Mark 11:24, commentary and pictures

Whatever is truly desired in prayer is to be believed as already granted while praying, and it will then be given when most needed. This holds only for requests that accord with God's will and promise, made in Jesus' name by those abiding in Him and obeying His Word, to be used in His service. No outward sign or joyful feeling need be waited for as proof, for faith is distinct from feeling and claims the gift as its own on the strength of God's Word. The one who prays is to keep praying without letting go, thank God that the blessing is received, and go about daily duties assured it will be realized. An unforgiving spirit toward others shuts out the answer, while forgiving all makes way for the Father to forgive and hear.

Conditions for Answered Prayer

What is asked must be according to God's will and must be something He has promised, and when those conditions are met the promise is certain. Cleansing from sin, being made His children, and being enabled to live holy lives are His will, so they may be asked for, believed as received, and thanked for, with standing before His law without shame or remorse. This confidence belongs with asking in Jesus' name and according to God's will, for God honors Jesus' name. Asking in Christ's name means asking with the simplicity and full trust of a little child that what is asked will be received. It means coming humbly, presenting God's promise, and asking in Jesus' name, which gives assurance and boldness because God hears prayer.

The Father is glorified through the Son when asking is in Jesus' name and according to God's will. The promise does not mean that anything a person asks for will automatically be given, for the believer must abide in Christ and have Christ's words abide in him, so that faith rests on a sound foundation. What is received must be used in His service and to do His will. The gift will be realized when it is most needed and is to be used in doing His will.

Only those who obey His Word can claim its glorious promises. Receiving requires bringing the life into harmony with the petitions and into conformity to His will, praying every day for strength from above greater than personal strength and looking hourly to Jesus. Prayerful confidence is joined to abiding in Christ and keeping His commandments. When the conditions given in God's Word are met, His promise can be claimed by faith to receive the Holy Spirit's influence and light, relying on Christ as strength, rather than looking for a joyful feeling as proof of acceptance by God.

Claiming the promise requires discerning the light as it comes, appreciating it, walking in it, and taking hold of Christ as the light, with living and walking in the light and increased faith, holding fast with faith and courage for practical work of faith such as building meetinghouses. When asking the Lord for His blessing, belief while praying that He hears and will answer out of His immense fullness is to be joined with walking by faith and not by feeling, taking the Word as assurance, asking the Lord to increase faith, and holding the Word of God as verity and truth. The promise is one God stands behind and will fulfill, to be taken with Bible in hand and presented back to Him when pleading for the Holy Spirit, trusting the desired gift is received and will be given. The rainbow about the throne proves God is true with no variableness or shadow of turning, and the honor of His throne is staked on fulfilling His Word to those who come confessing unworthiness and sin, for He has pledged to heed their cry.

Faith Before Seeing Answer

Faith means laying hold of the promised blessing before it is realized or felt, believing while still praying that what is asked for is received and taking it as already owned because God's Word says so. This is naked faith exercised before experience; once the blessing is realized and enjoyed, faith is swallowed up in the enjoyment and is no longer needed in the same way. It sends the petition within the second veil and takes hold of what is promised, man's part being to pray in living faith, especially in secret prayer, while giving the blessing is God's part and His grace comes to the soul through that channel. It takes hold of God's strength, claims His promises as surety, and praises Him for the answer before it is experienced, and when need is greatest this trust brings blessing and special help.

Feeling is not faith but distinct from it, and faith must not wait for feeling, for feeling comes only by faith. The felt power of the Holy Spirit is itself a blessing received through faith, not faith itself, and those who think they have faith only when they largely share the Spirit and feel its power confound faith with the blessing that comes through faith. The very time to exercise faith most is when destitute of the Spirit and when thick clouds of darkness hover over the mind, letting living faith pierce the darkness and scatter the clouds. True faith rests on the promises in the Word of God.

No outward evidence or joyful feeling need be waited for as proof of acceptance, for God is able to fulfill what He has promised. The gift is ours by faith and will be realized when most needed and when used in doing His will. The one praying should believe the blessing is received, thank God that it has been received, and then go about daily duties assured it will be realized when needed most, in this way knowing that prayer is answered. Answered prayer therefore calls for praying, believing, and rejoicing, singing praises because God has answered and taking Him at His Word, with blessings received proportionate to the faith exercised.

Continued trust is required even when feelings do not change, relying on Jesus as on a faithful friend, laying burdens on God, and still trusting His promise. Greater victories come by moving steadily forward believing God has heard prayer and will fulfill His Word, even when feeling says God is not blessing. This requires determined overcoming without failing or being discouraged, depending not on feeling but on God, casting the helpless soul on Christ, and praising and glorifying God day by day with heart and voice, and such exercised faith strengthens the Christian life, working through love and purifying character and shaping conduct and speech even within the family.

Persistent Childlike Praying

Prayer must be joined with faith and continued without letting go too soon, holding firmly to sure promises and believing while asking that what is requested is received. Believers are to keep praying, keep pressing their requests, keep believing God will answer, and not abandon expectation or give up too quickly. Faith may have to endure trial and delay, and Elijah's earnest persistence illustrates this, for he prayed seven times before the cloud appeared as the promised sign. Looking to Jesus — His worthiness, love, merits, and mercy — enables the weak to exercise such faith instead of dwelling on unworthiness, while doubting God's sure promises wounds the Saviour through unbelief. That faith is living faith resting on God's promises, and it is a shield guarding the heart from the enemy's fiery temptations.

Prayer should arise from felt need, asking God for the very things truly needed with earnestness and sincerity. True asking, believing, and receiving is short, sweet, and to the point, believing even while asking that God gives what is asked. Empty, unmeaning petitions that weary angels and displease God are no praying at all and are not genuine prayer. Following this course makes faith grow, makes the weak strong, encourages the discouraged and desponding to look up and trust that God rewards those who diligently seek Him, and edifies all who pray together.

Believers are to come with childlike simplicity and full trust, as a little child to a parent, telling God plainly what they need whether temporal or spiritual. Asking in Christ's name means much, and means asking in this simple, humble, unwavering confidence in accordance with His will and for what He has promised, believing it is received and then having it. When a person prays in this belief and trust, God hears and works on his behalf and cooperates with him, giving success in every lawful undertaking. The answer is not always exactly as desired, because God's way is not man's way, and it is His prerogative as One who reads the future to distinguish what will truly benefit from what would harm, supplying needs abundantly according to His liberality and for His glory. The promised water of life is freely offered, so to remain parched and withered for want of it when the promises stand open is one's own fault.

In every perplexing or trying situation God's people are to show perfect trust in their Leader and seek wisdom from the Fountain of wisdom by agreeing together on what they desire. They are to unite in offering prayer to God for it, persevere in asking for the help needed, acknowledge God in all counsel, and believe that the very blessings sought are received. Believing prayer is to be offered every day for strength from above greater than personal strength, looking hourly to Jesus, lifting the heart to Him, and bringing the life into conformity to His will. It is to be offered with good courage, continual striving for victory, diligence, watchfulness, and constancy without weariness in well-doing and without fainting, and so obtains what is asked and reaps the victory. Joined with resisting the devil and drawing near to God, such prayer keeps Satan from gaining mastery of heart and mind to mold them to his will, causes him to flee, and keeps him from choosing one's society. It means making God the only trust and strength of the soul by taking hold upon the Lord in earnest prayer, putting implicit confidence in Jesus with certainty that He will hear, and pleasing Him by importuning Him for grace and favor not only for self but for others in need of help.

Gifts to Seek from God

What may be asked under this promise begins with pardon, cleansing from sin, a new heart, and power to live a holy life. God wills to cleanse from sin, to make sinners His children, and to enable holy living, so these blessings may be asked for, believed as received, and thanked for in advance. When sins are asked to be washed away and a new heart given, trust rests on the promise that He does it because He has promised it. Even children who ask Jesus to pardon transgressions and take away sins are to believe that He does so. Those cleansed in this way may stand before God's law without shame or remorse.

The Holy Spirit may be pleaded for, and more of the Spirit of God may be sought, by presenting God's promises with confidence that He will fulfill them. The promise is to be taken with the Bible in hand and pleaded back to God when asking for the Spirit, trusting the desired gift is received and will be given. The rainbow about the throne proves God is true, without variableness or shadow of turning, and the honor of His throne is staked on fulfilling His Word to those who come confessing unworthiness and sin. Those who come to Christ for what He has promised should ask with childlike simplicity and believe they receive it, and God will answer by giving more of His Spirit. What is promised concerning pardon, the Spirit, a Christlike temper, wisdom, and strength for His work is to be believed as received and thanked for without waiting for outward evidence, assured that God is able to fulfill it and that the gift, owned by faith, will be realized when needed.

A Christlike temper and character, wisdom, and strength for God's work may likewise be asked for. Each person is to ask God directly for needed wisdom rather than depend on another to control or tell duty, believing it is received and trusting God will grant it. This includes seeking clear discernment and sound judgment before deciding whether proposed plans honor God and benefit His institutions.

Troubles, perplexities about duty, temptation, sorrow, and the daily need for strength greater than personal strength may be brought to God, relying on His power rather than one's own. Jesus invites each person to bring troubles and perplexities directly to Him because He understands every circumstance of life and can carry the person and every burden. No one need depend on another person to inquire of God or to tell duty. Those struggling to overcome failings and resist temptation should ask God for help, believe they receive strength from Him, and rely on His power. This holds for praying every day for strength from above, looking hourly to Jesus, lifting the heart to Him, and bringing the life into conformity to His will.

The golden oil asked for in prayer represents help from heaven that keeps the lamps — the churches — burning brightly and enables them to enlighten others. It is to be sought humbly, presenting God's promise and asking in Jesus' name, which gives assurance and boldness because God hears prayer.

The promise also reaches practical needs and work: healing of the sick, strength in weakness, building meetinghouses, a house of worship in Brisbane, circulating temperance publications, means and offerings for urgent work, and power in word and deed to proclaim truth. Living faith grasps the promise when praying specifically for healing and strength in discouragement and severe physical weakness, experiencing darkness passing and God's power resting upon the sufferer in preparation for service. Earnest, trembling faith may hold fast through struggle as Jacob did, and prayer may bring lifting of discouragement and darkness with spiritual and physical strength for the work ahead. Relief of pain, as in the left eye and cheek after prayer, is received as blessing from God by believing what is asked for is received. Belief that things asked for are received brings fulfillment in practical work of faith such as building meetinghouses, claimed with faith and courage by discerning the light as it comes, appreciating it, walking in it, and taking hold of Christ as the light. In circulating temperance publications, humble prayer joined with unselfish effort is blessed by God, trusting He will grant what is asked in sharing truth. Asking for the sick to be healed, which is God's will, and for a house of worship in Brisbane rests trust in God as the Mighty Healer who can grant both.

How God Hears and Answers

When a person comes in faith every petition enters the heart of God, and the request is heard and the blessing granted at once, even though its realization comes later. Belief comes before seeing or feeling that God hears, by trusting His promises, believing the blessing is received and thanking God that it has been received, then going about daily duties assured it will be realized when needed most, and in this way knowing that prayer is answered.

Faith rests on Christ's promise that God hears and grants what is asked, even when the answer is not immediate or not the exact thing requested, for God may give what is best for good. Believers are to keep believing that God will answer and not pray and then abandon expectation, for His pledged word assures that sincere prayer will not be lost, though the answer may differ from what was expected. His way is not man's way, and He who reads the future may see that what is asked would not be for the person's best good or for the glory of His name. It is His prerogative to distinguish what will truly benefit from what would harm, and He supplies needs, whether temporal or spiritual, abundantly according to His liberality to those who tell Him plainly what they need with humble, simple, unwavering confidence, believing they receive what they ask. When a person prays with belief and trust in His promises, coming with the simplicity of little children, God hears and works in that person's behalf and cooperates with him, giving success in every lawful undertaking.

Answers may be delayed because Christ longs to give a greater blessing than asked and to show the evil of the heart and deep need of grace, leading away from selfish seeking for earthly good to renouncing selfishness and confessing helplessness and bitter need in whole trust to His love. Like the nobleman at Capernaum who had to accept the word that his son would live before seeing the fulfillment, prayer must rest confidence in Christ's love upon His word, and God then does exceeding abundantly according to the riches of His glory and the working of His mighty power. Prayer offered in faith obtains what would not otherwise be bestowed, for God is not so bound by fixed natural laws as to limit His freedom to answer, but the natural and the supernatural work together, and the living Christ is willing to hear the prayer of faith.

Confidence rests on God's faithfulness to fulfill His promises and grant what is asked, even though people are sinful and undeserving. The promise is to be taken with Bible in hand and presented back to Him when pleading, especially for the Holy Spirit, trusting the desired gift is received and will be given, for the rainbow about the throne proves God is true with no variableness or shadow of turning, and the honor of His throne is staked on fulfilling His Word to those who come confessing unworthiness and sin, since He has pledged to heed their cry. Prayer is a refuge in all perplexities and disappointments and reveals the relation human beings should sustain to God as Father through Jesus as Saviour. The needy soul may be supplied with grace by asking in simple, trusting, childlike faith, for Christ understands human needs and will not be indifferent to the soul who desires His love and presence, but is waiting to be gracious and to impart the bright beams of His righteousness. He came to call sinners to repentance, yet He can release from bondage to Satan only by personal consent, and He will in no way cast out any who come, so that to refuse to come dishonors God, while His mission embraces age after age while probation lasts, with God waiting to hear asking and knocking, watching for humanity to draw near, longing to forgive sins and receive every contrite soul as His own.

For the sick, faith in God when praying means believing that God as the great Physician can stay the course of disease and make well and spare life, with others praying in public meetings and in private and the sick person also asking for himself in faith. The promise holds only if it is the Lord's will, in accordance with His holy will, and for His glory, and whether life is spared or closes the one who believes can be peaceful and happy.

Forgiveness Unity and Victory

Prayer requires forgiving anyone against whom anything is held, so that the Father in heaven may forgive trespasses, and an unforgiving spirit keeps God from answering, for if forgiveness is refused the Father will not forgive. Jesus invites each person with troubles, perplexities about duty, and burdens to bring them directly to Him who understands every circumstance of life and is able to carry both the person and the burdens, without depending on another human to inquire of God or to tell duty. Cherishing resentful feelings and feeding upon them destroys appetite for reading Scripture, because God's Word condemns letting the enemy control the feelings so that resentment is harbored. Each person is to ask God directly for needed wisdom rather than claim authority to control others, depending directly on Christ and seeking His help.

Believing prayer honors the Saviour by believing while asking that His blessing is received, and all power and wisdom are at command to those who ask, trust His Word, and act on that faith. This trust brings help, strength, confidence, light, and hope even in the darkest distress and trouble, penetrating the darkest cloud to reach the drooping, desponding soul, while absence of faith and trust brings perplexity, distressing fears, and suspicions and surmisings of evil. Such believing trust is the victory that overcomes the world and makes all things possible and obtains help from above, and when Christ's followers are united, cherish His presence in small as well as great trials, know Christ is in them, and are separated from idols and the world, the world cannot separate them from God and enemies inspired by Satan cannot prevail against them because the Lord is for them, but when God's people put entire trust in Him He does great things for them and Christ proves a never-failing source of strength and a present help in every time of trouble.

Believing prayer offered with good courage, continual striving for victory, diligence, watchfulness, and constancy without weariness or fainting obtains what is asked, and joined with resisting the devil and drawing near to God it keeps Satan from gaining mastery of heart and mind to mold them to his will, causes him to flee, and keeps him from choosing one's society. Honoring the Saviour by believing His blessing already received, joined with mutual love between Christ and the one who prays, gives power to do God's will against every opposing element, and when the course of action rests on a plain command from the Lord He sustains. The Lord is pleased when importuned for grace and favor not only for self but for others in need of help, and God hears believing prayer for the salvation of souls, cooperates with workers, and gives success in every lawful undertaking when prayer with childlike simplicity, faith, and expectation is united with unselfish effort and with taking hold upon the Lord as the only trust and strength of the soul. Prayer must still be joined with effort, giving God credit for success while accepting duty as one's own, and the answer is not always exactly as desired because God's way is not man's way and He who reads the future may see what is asked would not be for the person's best good or for the glory of His name.

Such faith grows when prayer arises from felt need and asks God for the very things truly needed with short, sweet, to-the-point asking, believing even while praying that God gives what is asked, and this course strengthens the weak, encourages the discouraged and desponding to look up and believe God rewards those who diligently seek Him, edifies all who pray together, softens and subdues the heart with a sense of rich grace, and calls for speaking encouragement rather than doubt because a whole heaven of blessings waits to be claimed. Empty, unmeaning petitions that weary angels and displease God are not genuine prayer, and earnest effort to overcome pride, self-exaltation, jealousy, evil-thinking and evil-speaking manifests sincerity. Doubting God's sure promises wounds the Saviour through unbelief, while looking to Jesus — His worthiness, love, merits, and mercy — enables the weak to exercise faith instead of dwelling on unworthiness, and faith is a shield guarding the heart from the enemy's fiery temptations. Faith must endure trial rather than let go too soon, as shown when Elijah prayed earnestly seven times before the promised cloud appeared.

In specific answers, earnest trembling faith holding fast like Jacob's struggle brought lifting of discouragement and darkness with spiritual and physical strength for work ahead, the passing of darkness with God's power resting upon those praying specifically for healing and strength in severe weakness in belief the healing would prepare for service, and relief of pain in the left eye and cheek received as blessing from God. The promise belongs to those laboring in humility of mind in harmony with Christ who was meek and lowly, joining faithful study of Scripture with most earnest prayer, cultivating living faith day by day until it becomes certainty that things asked are received, leaning heavily only on God and moving forward now with every talent employed while the end is not yet, including receiving more of the Holy Spirit to work the cities and carrying the message, warnings, and humility and meekness to souls in darkness so sinners are saved through repentance and faith. It also assures two people urged to complete surrender with broken hearts and awareness of sinfulness that as they come to God and trust in Jesus, God's promise will be verified and Jesus will accept, love, and bless them.