Because Ye Ask Amiss

Parents have to make some very difficult decisions at times.  God designed it that way so that we would understand His role as our Father.  No parent wants to withhold good things from their children; yet not all things that our children ask of us are good for them.  We have but a few short years to train up our children; only a whisper of time that we can protect them from wrong desires and pulls of the world. 

Even though we are parents, we are still children of our Heavenly Father.  At times we forget this and wonder if God has forgotten us, because we ask for things, praying years, with specific petitions that remain seemingly unanswered.  God tells us in James the reason:

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

Because we ask amiss; we don’t receive.  The word amiss is an obsolete word and unfamiliar in common conversation today.  It means to ask badly, wrongly or to go astray in asking.  Our lives are not our own.  We have been bought with the blood of Jesus Christ.  We belong to him. 

“For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's” (1 Corinthians 6:20)

We need to ask ourselves, what is the purpose of the things that we desire and ask of God?  Are we aligning ourselves with God’s will for our lives?  God called Israel out of the world to be separate.  When they went back into the world, time and time again: God called it adultery.  The same is with God’s spiritual people, the Church.  We have been called out to be separate from the world; to be holy.  This command from God never changes.

“Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16).

When asking God for something, we need to ask the question, will this bring me closer to God or lead me further from God; closer to His holiness or closer to worldliness.  James explains what it means to ask amiss in verse 4 of James 4:

“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).

Jesus told his disciples that they had to choose whom they would serve, because they could not serve two masters.

“No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13).

God does not play second fiddle.  He commands first place, first priority in our lives.  He is the way and there is but one way and we have been called to it.

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”

(John 14:6).

When we find ourselves not receiving the things from God that we ask for; then we need to ask ourselves, “Am I asking within God’s will?”  In a recent message at CLUPC, we learned how we are to be the Word in the flesh, how we are to be the walking, breathing Gospel of Jesus Christ today.  If we are still struggling with worldly pursuits, then we will be asking and praying amiss.  We have been called to focus our lives on the Gospel, which is; the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We enter the Gospel by; repentance, baptism in Jesus name and baptism in the Holy Ghost, with evidence of speaking in tongues.

Prayer:  Lord Jesus, help me to walk in your holiness.  Help me to be a child of God that will be a help to be in alignment with your will for my life.  Open a door to ministry that is your choosing.  Lead me to that which you are blessing.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.