This verse ought to take your breath away: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7). The speaker is Jesus and He is making a stunning offer. He, the Lord of the Universe, will put "whatever you wish" on His personal to-do list. You don't get a better prayer guarantee than this.
So what's the catch? It's captured in two conditional clauses that precede the promise: (1) "If you abide in me," and (2) "[if] My words abide in you." The promise is only relevant to those who meet these two prerequisites: They must be living "in Jesus" and His words must be living in them. Jesus is describing someone whose entire approach to life is defined by a devotion to Jesus and His Word.
The reward ("Jesus will do whatever you wish") is too great for us to ignore the prerequisite. So how, exactly, can we meet it? Here is one practical step: Learn how to pray "Word driven prayers." These are prayers that are informed by what the Bible says. They are NOT a mere dressing up of personal desires in Bible lingo. They ARE prayers which use the Bible to identify Jesus' desires and then declare, "That's what I want. too." In John 15:7, Jesus is describing the power of prayer when a man's (or woman's) heart beats in unison with His.
I have prepared a little booklet called "Only by the Hand of God," which gives you some examples of these kinds of prayers. Click here to download a copy. It uses Scripture to identify the things that matter to Jesus and express those desires in simple prayers tailored to different situations. This is NOT a prayer book - but an illustration of a kind of praying that occurs when the Word abides in us and leaks out in our prayers, the kinds of prayers of which Jesus says, "Now that's a prayer I want to answer."
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