Rabbi Schneider — Lovingkindness (06/15/2017)

Have you ever felt like God doesn't hear your prayers? Beloved, in this important series called Prayers That Resonate With God, God is gonna give you a new confidence that he both hears you and is answering your prayers. Join me for today's episode.

Welcome today to this edition of Discovering the Jewish Jesus. We're in the midst of a series entitled, Prayers That Resonate With God. You know Davie said, thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

We're looking in Scripture at the prayers of the patriarchs right now and we're seeing what they prayed and seeing how God responded. And this gives us great confidence because when we see the prayers of the writers of Scripture and how their prayers moved God's heart and how God answered those prayers, it gives us greater confidence to know when we're praying similar type of prayers the Lord is both hearing and answering these prayers, when we're praying from the heart, beloved, in the Spirit of God.

This series, once again, called Prayers That Resonate With God, it's really taken from the concept that we read about in the Book of John, chapter 5, verse 14.

This is the confidence that we have, that if we ask Him anything according to His will, He hears us and the prayers that we ask, He's granted

And so when we're asking God for the things that he desires us, desires for us, we can be assured, beloved, that he is gonna answer those prayers. Jesus said, you have not because you ask not.

There's a balance between praying and asking for something, and then also taking faith a step further, by confessing those things that we're asking for. And sometimes we can make the mistake of just presuming upon God, just declaring things that, that, that we, that we say we're possessing without asking him first.

This can be presumption because Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God. We have to start out in a posture of humility. We have to start out asking. Jesus said, ask and you shall receive. Jesus said, you have not because you haven't asked. He said, ask me that your joy might be made full.

But once we ask, and we know that we've asked him according to his will, then God wants us to take that next step of faith and confess that we have those things that we've asked for and we thank him that we are in possession of those things.

You see, Jesus said, if we ask the Lord for something, get it now, believing that we have received it, believing that we have it, then the things that we asked for, he said, we can be assured that we'll have.