which He offered Himself unto God, is the Spirit that dwells in me too and makes me partaker of the very same obedience and the sacrifice of the will unto God. That Spirit teaches me to yield my will entirely to the will of the Father, to give it up even unto the death, in Christ to be dead to it.

Whatever my mind, thoughts, and will, even though they are not directly sinful, He teaches me to fear and flee.

He opens my ear to wait in great gentleness and teachableness of soul for what the Father has day by day to speak and to teach.

He teaches me how union with God's will in the love of it is union with God Himself, how entire surrender to God's will is the Father's claim, the Son's example, and the true blessedness of the soul.

He leads my will into the fellowship of Christ's death and resurrection; my will dies in Him to be made alive again.

He breathes into it as a renewed and quickened will, a holy insight into God's perfect will, a holy joy in yielding itself to be an instrument of that will, a sacred liberty and power to lay hold of God's will to answer prayer.

With my whole will, I learn to live for the interests of God and His kingdom, to exercise the power of that will-crucified but risen again- in nature and in prayer, on earth and in heaven, with men and God. The more deeply I enter into the FATHERI NOT WHAT I WILL' of Gethsemane, and into Him who spake it, to abide in Him, the fuller is my spiritual access into the power of His FATHER WILL. And the soul experiences that it is the will, which has become nothing that God's will may be all, which now becomes inspired with a Divine strength to really will what God wills and to claim what has been promised it in the name of Christ.

O let us listen to Christ in Gethsemane, as He calls, If ye abide in me, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you!' Being of one mind and spirit with Him in His, giving up everything to God's will, living like Him in obedience, and surrendering to the Father are abiding in Him and the secret of power in prayer.

2. Jesus Surrendered His Will, Now We Can Know God’s Will

1 John 5:14 KJV 1900

14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:

1 John 5:15 KJV 1900

15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.

One of the greatest hindrances to believing in prayer is, undoubtedly, this: many people do not know if what they ask is according to the will of God. As long as they are in doubt on this point, they cannot have the boldness to ask in the assurance that they certainly shall receive. And they soon begin to think that if once they have made known their requests and receive no answer, it is best to leave it to God to do according to His good pleasure. The words of John, If we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us,' as they understand them, make certainty as to answer to prayer impossible because they cannot be sure of what may be God’s will. They think of God's will as His hidden counsel--how should man be able to fathom what really may be the purpose of the all-wise God?

This is the very opposite of what John aimed at in writing.

He wished to rouse us to boldness, confidence, and full assurance of faith in prayer. He says This is the boldness we have toward Him, that we can say: Father! Thou knowest and I know that I ask according to Thy will: I know Thou hearest me.

This is the boldness, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us.' On this account, He adds at once: If we know that He heareth us whatsoever we ask, we know, through this faith, that we have,' that we now while we pray receive the petition,'

The special things we have asked of Him, John supposes that when we pray, we first find out if our prayers are according to the will of God. They may be according to God's will and yet not come at once without the persevering prayer of faith. It is to give us courage thus to persevere and to be strong in faith that He tells us: This gives us boldness or confidence in prayer; if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us.

It is evident that if it be a matter of uncertainty to us whether our petitions be according to His will, we cannot have the comfort of what he says. We know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.'

But just this is the difficulty. More than one believer says:

…I do not know if what I desire is according to the will of God.

…God's will is the purpose of His infinite wisdom: I can’t know whether He may not count something else better for me than what I desire or may not have some reasons for withholding what I ask!

Everyone feels how, with such thoughts, the prayer of faith, of which Jesus said, Whosoever shall believe that these things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith,' becomes impossible. There may be the prayer of submission, and of trust in God's wisdom; there cannot be the prayer of faith. The great mistake here is that God's children do not believe that it is possible to know God's will. Or if they think this, they need to take the time and trouble to find it out. What we need is to see clearly in what way it is that the Father leads His waiting, teachable child to know that his petition is according to His will' It is through God's word, taken up and kept in the heart, the life, the will; and through God's Holy Spirit, accepted in His indwelling and leading, that we shall learn to know that our petitions are according to His will.

There is a hidden will of God that we often worry our prayers may conflict with. However, in prayer, we must focus on God's will as revealed in His word, not this hidden will. Our ideas about what the secret will has determined and how it might make answering our prayers impossible are usually mistaken. Childlike faith in what He is willing to do for His children rests on the Father's promise that it is His will to hear prayer and to fulfill what faith in His word desires and accepts.

Psa 25:14  The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.

In the word, the Father has disclosed the broad promises and key principles of His will for His people. The child must take these promises and apply them to the specific circumstances in his life to which they pertain. Whatever he asks within the boundaries of that revealed will, he can be assured is according to God's will and can confidently expect. In His word, God has provided the revelation of His will and plans for us, His people, and the world, along with the most precious promises of the grace and power through which He will accomplish His plans and perform His work through His people.

As faith becomes strong and bold enough to claim the fulfillment of the general promise in the particular case, we may have the assurance that our prayers are heard: they are according to God's will. Take the words of John in the verse following our text as an illustration:

1 John 5:16 KJV 1900

16 If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.

Such is the general promise, and the believer who pleads on the ground of this promise prays according to the will of God, and John would give him boldness to know that he has the petition he asks.

But this apprehension of God's will is spiritual and must be spiritually discerned. It is not as a matter of logic that we can argue it out: God has said it; I must have it. Nor has every Christian the same gift or calling. While the general will revealed in the promise is the same for all, there is a unique, different will according to God’s purpose for each one. And herein is the wisdom of the saints, to know this special will of God ter tach of us, according to the measure of grace given us, and so to ask in prayer just what God has prepared and made possible for each. It is to communicate this wisdom that the Holy Ghost dwells in us. The personal application of the feral promises of the word to our special personal needs- it is for this that the leading of the Holy Spirit is given to us.

It is the union of the teaching union of the teaching of the word and Spirit that many need help understanding, and so there is a twofold difficulty in homing what God will be. Some seek the will of God in an inner feeling or conviction and would have the Spirit lead them without the word. Others seek it in the word without the living leading of the Holy Spirit. The two must be united: only in the Word, only in the Spirit, but in these most surely, can we know the will of God and learn to pray according to it. In the heart, the Word and the Spirit must meet: only by indwelling can we experience their teaching.

The word must reside and abide in us: our hearts and lives must be influenced by it daily. The Spirit quickens the word not from outside but from within. Only those who fully submit their entire lives to the supremacy of God's word and will can hope, in special cases, to discern what that word is and ask boldly. Similarly, with the Spirit: if we seek the Spirit's guidance in prayer to assure us of God's will, our whole life must be surrendered to that guidance; only then can our minds and hearts become spiritual and capable of knowing God's holy will. It is the one who, through the word and Spirit, lives by doing God's will who will learn to pray according to that will, confident that He hears us.

Christians need to realize the immense harm done by thinking that if their prayer is possibly not according to God's will, they must be content without an answer. God's word tells us the main reason for unanswered prayer is that we do not pray correctly: 'You ask and receive not because you ask amiss.' When an answer is not granted, the Father is showing us something is wrong with our praying.

He wants to teach us to identify and confess it, thus educating us in true, believing, and prevailing prayer. He can achieve His purpose only when we recognize that we are at fault for the lack of an answer; our aim, faith, or life is not as it should be. But God's purpose is thwarted as long as we are content to say: Perhaps it is because my prayer is not according to His will that He does not hear me. Oh, let us no longer blame our unanswered prayers on God's secret will but on our praying amiss.

Let the phrase, "You receive not because you ask amiss," be like the Lord's lantern, illuminating heart and life to ensure we are truly those to whom Christ gave His promises of specific answers. We must trust that we can discern if our prayers align with God's will. Let us open our hearts to let the Father's word dwell richly within us, to have Christ's word living in us. Let us live daily with the anointing that teaches us all things. Let us fully surrender to the Holy Spirit as He guides us to remain in Christ and abide in the Father's presence. We will soon realize how the Father's love yearns for His children to know His will and, in the assurance that His will includes all His power and love have promised to do, know that He hears the requests we make of Him. This is our confidence, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us!