Having learned the patience of unanswered prayer and taken their rightful place at the foot of the cross, the Christian is then prepared for the fullness of answered prayer in communion with God. Make no mistake about it, God both hears and answers prayer of those whose heart is right towards Him (James 5:16), of those who delight in Him (Psa 37:4). For these people, prayer is not placing an order to God for a wish-list of worldly wants , but rather a place of fellowship with the most high God. These are people who “Pray without ceasing” (1 The 5:17).
Many a child has asked his father for many a thing, but the child with the right heart towards his father asks the father for more of himself. The child has needs and trusts that his loving father will provide for them, what concerns him most is that the father will share more of himself, and this is what a child who loves his father asks for. This a loving father will most readily share!
The child doesn’t ask someone else’s father to provide more of himself for him simply because that father is not his father and is under no obligation to provide anything for the child. Likewise a child of the devil can hound God with his worldly wish-list until he is blue in the face, but because God is not his Father, He is under no obligation to meet any demand. The problem this person encounters is that he isn’t seeking God Himself; what he is looking for is a servant, expecting God, who is not his Father, to bow to his demands as though He were his Father. These who want nothing of fellowship with the person of God should expect nothing of His benefit.
The provision of the very person of God is reserved for those who are His children, and those alone. These people truly meet God and can say with Isaiah ‘…mine eyes have seen the King…” (Isa 6:5), and this meeting causes drastic change to the heart. It is an alignment of the heart with the will of God which causes us to desire things that God is pleased to provide. The desires of a new heart change prayer from temporal wants to eternal needs. It seeks out how to bring glory to God. It seeks out the most intimate of fellowship with Him. This is the prayer that is answered! And having had the desire for fellowship with the most high God, God as your Father meets other needs as He sees fit.
A person is made a child of God through faith in Lord Jesus Christ. It is trusting Him alone that provides the washing required to bring one into right fellowship with God. For without this washing of the blood of the Lamb applied to us by faith, we belong to a different father and are nought but children of wrath. Yet if a man trust Christ and have his delight in God as his Father, this man shall know the fullness of answered prayer!
Ps 37:4 Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
This message hit the target!
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, or as you explain it so clearly, “seeks out the most intimate of fellowship with Him. ”
Amen