John 11:22 "Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You."

Lazarus had died and his grieving sister, Martha confronted Christ asking why He was not there. If Jesus had come earlier, beloved Lazarus would not have died. If she had stopped there, it would have been normal. Jesus could have healed Lazarus and stopped the sickness, but now Jesus is too late because Lazarus is dead. Yet Martha follows up her comment with a statement of great faith. “Even now I know that whatever you ask of God, He will give you.” She – the workaholic, the one who was a perfectionist, who berated her sister, Mary, for sitting at Jesus feet rather than clean and care for the guests – had complete faith that Christ was in control of everything. Later on in John 16:23-24 Jesus tells his disciples that whatever they ask of Father God in Christ’s name, it will be so. He gave them (and us) this same privilege that He had. He held nothing back, not His life, not His blood, not His relationship with God, not His status of Son of God!

How is it that Christ had such great control? How is it that everything Christ asked God for came? It is because Jesus Christ knew the Father. Jesus was in tune with God’s good and perfect holy will. God does not grant us every request we pray or ask for because not every request is good for us. Not everything we ask for is in God’s will for our lives. If we ask for anything while completely submerged in God’s will then it shall happen!

Jesus knew God’s will, the Father’s desires, intimately because Jesus spent time with our blessed Father. Because Jesus was immersed in God, everything Jesus desired began as God our Father’s desire!

How then can we know the Father better? How can we too be not just at the whim of His will, but immersed completely in it – to the point that we begin to understand it?

We too must spend time with God. We must study His word. We must study Christ. We must live and apply the word, we must live and apply Christ! If we say that there is only Christ, that He is our all, then why do we not act like it? Should Christ be our all, how then can we fall, stumble, fail, even sin? We are human. This is no excuse. We fall because we spend less time with God than we should. The less time we spend immersed in God, the more time we have to get ourselves in trouble through the flesh! We stop trying to know Him further and thus we loose our harmony with Him.

When we are living wholly in Christ. When we completely allow God’s desires to overcome us and overwhelm us, then all we ask for shall be granted because it is entirely from God!

God is our doting Father, Jesus is the beloved Son; we too are privileged to be called sons and daughters of Christ. We are therefore siblings of Christ! Let us therefore with all effort hasten to attempt to completely immerse ourselves in God, no matter the worldly cost.

MAY I speak each day according to Thy justice,
Each day may I show Thy chastening, O God;
May I speak each day according to Thy wisdom,
Each day and night may I be at peace with Thee.