Have you ever thought of the people whose mobile number you have? In today’s world, having someone’s mobile number is the key to direct access. Your message bypasses the inbox, which might be screened by an assistant or a staffer. It goes directly to the device that the person likely holds in their very own hand.
But that’s not the REAL test of access. The real test is the answer to this question: “Will they take my call?” I have some rather significant cell phone numbers in my phone. Rather amazing ones, actually. The list includes one current and several former heads of state, some celebrities of note, Archbishops galore, and a fairly broad mix of CEOs. But, to be brutally honest, I have no misconceptions about whether they would take a call from me. Some would, of course. By and large, the first words out of their mouth if they looked down at their phone and saw my name on the call screen would more likely be “Who’s that?” not “I’ve got to take this!”
Our verse today says:
THE LORD IS FAR FROM THE WICKED BUT HE HEARS THE PRAYERS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, many of us have caller information that blips onto our phone screen when we receive a call. There are some calls I will interrupt anything to take. It makes no difference what I am doing when my wife calls me; I stop it and take the call. Period. My phone goes into silent mode automatically each evening at a pre-set time, but I’ve set up a list of people on my phone that ring through 24 hours a day. I want my wife, my kids and a few select folk to be able to reach me day or night, but that list is quite small. I’d imagine that your 24-hour access list is pretty small, too.
I have some very good news for you!! You can be on God’s 24-hour access list.
When someone confesses with their mouth that Jesus is their Lord and believes with all their heart that God raised Him from the dead, a whole lot of wonderful things happen. First of all, He wipes your slate clean of every sin; paid in full by the blood of Christ shed upon the cross. He exchanges our failures and filth for His righteousness. He re-creates a living spirit within you, and places His Holy Spirit upon you as a seal. The most amazing part of it all, from my perspective, is that He chooses to adopt you into His family. You become His son or daughter; one of His kids.
Like any good parent, God the Father listens when His kids call. Your relationship places you among “the righteous” and gives you access.
THE LORD IS FAR FROM THE WICKED BUT HE HEARS THE PRAYERS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
God loves it when we come to Him in faith and present our needs. He tells us to ask so that we can receive, to seek so that we can find, and to knock so that He can open doors for us. He loves it when we ask in childlike faith. Since He knows all things, He knows what we will ask for and when we will ask; so our asking is not “new information” for Him. Yet He is blessed when we ask, because good fathers love to give good things to their children. Even before the words are on our lips He is planning the answer to our prayer. God told the prophet Isaiah how ready He is to act on behalf of His children and told him, “Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.”
As they were gathered around the table for The Last Supper, Jesus said, “Whatever you ask of the Father in my name, He will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” Did you catch that?? God wants us to ask Him to bless us. God wants our joy to be full.
So how do you know what to ask for? What does it mean to ask “in His name?”
It probably won’t come as a shock to learn that you can’t just pray for whatever happens to pop into your head at any given moment, tack on “three magic words” at the end like some sort of an incantation and expect that the Almighty God will hop to it and immediately grant your every whim. God is the King of Kings who lives in His heavenly realms of glory, not the genie who lives in your bottle. The Lord’s prayer does NOT begin with the phrase “Our Butler, who waits in heaven …”
When our heart is focused upon Him, His Kingdom and His glory then our personal desires fade. We want what HE wants. We who serve Him know that we do not see well, and in some cases we may not even see at all. So we ask Him to give us the desires of our heart. In other words, we ask God to take what HE sees as needful and beneficial and to place THOSE THINGS into our hearts. We ask Him to bring our hearts into line with His, and place what He desires deep within us so that we want it, too.
As we do, then we come to Him with prayers that are in line with His. Prayers that sound more like, “Use me to advance Your Kingdom, my Lord” than “Give me these seventy-five things now.”
Here’s an example that may shed more light on asking and acting “in His name.” Let’s assume that in the next election of your country, the person elected as head of state is someone you know, trust and respect. After they have taken office, they call you to come to the White House, or 10 Downing Street, or whatever the equivalent building is in your nation. You are asked to travel as their personal and special envoy to a particular place and deliver a message of importance. As you go, you would be going “in their name.” In a very real way, it is not “you” who are going; it is the one who sent you. You can be sure that the message you are delivering is one they will stand behind, because THEY gave it to you. You stand in their stead, deliver their message and speak with their authority on that matter.
You do not, of course, have the right to change the message or the terms. You certainly can’t just make up your own message and claim that the President or Prime Minister has said it. And, even if you did, they would not be bound to stand behind it.
God gives us the desires of our heart, and then invites us to participate in accomplishing the advancement of the Kingdom of Heaven. He gives us gifts – time, talent and treasure – to invest in making the answers to our prayers effective tools for the advancement of His Kingdom. That’s the message behind the bible’s correction we find in the Book of James. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. God hasn’t promised to fulfill our own personal list of wishes and wants. He HAS promised to use us in ways much more significant and eternal than representing some mere earthly monarch as we seek Him and serve Him with all our hearts.
So let’s determine to SEEK HIM today. Let’s ask Him to give us the desires of our hearts, so that we will want what we OUGHT to want and can fulfill the plan He made for us before the creation of the universe. He has a plan for your life, and unfulfilled purposes He desires you to walk in. Ask Him to show you. Ask Him to give those things to you. Ask Him to use you.
Call upon the Lord today. He will take your call.
THE LORD IS FAR FROM THE WICKED BUT HE HEARS THE PRAYERS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
