Are You Making Proper Requests?

Lesson #243

All of our lessons from chapter 15 have to do with bearing fruit. John began with an example from agriculture to help us better understand the process of bearing fruit. From this example, in which the branch must abide in the vine in order to bear fruit, John extends the concept to us as believers abiding in Jesus in order to bear fruit. Anyone who does not abide in Jesus will not bear fruit and that person is unsaved and headed to the fire of hell.

We now come to a verse that has been misunderstood and misused; “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 ESV). This verse begins with two conditions, which must be met if the expected results are to be obtained. First, the person making the request must abide in Jesus Christ and therefore must be a believer. Second, that believer must meet the conditions of 2 Timothy 2:15: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (NKJV). As we abide in Jesus, we draw life and light from him and as we abide in the word, we grow spiritually and become more and more like him in how we live and how we think.

Besides these two conditions there is another one of equal importance that most Bible students don’t think about. Always, and I mean always, stop and understand the context in which you find the verse. The western believer lives so far from the context of the Bible that little thought is given to context and as a result many verses end up being abused. The verse we are studying is clearly in the context of bearing fruit. The command is to bear fruit and as much as you can. Therefore, as a believer who is abiding in the word, you will be applying this verse in the context of bearing fruit. You can ask for anything you wish that you need to help you bear more fruit. Remember, God the Father chose you and caused you to be born again unto obedience to him in doing your assigned work, which relates in some form to fruit bearing. The general focus of the western believer is so far off that we live like those in the world and we use verses like this one to enhance our own comfort or position in the world. If we were to adjust our focus to meet the context of the Bible and actually apply the word from the context from which it was written your life would probably be quite different and you would probably be suffering in the face of persecution.

Prayer

Father, it is verses like this one that point out the importance of context. If we abide in Jesus and through faithful Bible study, his words abide in us and we are at work in some aspect of fruit bearing, then we can ask for whatever we want that will help us in this process and he will answer us. Father, when I watch spiritual darkness deepening in America I fear that one day we will wake up to horrible suffering because we haven’t been living out the theme of this lesson. We need to walk with the Lord in some aspect of bearing fruit, not with the world and its things.