John 15:7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
Charles Spurgeon states, “Power in prayer is the focus of our text and is considered through three questions. First, what is this special blessing? “Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” Second, how is this special blessing obtained? “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you.” Third, why is it obtained in this way? There are reasons for the conditions laid down as needful to obtaining the promised power in prayer. I trust that the anointing of the Holy Spirit will add to this subject to make it very profitable.”
The Lord warned previously that apart from Him you can do nothing. Nothing is what rocks dream about. Yet we have people that try to do everything apart from the Lord Jesus. It would seem that one would expect Jesus to teach His disciples at this time (Judas wasn’t present), how they might do spiritual acts, but does He? He doesn’t speak of what they would be enabled to do, but what would be done to them. The focus is not that they would be given strength to do holy or spiritual things they could not do apart from Him, although that is true. But the exercise of prayer would be the fruit of abiding in Christ. Again, Spurgeon states, “Prayer comes spontaneously from those who abide in Jesus. Prayer is the natural outgushing of a soul in communion with Jesus. As the leaf and fruit come out of the vine branch without any conscious effort and simply because of its living union with the stem, so prayer buds and blossoms and fruits out of souls abiding in Jesus. As stars shine, do abiders pray.”
Prayer is not something to check off on our spiritual checklist like brushing one’s teeth or taking out the garbage. It is a necessary response to the soul that abides in Christ. The hungry eat, the thirsty drink, the cold seek warmth, and the abiding soul eats, drinks, and seeks the warmth in Christ through prayer. Perhaps you have felt like one chosen but frozen in your prayers. The flow of water was frozen, seemingly immovable. The fruit of abiding is liberty in prayer, “ask what you will“. Herein is the golden scepter extended, for all those covered by the righteous robes of Christ, by the blood of The Lamb. The Lord will in no wise turn away His bride. As the bride abides in the groom, so must we abide in Christ, and find all our delight in Him, and so receive the desires of our hearts, which conform to the desires of His heart. We come continually, “whatever you ask“, not just on special occasions, but daily. We have a privilege, honor, and delight in prayer, and so be lead by the Holy Spirit of God in all our communion with our God and Savior.
Soli Deo Gloria: How is your abiding factor? Do you treat prayer like a task on the checklist, or is it an outgushing of your abiding in Christ?
(Inspired by Charles Spurgeon)