“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you ” (John 15:7).
The vital connection between the Word and prayer is one of the simplest and earliest lessons of the Christian life. As that newly-converted heathen put it: “I pray-I speak to my Father; I read-my Father speaks to me.” Before prayer, God’s Word strengthens me by giving my faith its justification and its petition. And after prayer, God’s Word prepares me by revealing what the Father wants me to ask. In prayer, God’s Word brings me the answer, for in it the Spirit allows me to hear the Father’s voice.
Prayer is not monologue, but dialogue. Its most essential part is God’s voice in response to mine. Listening to God’s voice is the secret of the assurance that He will listen to mine. “Incline thine ear and hear,” “Give ear to me,” and “Hearken to my voice,” are words which God speaks to man as well as man to God. His hearkening will depend on ours. My willingness to accept His words will determine the power my words have with Him. What God’s words are to me is the test of what He Himself is to me. It shows the uprightness of my desire to meet Him in prayer.
It is this connection between His Word and our prayer that Jesus points to when He says, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” The deep importance of this truth becomes clear if we notice the expression which this one replaces. More than once Jesus had said, “Abide in me and I in you. “His abiding in us was the complement and the crown of our abiding in Him. But here, instead of “Ye in me and I in you, “He says, “Ye in me and my words in you.” The abiding of His words is the equivalent of Himself abiding.
What a view this opens up to us of the place the words of God in Christ are to have in our spiritual lives, especially in our prayer. A man’s words reveal himself. In his promises, he gives himself away, binding himself to the one who receives his promises. In his commands, he proclaims his will, seeking to make himself master of those whose obedience he claims, to guide and use them as if they were part of himself. Through our words, spirit holds fellowship with spirit. If a man’s words are heard, accepted, held fast, and obeyed, he can impart himself to someone else through them. But with human beings, this can happen only in a limited sense.
God, however, is the infinite Being in Whom everything is life, power, spirit, and truth, in the very deepest meaning of the words. When God reveals Himself in His words, He does indeed give Himself- love and His life, His will and His power to those who receive these words, in a reality passing comprehension. In every promise, He gives us the power to grasp and possess Himself. In every command, He allows us to share His will, His holiness, and His perfection. God’s Word gives us God Himself. That Word is nothing less than the Eternal Son, Christ Jesus. Therefore, all of Christ’s words are God’s words, full of a Divine, quickening life and power. “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.”
Those who study the deaf and mute tell us how much the power of speaking depends on that of hearing, and how the loss of hearing in children is followed by a loss of speaking, too. This is also true in a broader sense: Our speech is based on what we hear. In the highest sense, this is true of our conversation with God. To offer a prayer-to utter certain wishes and appeal to certain promises-is an easy thing that man can learn with human intelligence.But to pray in the Spirit-to speak words that reach and touch God, affecting and influencing the powers of the unseen world-depends entirely on our hearing God’s voice. We must listen to the voice and language that God uses and, through the words of God, receive His thoughts, His mind, and His life into our hearts. The extent to which we listen will determine the extent to which we learn to speak in the voice and the language that God hears. The ear of the learner, wakened morning by morning, prepares him to speak to God. (Isaiah 1:4).
This hearing the voice of God is something more than the thoughtful study of the Word. One can study and gain knowledge of the Word having little real fellowship with the living God. But there is also a reading of the Word, in the very presence of the Father and under the leading of the Spirit, in which the Word comes to us in living power from God Himself. It is to us the very voice of the Father, a real, personal fellowship with Himself. The living voice of God enters the heart, bringing blessing and strength, and awakening the response of a living faith that reaches back to the heart of God.
The power both to obey and believe depends on hearing God’s voice this way. The chief thing isn’t knowing what God has said we must do, but that God Himself says it to us. Neither the law nor the book nor the knowledge of what is right works obedience. This can be accomplished only by the personal influence of God through His living fellowship. The presence of God Himself as the Promiser, not the knowledge of what He has promised, awakens faith and trust in prayer. It is only in the full presence of God that disobedience and unbelief become impossible.
“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” In these words, the Savior gives Himself. We must have the words in us taken up into our wills and lives, reproduced in our inner natures and conduct. They must abide in us. Our lives must be one continuous display of the words that fill us. The words reveal Christ inside and our lives reveal Him outside. As the words of Christ enter our very hearts, becoming and influencing our lives, our words will enter His heart and influence Him. My prayer will depend on my life: Whatever God’s words are to me and in me will determine what my words will be to God and in God. If I do what God says, God will do what I say.
The Old Testament saints understood this connection between God’s words and ours quite well. Their prayer really was a loving response to what they had heard God speak. If the word were a promise, they counted on God to do as He had spoken. “Do as Thou hast said”; “For Thou, Lord, hast spoken it”; “According to Thy promise”; “According to Thy word”: In such expressions they showed that what God spoke in promise was the root and the life of what they spoke in prayer. If the word was a command, they simply did as the Lord had spoken: “So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken.” Their lives were fellowship with God, the exchange of word and thought. What God spoke they heard and did; what they spoke God heard and did. In each word, He speaks to us, and the whole Christ gives Himself to fulfill it. For each word, He asks no less than that we give the whole man to keep that word and to receive its fulfillment.”If my words abide in you.” The condition is simple and clear. In His words His will is revealed. As the words abide in me, His will rules me. My will becomes the empty vessel which His will fills, and the willing instrument which His will rules. He fills my inner being. In the exercise of obedience and faith, my will becomes stronger and is brought into deeper inner harmony with Him. Because He can fully trust it to will nothing but what He wills, He is not afraid to give the promise, “If my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” To all who believe it and act upon it, He will make it literally true. Disciples of Christ! While we have been excusing our unanswered prayers with a fancied submission to God’s wisdom and will, the real reason has been that our own feeble lives have been the cause of our feeble prayers! Nothing can make men strong but the word coming from God’s mouth. By that we must live. The word of Christ makes us one with Him and fits us spiritually for touching and taking hold of God. We must love and live in that Word, letting it abide in and become part of us. All that is of the world passes away. Whoever does God’s will lives forever. Let us yield heart and life to the words of Christ, the words in which He gives Himself, the personal living Savior. His promise will become our rich experience: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”
Lord, teach us to pray.
Blessed Lord! I see why my prayer has not been more believing and effective. I was more occupied with my speaking to You than with Your speaking to me. I did not understand that the secret of faith is this: There can be only as much faith as there is of the living Word dwelling in the soul.
Your Word taught me so clearly to be swift to hear and slow to speak, and not to be hasty to say just anything to God. Lord, teach me that it is only when I take Your Word into my life that my words can be taken into Your heart. Teach me that if Your Word is a living power within me, it will be a living power with You, also. Show me that what Your mouth has spoken Your hand will perform.
Lord Jesus! Deliver me from the uncircumcised ear! Give me the opened ear of the learner, wakened morning by morning to hear the Father’s voice. Just as You speak only what You hear from the Father, may my speaking be the echo of Your speaking to me. “When Moses went into the tabernacle to speak with Him, he heard the voice of One speaking unto him from off the mercy seat.” Lord, may it be so with me, too. Let my life and character reveal that Your words abide and are seen in me. May this be my preparation for the complete blessing: “Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” Amen.