How Much More
On the infinite Fatherliness of God and certainty of an answer to prayer
Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! Mat 7:9-11 NKJV
When we ask with child-like faith, our Father answers with good gifts
As Andrew Murray teaches, Jesus’ words confirm what He had said of the certainty of an answer to prayer. To remove all doubt, and show us on what sure ground His promise rests, He appeals to what every one has seen and experienced here on earth. We are all children, and know what we expected of our fathers. We are fathers, or continually see them; and everywhere we look upon it as the most natural thing there can be, for a father to hear his child. And the Lord asks us to look up from earthly parents, of whom the best are but evil, and to calculate HOW MUCH MORE the heavenly Father will give good gifts to them that ask Him. Jesus would lead us up to see, that as much greater as God is than sinful man, so much greater our assurance ought to be that He will more surely than any earthly father grant our childlike petitions. As much greater as God is than man, so much surer is it that prayer will be heard with the Father in heaven than with a father on earth.
But, to receive good gifts the child must be living in loving, obedient faith
The Lord would remind us that the prayer of a child owes its influence entirely to the relation in which he stands to the parent. The prayer can exert that influence only when the child is really living in that relationship, in the home, in the love, in the service of the Father. The power of the promise, Ask, and it shall be given you, lies in the loving relationship between us as children and the Father in heaven; when we live and walk in that relationship, the prayer of faith and its answer will be the natural result.
And so the lesson we have today in the school of prayer is this: Live as a child of God, then you will be able to pray as a child, and as a child you will most assuredly be heard.
We see this child-like faith in the teachings of the Sermon
To see what this childlike living is, in which childlike asking and believing have their ground, we have only to notice what our Lord teaches in the Sermon on the Mount of the Father and His children. In it the prayer-promises are embedded in the life-precepts; the two are inseparable…It is as if in speaking the word, Ask, and you shall receive, He says: I give these promises to those whom in the beatitudes I have pictured in their childlike poverty and purity, and of whom I have said, They shall be called the children of God'; to children, who let your light shine before men, so that they may glorify your Father in heaven;' to those who walk in love, that you may be children of your Father which is in heaven,' and who seek to be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect'; to those whose fasting and praying and giving is not before men, but before your Father which sees in secret'; who forgive even as your Father forgives you'; who trust the heavenly Father in all earthly need, seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness'; who not only say, Lord, Lord, but do the will of my Father which is in heaven'.
Such are the children of the Father, and such is the life in the Father's love and service; in such a child-life answered prayers are certain and abundant 1
How much more will our Father give good gifts to His children who ask. Let us endeavor to live, love, and obey as children of God, and ask of the Father.
[This is part one of the lesson, part two is Thursdays newsletter]
LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.
Blessed Lord! You know that this, though it be one of the first and simplest and most glorious lessons in Your school, is to our hearts one of the hardest to learn: we know so little of the love of the Father. Lord! teach us so to live with the Father that His love may be to us nearer, clearer, dearer, than the love of any earthly father.
And let the assurance of His hearing our prayer be as much greater than the confidence in an earthly parent, as the heavens are higher than earth, as God is infinitely greater than man. Lord! show us that it is only our unchild-like distance from the Father that hinders the answer to prayer, and lead us on to the true life of God's children.
Lord Jesus! it is father-like love that wakens childlike trust. O reveal to us the Father, and His tender, pitying love, that we may become childlike, and experience how in the child-life lies the power of prayer.
Blessed Son of God! the Father loves You and hath given You all things. And You love the Father, and have done all things He commanded You, and therefore have the power to ask all things. Lord! give us Your own Spirit, the Spirit of the Son. Make us childlike, as You were on earth. And let every prayer be breathed in the faith that as the heaven is higher than the earth, so God's Father-love, and His readiness to give us what we ask, surpasses all we can think or conceive. Amen
Praying the Word of God on behalf of the People of God
Monday - Galatians 5:22 - love, joy, and peace
Tuesday - Galatians 5:22 - patience, kindness, and goodness
Wednesday - Galatians 5:22 - faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control
Until Thursday, grace and peace
Edited and formatted from With Christ in the School of Prayer By Andrew Murray, SIXTH LESSON, pp 30-35, Fleming H. Revell - Public Domain - NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO - Fleming H. Revell Company Publishers of Evangelical Literature.
Photo by Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash