Lesson 73: Obedience the Path to Power in Prayer, part 1
John 15:16 - You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
James 5:16 - …The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
The promise of the Father’s giving whatsoever we ask is here once again renewed, in such a connection as to show us to whom it is that such wonderful influence in the council chamber of the Most High is to be granted. “I chose you,” the Master says, “and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain;” and then He adds, to the end “that whatsoever you,” the fruit-bearing ones, “shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it to you.” This is nothing but the fuller expression of what He had spoken in the words, “If you abide in me.” He had spoken of the object of this abiding as the bearing “fruit,” “more fruit,” “much fruit;” in this was God to be glorified, and the mark of discipleship seen. No wonder that He now adds, that where the reality of the abiding is seen in fruit abounding and remaining, this would be the qualification for praying so as to obtain what we ask. Entire consecration to the fulfilment of our calling is the condition of effectual prayer, and is the key to the unlimited blessings of Christ’s wonderful prayer-promises.
There are Christians who fear that such a statement is contrary with the doctrine of free grace. But surely not of free grace rightly understood, nor with so many specific statements of God’s blessed word. Take the words of John (1 John 3:22) “and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.” Or take the often-quoted words of James as we read above - that is, of a man of whom, according to the definition of the Holy Spirit, it can be said, “He that does righteousness, is righteous even as He is righteous.” Mark the spirit of so many of the Psalms, with their confident appeal to the integrity and righteousness of the supplicant. In Psalm 18, David says: “The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands He rewarded me.... I was upright before Him, and I kept myself from iniquity: therefore the Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness.” (Psalm 18:20-26. See also Psalm 7:3-5; 15:1, 2; 18:3, 6; 26:1-6; 119:121, 153.) If we carefully consider such words in the light of the New Testament, we shall find them in perfect harmony with the teaching of the Savior’s parting words: “If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love;” “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” The word is indeed meant literally: “I appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, that,” then, “whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, He may give it you.”
Prayer: Blessed Master, teach me to understand fully what I only partly realize, that it is only through the will of God, accepted and acted out in obedience to His commands, that we obtain the power to grasp His will in His promises and fully to appropriate them in our prayers. And teach me that it is in the path of fruit-bearing that the deeper growth of the branch into the Vine can be perfected, and we gain the perfect oneness with Yourself in which we ask whatsoever we will.