Requisites of Acceptable Prayer #6 -Faith

6. Faith. We must believe, (a.) That God is. (b.) That He is able to hear and answer our prayers. (c.) That He is disposed to answer them. (d.) That He certainly answer them, if consistent with His own wise purposes and with our best good. For this faith we have the most express assurances in the Bible. It isnot only said, "Ask, and ye stall receive; seek and ye shall find," but our Lord says explicitly, "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do." (John xiv. 13.) And again, " If two of you stall agree on earth, as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which, is in heaven." (Matt. xviii. 19.) All the promises of God are con­ditional. The condition, if not expressed, is implied. It cannot be supposed that God has subjected Himself in the government of the world, or in the dispensation of his gifts, to the short­sighted wisdom of men, by promising, without condition, to do whatever they ask. No rational man could wish this to be the case. He would of his own accord supply the condition, which, from the nature of the case and from the Scriptures themselves, must be understood. In 1 John v. 14, the condition elsewhere implied is expressed. "This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to his will, He heareth us." The promise, however, gives the assurance that all prayers offered in faith, for things according to the will of God, will he answered. The answer, indeed, may be given, as in the case of Paul when he prayed to be delivered from the thorn in the flesh, in a way we do not expect. But the answer will be such as we, if duly enlightened, would ourselves desire. More than this we need not wish. Want of confidence in these precious promises of God; want of faith in his disposition and readiness to hear us, is one of the greatest and most common defects in the prayers of Christians. Every father desires the confidence of his children, and is grieved by any evidence of distrust; and God is our Father; He demands from us the feelings which children ought to have towards their earthly parents.

From Systematic Theology By Charles Hodge