John15:7 “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”
If you are abiding in Jesus and His words abide in you, they teach us to pray in accordance with the will of God. Abiding in Jesus our self-will is kept down to a minimum, and the thoughts and wishes of nature are brought into captivity to the thoughts and wishes of Jesus. Like mindedness to Him grows in us, and we are transformed in harmony with Him. There is deep and renewed searching of our hearts to be sure that our surrender has been a full one; there is fervent prayer to the heart searching Spirit so that we hold nothing back. Everything is yielded to the power of His life in us, that even ordinary wishes and desires are in accordance with His will. The Holy Spirit breathes through our whole being, and without even knowing it His will becomes our will. Jesus renews and sanctifies the will; we ask, we will and it is given to us.
In connection with abiding in Jesus is the teaching that in prayer we seek only the glory of God. In promising to answer prayer, His one thought is this in John 14:3 “that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” In His intercession on earth in John 17, His one desire was that the Father would be glorified in the Son; in His intercession in heaven it is still His one desire. As the believer abides in Jesus, He breathes this same desire into us. The thought, “only the glory of God,” becomes more and more the thrust of the life abiding in Jesus. One of the first conditions of acceptable prayer is fulfilled when the whole mind is brought into harmony with that of the Son as He said in John 12:28 “Father, glorify thy name.”
Abiding in Jesus grows in us faith that can obtain an answer. Matt. 9:29 “According to your faith be it unto you”; this is one of the laws of God. Mark 11:24 “Believe that ye receive . . . and ye shall have.” This faith rests and is rooted in the Word. God has promised, I will obtain. Without fasting and prayer, without humility and a spiritual mind, without wholehearted obedience, there can be no living faith. As the soul abides in Jesus and grows in the knowledge of its union with Him and sees how entirely it is Him that makes it acceptable, it dares to claim an answer because you are one with Him.
Abiding in Jesus keeps us in the place where the answer can be given. Some people pray for the answer but when God comes looking for them to bless them, they are not there to be found. They never thought about waiting for the answer. The place to receive answers is in Jesus, outside of Jesus the answer would be dangerous (James 4:3). Abiding in Jesus is the condition of power in prayer, because the answer is in Him.
Abide in Jesus, because in Him there is mighty, effectual, answer bringing prayer. In Jesus you will learn that to many what is a great mystery: the secret of the prayer of faith is the life of faith.
Dale
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