“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
– John 15:7
John 15:7 is the verse that’s really the core of this whole podcast. Of every single one of these episodes, reading God’s word and then praying God’s word. Why do we do that? Because Jesus said, “If you remain, abide in me, and my words are abiding, remaining in you, then ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.”
This Verse Reminds Us to Live in Accordance with His Word
The key to experiencing what God wants for us in prayer is asking God in accordance with His Word. Lord, help Your Word to abide in us that we may confidently call out to You according to Your Word.
So the key to prayer is the word of Jesus abiding in us. The key to experiencing what God wants us to experience in prayer, to receiving what we ask for in prayer, is asking according to His word. So the beauty here is, and what this whole podcast is designed to do, is to say, “When we ask for things according to God’s word, we can know we have what we’ve asked for. Ask whatever you wish and it’ll be done for you.” Clearly not a promise that you just ask for anything you desire, anything that comes to your mind, and it will be done for you, like God is a genie who will just grant whatever you wish, no.
But the picture is when His word is abiding in us. When we’re asking for things according to God’s word, or asking for what we want based on God’s word, grounded in what He has said, then we have freedom to ask in confidence that He will answer. Confident that we can ask whatever we wish, when our wishes align with His word, and it will be done for you.
John 15:7 Leads Us to Ask God to Teach Us
So we pray, God, teach us to pray like this, teach us to experience all that you have for us in prayer. Help us to abide in you and we pray that your words would indeed abide in us. Oh God, help us, in a Joshua 1 kind of way to meditate on your word day and night, that it becomes a part of us. To memorize it, to study it, to digest it, so that it penetrates our hearts and our minds, so that it saturates our lives, and so that we pray according to it.
God, we pray that you would teach us to pray according to your word. We know you promise to answer that prayer. You will help us pray according to your word. You want this to happen, you want it to happen more than we do. God, we praise you for your word. It is filled with so much promise, so many good commands, so many glorious instructions for our lives, for our good. So many warnings. So many corrections and convictions in it.
All those things we read about in 2 Timothy 3. Your word trains us, rebukes us, corrects us, conforms us into the righteousness of Jesus. May your word do all this in us, in a way that totally transforms our prayer lives. God, teach us to pray your word. Teach us to pray according to your word. And as we do, to know that we have whatever we ask for when we do.
This Verse Leads Us to Thank God
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you for this privilege of prayer, for the privilege of your word. I think about Deuteronomy, what God is there in heaven or on earth, who has given such good commands to His people as our God has given to us? Thank you, thank you, thank you for your word. Thank you for the way it drives us to pray. And for the way it gives us confidence in prayer. As we pray and we ask according to your word, we will have whatever we wish for. Praise you for that promise in John 15:7. In your name, we pray, Jesus, Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
