In the last post we talked about the importance of agreement. We looked at two different people. One chose to come into agreement with Satan’s plan, while the other chose to come into agreement with God’s plan. We learned that doubt is often the seed to coming into agreement with Satan. 

Does Satan still use doubt to push people out of agreement with what God says today? Absolutely! Have you ever heard someone say, “If God is so good and loving, why do so many bad things happen in the world?” How about this one: “Don’t ask God for patience. If you do, he will make your life really hard to teach you patience. You might even get in a car wreck if you ask for patience.” Perhaps you’ve heard, “I’m just a dirty, rotten sinner saved by grace.” Let’s take a look at these and see how Satan has planted doubt into the minds of people. 

Why Do Bad Things Happen 

If God is so good and loving, why do so many bad things happen in the world? When people come into agreement with this lie, they believe the seed of doubt that says, “God isn’t really good and loving.” Maybe this seed grows into a plant that says, “God is evil because he doesn’t stop bad things from happening to good people.” Now that’s some nasty, rotten fruit. 

The truth is God is love (1 John 4:8). God is the righteous judge (Psalm 7:11). As such, God will judge people’s actions, both good and evil, at the end of times. He will judge perfectly, righteously, and lovingly (Revelation 20:12). You must remember that God is omnipresent. He is everywhere all at once, all the time. If you think you have a hard time knowing what evil goes on behind closed doors, just think how God feels as he is with each victim during each evil act. It breaks his heart to be there with each act of violence and violation. This is why he sent his Son to redeem the world. It is his will for everyone to be saved and come into agreement with truth (1 Timothy 2:4). 

We Have Free Will

As a loving God, he gave people free will. Each person has been given the freedom to choose to come into agreement with God’s truth or Satan’s lies. Yes, bad things happen. It is never God’s will that bad things happen. It is always Satan’s will that bad things happen though. We must give credit where credit is due. Evil exists because people freely choose to come into agreement with the lies of Satan. The fruit of this agreement always leads to theft, death, and destruction. The theft may be lost innocence or loss of protection. Death may come in the form of actual death, like convincing someone to commit murder or suicide. However, death may come in the form of death of a dream or an important relationship. 

The fact is Satan doesn’t really care if he steals your life or just steals your purpose. He simply wants everyone to water any seed of doubt to make them question who God really is and what he really says so that they will get off course and miss out on all the goodness God has planned for them. 

Why Ask For Patience

The next lie we are going to discuss is: “Don’t ask God for patience. If you do, he will make your life really hard to teach you patience. You might even get in a car wreck if you ask for patience.” If you have been in Christian circles for long, I’m sure you have heard something to this effect. How does this statement plant seeds of doubt? Well, patience is a Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). This means patience comes from the Holy Spirit. How can the Holy Spirit give anything bad?

Does God ever give bad gifts? Jesus answers this question in Matthew 7:7-9 (ESV), “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (emphasis added)

We are told in this passage to ask, seek, and knock. The result of these actions is our Heavenly Father giving us good gifts. What good gifts does he give? Could patience be one of those good gifts? Definitely! 

What Happens If We Ask For Peace

If you recall, the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Take a look at that list. Can you honestly say, “Don’t ask God for love or peace or self-control or any of the others listed because if you do, you are in for a tough time!” If you ask God to give you peace, do you really believe God is going to throw you all sorts of grief so you can learn peace? How about kindness. Does this sound logical, “I better not ask God for kindness because if I do he will send mean and vicious people my way so I can learn kindness.” Of course you wouldn’t say such things. 

When you ask God to give you peace, you are confident that you will feel his peace fill you. Why do you know this? Because you know God is a good father who gives good gifts to his children. He doesn’t do the old bait and switch with his kids. God never promises one thing only to give something completely opposite of what he said. That would be a lie, and God is incapable of lying. 

It Doesn’t Make Sense

So, now, think about the statement, “Don’t ask God for patience. If you do, he will make your life really hard to teach you patience. You might even get in a car wreck if you ask for patience.” Does that make any sense? No, of course not. We now know God gives good gifts. Patience is a gift from the Holy Spirit, and God never tricks his kids into asking for something only to give them something different.

So if you ask for the good gift of patience, God is going to give you patience. He isn’t going to make life hard just to teach you the lesson of patience. No, he will fill you with patience just when you need it, just like he fills you with his peace when you need it. So go ahead and ask God to give you patience and see what happens. I promise it will be good! 

I’m A Dirty, Rotten Sinner

Finally, we are going to look at the lie: “I’m just a dirty, rotten sinner saved by grace.”  I’ve actually covered this topic before in the “You are a New Creation” and “You are a Daughter of God” posts. The truth is, yes, we all are sinners. Romans 3:23 (ESV) says, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” ‭‭Romans‬ ‭3‬:‭10‬ ‭(ESV‬‬) tells us, “As it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one.” So, yes, we are all sinners. 

However, there is really, really good news. Once you surrender your life to Jesus, he cleanses you from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Psalm 103:2-3 (ESV) tells us, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases” (emphasis added). When God looks at his children, he sees perfection. He doesn’t see any sin. He only sees us as perfectly clean and holy. 

Does this mean we will never sin again once we give our lives to Jesus? No. What it does mean is that we are forgiven and washed clean from every sin we ever have committed and ever will commit. So, yes, it is grace that saves us. Without God’s grace we would be bound to the old law, unable to be cleansed from all sin. The more accurate statement would be, “I was once a sinner, but now I am saved by grace. I am no longer a sinner. I have been made righteous and holy by the blood of Jesus.” 

You Reap What You Sow

We’ve looked at how coming into agreement with falsehoods lead to hardships. When Adam and Eve believed the falsehood that God was holding out on them, they reaped the hardship of leaving the Garden of Eden and being forced to work hard for the things they needed.

We’ve seen how a person is affected by coming into agreement with statements like, “Don’t ask God for patience because bad things will happen to you.” They will reap the fruit of living a life fearful of the good gifts God wants to give to his children. 

What Belief Will Do

Now we are going to look at what happens when we come into agreement with belief. Jesus is the prime example of coming into agreement with whatever the Father said and acting. Do you remember when Jesus was praying right before he was to be arrested, beaten, and killed? What was the request he made to the Father? He said, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” Luke‬ ‭22‬:‭42‬ ‭(ESV). Even though his humanity wanted nothing more to run and hide from the torture he was about to endure, Jesus chose to come into agreement with whatever the Father told him to do. Because Jesus came into agreement with the will of the Father, we have our salvation. ‬‬“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” ‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭15‬:‭22‬ ‭(ESV‬‬)

Agreement Is Key

We have the same freedom to come into agreement with the words of God and reap the fruit of this agreement. We must change the way we think about earthly problems. Doing what Paul says in Romans 12:2 (ESV) is key, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” When we have our minds renewed, we will be able to see problems through the eyes of Jesus. We will see the solution in our minds because we have been transformed to think like God thinks. 

It is through the renewal of our minds that we will be free to see Matthew 18:19 (ESV) come to fruition, “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.” We will be able to ask for anything and see those prayers answered quickly. The prayers we pray will be in complete alignment with the will of God, and thus the answer will be yes. We can only see these sort of powerful answers to prayers when we come into agreement with what God says and stop coming into agreement with unbelief and lies. 

The Truth

The truth is God wants to heal you and your friends and family from all infirmities. It is not his will that we live a life of suffering. He does not give us sickness to teach us lessons. Yes, he can use sickness to teach us things because he has promised to turn everything around for our good (Romans 8:28). Be assured God is not sitting there saying, “I’m going to teach them a lesson. The best way to teach them is for them to suffer.”

Think about it: when you are suffering, are you a better student than when you aren’t suffering? If I’m trying to teach you how to tie your shoe, will you learn better if I’m standing on your hand showing you? No, you will be only thinking about the pain I’m inflicting on you by standing on your hand. Whatever I am saying about how to tie your shoe will be forgotten until the pain stops. God would much rather teach his children without pain. We are better able to hear his voice and understand the lessons if we don’t have pain. 

If you are having trouble believing that God wants to answer all your prayers, go find verses that talk about how God wants to answer prayers. Here are a few to get you started: 

“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)

“And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” Matthew‬ ‭21‬:‭22‬ ‭(ESV)

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” James‬ ‭5‬:‭16‬ (‭ESV)‬‬

Declare God’s Promises

If you don’t know what to pray, go to the Bible and start declaring the promises God gives to his children in prayer. Ephesians is a great place to start. Thank God for the promises he gives you in that book and turn what you read into a prayer with your name inserted. For example you may read: 

“In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.” ‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭1‬:‭11‬-‭12‬ (‭ESV) 

When you pray this, you may say something like: Thank you Jesus that in you I have obtained an inheritance because you have predestined me according to your purpose. Thank you that you work all things according to your counsel and will so that I, who have found hope in you, Christ Jesus, can praise you in all your glory. 

This is how you renew your mind to be like Christ so that you can know what God’s perfect will is. Then you will be able to ask God for anything and you will see those prayers answered. It’s all about agreement. Who are you agreeing with: Jesus or some other person or entity?