46. Receive everything asked
Matthew 21:22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.
Mark 11:23-24 Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he said shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith, Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
You already have enough faith, even if it is as small as a mustard seed, for it is God, not faith, that moves mountains.This promise is not urging us to have more faith, or better, or stronger, or deeper faith; it is encouraging us to pray with the faith that the Holy Spirit has already created in us through the Gospel.
This is a really amazing promise that we are reluctant to take at face value because it does not seem to work out in our experience. The hard part is the “whatsoever, or what things soever.” We can all vouch for the fact that we have not received everything for which we have asked; our common experience denies this clear promise of Jesus. All good believers with a simple faith can point to some things that they did not receive when they asked for it with believing prayer. So what gives? Jesus is wrong or I am wrong; it must be my faith since His promise cannot fail. But it is clearly not a weak faith since a little is enough. It is neither His promise nor my faith.
Once again, the promise is given to show us what we cannot see. The truth, often invisible to us, is that God did answer the prayer and move the mountain: it was just not in the way that we wanted or expected, not when we wanted, nor how we expected. God may have done exactly what we asked but we missed it; God may have given something better than we asked; God may have given the actual essence of what we asked for in a different way; God may have granted what we actually needed in place of what we thought we wanted; God may have done His will instead of ours; God may have refused to grant what we asked for because it was not His will and it would not have been good for us. This is why we need this kind of promise and the faith in this promise, because our human vision and understanding is so very limited. With the eyes of faith we see the big picture and we take the long view (eternity) and we declare without a doubt: “God answered me and gave me what I prayed. Even if I cannot see it, I believe it.” Faith is needed, yes, not to get God to do it, but to “see” that He has done it. The faith is in what God has done, not in what He will do.