prayer

If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
(Matthew 21 v 22)

Do we believe this statement from Scripture?

How many times have you asked in prayer for something and not received it? I am sure most of us can honestly answer, quite a few times. Yet Scripture says If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
(Matthew 21 v 22)

So can we say that we don't get because we don't believe? I think we would be wrong to come to that conclusion but I believe we have to think about what we are praying for.

1. Will it bring glory to God
2. Will it further His kingdom

For me these are the two questions we must ask ourselves.

I am sure we are all aware of the "name it and claim it" preaching that goes on within some churches but is that really what this passage is teaching?
I know for sure that I prayed 2 times with all my heart and never got what I asked. The death of my father and mother. I begged God to make them well again but sadly they both died. Now did I pray with faith and total belief that God would heal them? I am positive that I did!
Yet God did not heal them and they died. So can I conclude that God never answered my prayers? At first glance yes but if I look a little deeper I have to ask myself, "was it better for them to die and meet God or keep them here were they may have went on to suffer because of their illness"?

How can I really answer that, but what I can say is; that God knows better than me what was the right outcome.
I believe that praying in faith brings us to deeper faith even if our prayers are not answered in the way that we desire. If we look at the lords prayer for a moment "Thy will be done"
So when we are praying we are praying that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Yet we tend to forget that when we pray and seek our own desires and our own will.

As we grow in faith our desire is that God's will is done in our lives and the more we grasp that the more content we become in serving the One True God.

Be blessed