It’s Friday…Ask, Ask, Ask

If a Fortune 500 company trained you to think and act in its interest, and then handed you a pile of signed blank checks, what would you do with them? File them away? No, the temptation to use them for the benefit of the company would be too great. If you are a follower of Christ, that is precisely the honor He has extended to you. Yes, as the “CEO” of His Kingdom He has signed His Name to a stack of checks and handed it to you – to use. Listen to His personal words:

“If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” (John 15:7)

Taken by itself, it’s a sweeping promise. “Whatever you wish,” Jesus tells His followers. He could have told us to say, “not my will but Yours,” but He didn’t. That was for other times and other context. Here, He says, “What is your will? If you could ask Me anything your heart desires, what would it be?” In this promise, our heart as His followers matters.

No doubt, Jesus could have restricted this promise with a few conditions in His following words, if He had wanted to. But we’re given no hint of any backtracking. In fact, He emphasizes it again: “Whatever you ask” (15:16; 16:23), and “ask and you will receive” (16:24). In His last instructions to His disciples before the Crucifixion, Jesus tells them over and over again: Ask, Ask, Ask.

There’s a heart-warming context to all these instructions about prayer. It is the result of an intimate relationship with Him. We are to ask “so that The Father may be glorified in The Son” (14:13). We are to ask in order to “bear much fruit” and thereby glorify The Father (15:8). We are to ask so that “our joy may be complete” (16:24). In the context of a relationship with Jesus in which His words fill us and His personality has mixed and melded with ours, we are given perhaps the world’s most extravagant promise outside of the promise of our salvation. We can ask anything in His Name, for bearing fruit for His Kingdom and bringing glory to Him, and expect Him to answer it. Wow! That’s extraordinary. The “CEO” of The Kingdom of God has signed His Name to a stack of checks and handed it to us to use. So, how are we going to use them?

Have a blessed weekend. Make it better by worshiping The LORD with those who know His heart, and their bold prayers reflect His dreams and desires.

All For Jesus – Nothing More, Nothing Less, Nothing Else.

“He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, The King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see, to Him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.” (1 Timothy 6:15b-16)