Ye Have Not Because Ye Ask Not

James 4:2 "Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war; yet ye have not, because ye ask not."

James 4:3 "Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts."

(Are your motives right - Are you living right)

I heard the story once of a King who decreed that he would take care of all the needs of all those who lived in the Kingdom. If they needed a bag of potatoes for supper all they had to do was get word to the Palace and a bag of potatoes would be dispatched. There was only one stipulation. The one requesting the bag of potatoes had to be there when they arrived. Requesting a bag of potatoes and then going fishing, would void the delivery.

We have not because we ask not? Aren't we in prayer almost all the time? Why then do we not receive as per our Lord's Promise? Did God lie? No, I don't think so.

Christians will pray for one thing or another and then when there is no evidence of answered prayer we fall back on that universally accepted position of.., "Well..., it must not be God's Will". This lets "me" off the hook, it lets "you" off the hook, and it lets "God" off the hook.

It's not the Lord's will for the lost to come to Jesus? It's not the Lord's will to show his majesty and glory by healing the sick?

Maybe we've been asking amiss for so long that when Sister Martha ends up in the hospital with one foot in the grave..., well, we've been asking amiss for so long now that our prayers are just, well..., you know, not taken very seriously? Could be. All to often the only time many come close to the Lord is when they are in a desparate position. Other times, we've just gone fishing.

Last night in our prayer meeting we had a strange request. We have a woman in our Church who's sister is in the hospital that's all most dead. She's in bad shape. She's a Christian but doesn't belong to our church. This woman's sister brought in a shawl belonging to her sister and asked that we pray over it. This was her sister's request.

Our Pastor admitted this was the first time anyone had ever requested that he pray over a piece of "cloth" in all his 35 years of being in the ministry.

Outside of those TV Preachers, who for a tidy sum of $39.95, will send someone a prayer cloth..., yada, yada, yada, this was the first time he had ever been asked to do so.

He was aware, as is recorded in Acts 19:11-12, Paul did so. Verse 11, "And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:

12, So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.

For an hour we gathered at the alter and prayed for this woman's return to health as we passed her shawl (piece of cloth)from one to the other.

A Christian woman asked for special prayer. Odd to us but we honored her request and in the process, decided we would wait for that bag of potatoes to be delivered. Can our Lord cause a special miracle to happen today, as He did in Paul's day? Yes, I believe He can.

I will let you all know of the outcome.

 

To follow up on the lady in the hospital..., as of this morning she hasn't gotten any better and hasn't gotten any worse. No change.

 

"My grace is sufficient for you."

That he did..., and for sure, His Grace is sufficient no matter the situation.

 

Good for you annsni. The Lord Blessed for sure and He got the Glory.

 

UPDATE.

The attending physicians can't seem to understand but this lady has done a turn around and started improving over the past four days. How about that?

She has been in a coma and on life support for the past few weeks. Do to her "unexpected" improvements the Doc's have decided to remove her from the one machine she was on and have connected her to a lesser machine as her breathing has kinda leveled off and working by itself.

To God be the Glory. :thumbsup:

Her name is Kelly Brown should any of desire to add her to your prayer list.

 

This woman mentioned above is starting to come out of her coma. The doctors are baffled. :godisgood: