When Jesus says it ONCE, that is enough. When He repeats it TWELVE TIMES, it should be more than enough to make things perfectly clear - "Asking" moves the hand of God. "Ask," the single word in the blue column above, is found in each of the dozen passages in the left column. This word constitutes the simple sum of our part of an equation. We do the asking (blue column), then God does the doing (lavender column). (By the way, you can download an expanded and printable copy of this nifty table by clicking here.) So when we want to see what can only be explained by the hand of God, our part is simple: Ask! James explains the flip side, "You do not have because you do not ask" (James 4:2).
Note three categories of information from this table that expand our understanding of "askology." (1) The One to whom our requests are directed is identified as the Father (3 times) or the Son (1 time). (2) The domain of what we can ask for is wide open, "anything," "whatever" or "whatever you wish," and "all things." Seems pretty simple, so far. (3) But HOW we ask is qualified by several phrases including "in My name," and "in prayer, believing." The clause, "if you abide in Me, and My words abide in you," appears in John 15:7 as a prerequisite for effective requests.
We are left with an inescapable conclusion: Not all requests are created equal. Those which meet the conditions in the "qualifier" column are answered by the Father's pleasure to act. No such guaranty is extended to requests that fail the "qualifier" test. Asking God matters, we can ask Him for anything, but how we ask makes all the difference between "do" and "not do." So what does such an art of asking look like, anyway?
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