May 5 – Most Assuredly, Ask and Believe

Hope for Today: A Daily Devotion from Reasons for Hope*Jesus

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“Whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.” Mark 11:24

“Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” John 16:23-24

“But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.” James 1:6-7

Herod promised with an oath to give the daughter of Herodias whatever she would ask, even to the half of his kingdom. How advantageous was his promise! But how much more so that of the Lord!

“By myself, I have sworn,” says He, that “blessing I will bless you” (Genesis 22:16-17).

When God bids us ask, He does not lay us under a restriction of not asking above half a kingdom. No, we may ask a whole kingdom, even the kingdom of Heaven, consisting both of grace and glory. Both are purchased for us by the blood of the Lamb. Both are promised to believers in the word of the gospel. And both are actually bestowed: grace upon praying souls in the Church militant and gory upon praising souls in the Church triumphant.

If now we do not enjoy the kingdom of grace, righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, it is merely because we have not asked, or have asked amiss — that is, without faith, or in our own name, and not in the all-prevailing name of Jesus. Spirit of prayer, dwell in my heart!

Devotion by Karl Heinrich von Bogatzky (1690—1774)