John 15:7
Abiding in Jesus' Word
7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
1 John 5:14-15
Prayer and God's Will
14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him.
Our prayers are our conversations with God...In these verses we see St. John's philosophy on prayer...Prayer is abiding in the words of Jesus and listening to God's will...Now we will not get everything we wish, because many things we want do not abide in the words of Jesus and are not a part of God's will...As St. John wrote his gospel and later wrote his first epistle, maybe his thoughts and thinking on prayer and how we talk to God evolved over time...St. John knows that we are not going to get everything when we pray, but when we abide in the Son's word and follow His Father's will He hears us...Jesus gave John a promise about asking and receiving whatever you wish, when he remain in His words...When we listen consistently to Jesus and what He teaches and abide in His word and trust in His teachings, He hears us...By abiding in His words and His teachings we have a closer union with Him...When our thoughts are in our faith, and our faith is directed by His will and not by our will, our prayers are likely to be answered...
When we abide in His word and practice abiding in His words, this shows our love for Him and we are more obedient to Him - and He listens and says He will answer our prayers (He says ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you)...So we know that He hears us when we are both following His word and following the will of God...And then - whatever we ask - it will get done for us...Then we have this confidence and hope in what we have prayed for...
So when we pray or ask anything of God and it is done according to His will and we are abiding in Jesus' word, we have a prayer of both hope and of confidence...