So I read a little bit from John chapter 16. It's a phenomenally important chapter of which one isn't right? Uh I had some specific thoughts in mind. So I wanna start from verse 22. The Lord is speaking to the disciples and he's forewarning them about a time of trouble that is near at hand. He says,
and you now therefore have sorrow, but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoice in your joy. No man taketh from you before we proceed. I want to jump to the last verse in the chapter. He says these things I have spoken unto you that in me, you might have peace in the world. You shall have tribulation
, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. And so he tells them that they're gonna have problems when he leaves. But he also describes a time when those problems would be superseded, superseded by a different, a different environment when they will meet him again. But under under different circumstances
. So in another place in John, he says, I'm going away and where I'm going, you can't come right now, but you're going to face things or prepare you and the choices you make will enable you to come. So here's the part I wanted to get to. It's, it's in verse 23 and in that day, you shall ask me nothing
verily verily, I say unto you whatsoever, you shall ask the father in my name. He will give it you so so far. Hopefully nothing I've said, triggers any sort of red flags. Hopefully, this is just sort of gospel 101 to you. But now I want to read the next verse. This is verse 24 Hitherto. Have ye asked
nothing in my name? Ask and you shall receive that. Your joy may be full. Now, this is very interesting because these men, they had been with him for three years. They administered to a whole lot of people. They had worked miracles in his name. And yet he says, Hitherto, have ye asked nothing in my name
? Ask and ye shall receive that your joy may be full. So my question to you is what hadn't they done yet? What was the Lord referring to when he said, Hitherto? You've asked nothing in my name. What was he instructing them to do when he said, ask in my name? And it will be given to you so often in life
as Christians, we may find ourselves yearning for what we don't have. You may find yourself wanting a situation different than where you find yourself. You might long for something different than what you have. My question for you. Is, is it the Lord's will? That, that be the case so often pastors teach
and congregants believe that it's the Lord's will for you not to have what you want. I don't find that in the scriptures and I do not find that as I have come to know the Lord, there's nothing more that the Lord wants than to bless us with every righteous desire. Now, what you want is some terrible thing
then? Sure, it makes sense that a loving God would withhold that from you. He doesn't want to cause you any greater harm or grief than is already unavoidable in this life. But if what you want is good, why would a loving father withhold it from you? The reason is because you're not asking in his name
. Now, as is the case with almost all of what most people call Christianity, we've managed to dumb this down enough to water it down enough that it's sort of lost all meaning. And what am I talking about this phrase in his name? What does it mean in his name? Does it just mean that that you can say any
old wish, like you're rubbing a genie lamp and as long as you rub it three times the genie will come out. So when you pray, as long as you say in Jesus name, you'll get what you want. No, that's not what it means at all. If you don't believe me, just look at your life. Do you have everything you want
? And if you're asking using the word Jesus, something's not adding up, right? Which brings us to a very important point. Folks, we just shouldn't be so confident in what we think. We know. You get confidence from evidence and you can't be somebody who on the one hand beats down every other person in
the world who believes something a little different than you do and on the other whine and complain that you don't have everything that you want in life. These things are inconsistent. If you ask in jesus' name, believing you will receive, you will receive. So if you don't receive, one of those two things
isn't how it should be. There are only two reasons why you don't have something that you want. One is you don't know how to get it. Two, you're not willing to pay the price. That's it. That's it. When we ask in jesus' name, it means we ask, we seek, we knock, we try to find what the conditions are that
generate the blessing we want to receive, backing off the overtly religious terms. For a second, we look for the cause to the effect that we desire. If you don't have what you want, there are only two reasons you don't know because or you don't live it. That's it. Jesus created everything we know his
law is the foundation of everything we know about reality and a whole lot of what we don't. Right. Because we know very little. If there's something you want, you should ask yourself. Do you know the way? And are you walking in it? I wrote this book a while back called True Faith. And it talks all about
how to get what you want in life. Now, faith is a, is a term that is almost universally used in a, in a purely religious context. But the thing about truth is it all comes from God and it's not that religion is a piece of life or a piece of reality. It's the other way around it circumscribes everything
. So as we come to have any idea what we're talking about in anything, what we should see is the merger of all things. And so faith has almost always been talked about in exclusively religious terms, but it's not a purely religious concept. It's an idea that that carries the same profound impact through
anywhere you apply it. Now, at its root, faith is centered in Jesus Christ, but God is so great that he allows so much of his goodness to flow through everything we know without explicitly stamping his name all over it. Now, those of us who know the deal, we can see his fingerprints on everything, but
he's so gracious that he allows his goodness to flow to all people and a whole lot of that can be experienced before the overtly religious stuff. But people miss out on this, it doesn't need to be that way. And so in this book, about half of it talks about the general principle of faith and how it applies
to our desires, to reason, to action, to knowledge, to believe how it occurs by degrees and how it works. And then the other part is all about, the other half is all about understanding this more clearly in a religious context. The books available for print cost on Amazon. You can download the PDF for
free at upward thought.blogspot.com. There's a sidebar on the right of there and there are all kinds of books you can download for free. I highly encourage you to read this book. The ideas in it will absolutely change your life. Now, that being said, I can't take credit for those ideas. About half the
book is just quotes from scripture, but understanding what those quotes actually say and seeing them in a new light throughout your life, there's great power in that. Even if you don't read the book, I just want to encourage you. If you have not found what you want in life, it could be anything but hopefully
it's meaningful, deep desires for good. OK? But whatever it is you want, don't stop seeking just like in the the parable of the oh, that woman that wouldn't give up, right? The unjust judge, right? She just wouldn't give up. And the judge finally gave in. Now, God's not an unjust judge. He's the definition
of just. But if you don't have what you want, it's because you, you don't know the way where you haven't paid the price. And when you keep asking, you keep seeking, you keep knocking, you go further and further towards the full price and that's what's holding it back. So I encourage you to seek, ask