Does God Answer Prayers?
Most assuredly he does, but his ways are not as our ways. We are at best but children in spiritual things. Yet there is nothing in this world so clear and so well attested by Christian evidence, as that if we pray with believing hearts and in the right spirit, he will hear us and do what is best for us. No such prayer goes unanswered. The answer may not be as we expected, nevertheless it will be for the best and to the purpose. Says Professor Denney: "When we pray in Jesus' name there is nothing which we may not ask. Whatever limitations there may be, they are covered by the name of Jesus itself. We must not ask what is outside of that name, not included in its promise. We must not ask a life exempt from labor, from self-denial, from misunderstanding, from the Cross; how could we ask such things in His Name? But ignoring this self-evident restriction, Jesus expressly, emphatically and repeatedly removes every other limit. There is nothing which the name of Jesus puts into our hearts which we may not, with all assurance, put into our prayers." In his name, we can ask with assurance for pardon from God; we can ask to be strengthened in temptation and to be kept from falling, and restored when through human weakness we do fall, for we have the assurance that he will not let us be utterly cast down; we can ask for the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We can ask that our material wants as well as our spiritual needs may be fully supplied. But, in asking, we must have the faith to lay hold, and when we pray with this faith, we shall never pray amiss.
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