“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”

according to His will,

God always answers prayer that is asked, “according to His will.”  God reveals His will in the Word of God.  God answers prayer according to the dynamics of our prayer life.  The better we know God’s will, the more He will answer our prayers. 

PRINCIPLE: 

The better we know God’s will, the better our prayer life will be. 

APPLICATION: 

God does not answer any whim of any prayer.  If we pray with confidence, we must pray according to His will.  How do we know His will?  His will is in His Word.  That is why we have so few prayers answered.  These are the plain, bare, brutal facts.  Many Christians do not have any answers to prayer, so they don’t bother to pray much anymore.  They trust luck.  They luck it out when it comes to the path of their lives. God answers prayer according to certain standards.  For example, we must ask in Jesus’ name (Jn 14:13; 15:16) and be in fellowship (Jn 15:7; 1 Jn 3:22) for God to answer prayer. 

Another condition is to have confidence that God hears and responds to prayer.   Prayer is submission to the will of God.  We yield ourselves to God’s will in responding to our prayer.  We want our prayer to correspond to God’s will.  If we ask in God’s will, God will most assuredly answer our prayer.  We discern the will of God through the Word of God.  There are three types of God’s will: 

God’s direct and unchanging will

God’s permissive will be conditioned on certain factors

God’s overruling will

God does not give a blank check in prayer.  He qualifies prayer with His will.  If what we pray is not in His will, God will not answer our prayer because we are not on His wavelength.  Our prayer was out of the will of God.  We prayed according to our will, not God’s will.   

Mt .6:10, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.”