Tonight’s Bible study looked at 1 John 5:13-18. Strictly speaking, verse 13 belongs more to the previous section, when John is writing about the testimony God has, namely that life is in the Son. His aim in writing is that we may know we have eternal life. Once more, he is full of assurance and confidence, which is not at all the same as arrogance; as John Stott writes, “certainty and humility do not exclude one another.” The certainty and assurance of believers rests in the promises of God’s Word and not merely in subjective feelings; John has given them throughout the previous chapters 3 criteria (doctrinal, moral, social) by which to test themselves and others. The purpose is to establish their assurance.
1 John 4:14-17 goes on to look at how this assurance helps us in prayer. We have confidence to approach God, knowing that He hears us (see Ps 116:2, Ps 34:15, John 9:31). Just as Jesus prayed before Lazarus was raised to life again (John 11:41-42) with confidence that His Father always heard Him, so our relationship with our heavenly Father means our prayers of faith mean we believe in order to see (see Mark 11:24). The key condition to answered prayer, of course, is that we pray according to God’s will (see Matt 6:10), remembering that unconfessed sin hinders our prayers (Ps 66:18-19) and that prayer is rooted in relationship (with God and with others, see John 15:17, Matt 5:23-25, 1 Pet 3:1-7).
Some may well ask if it is God’s will for us to receive answered prayer, why do we have to bother asking in the first place? Warren Wiersbe writes ‘Prayer is the way God wants His children to get what they need.’ We pray in obedience to God’s commands and because our wills are aligned with His as we pray.Jesus prayed. He depended on prayer. He arose early in the morning to pray (Mark 1:35). He spent whole nights in prayer (Luke 6:12). He prayed with strong crying and tears. (Heb 5:7) If the sinless Son of God needed to pray, how much more do we?