18-20 “My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.
21-24 And friends, once that’s taken care of and we’re no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we’re bold and free before God! We’re able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we’re doing what he said, doing what pleases him. Again, this is God’s command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us.” I John 3:18-24, The Message
I included yesterday’s verses from I John because they lead into and up to the final point of Chapter 3, which is something like this — when we do what makes sense because Christ loved us, that is, LOVE, we begin to feel more assured of God’s love and worry less about accusing voices that would tear us down.
THEN, we are “bold and free” before God. We stretch out our hands toward God, not in a grasping, demanding way, but palms up, receiving, imbibing is not too strong a word — and this is amazing — receiving ANYTHING HE ASKS. That takes us into a most difficult realm for every Christian, the promises that we will receive what we ask, which appear in various places throughout the Bible. What does this mean?
I don’t know for sure. I do have a hunch it DOES NOT mean that every time we ask that our friend be healed of cancer or that we be blessed with a spouse or a child, we will receive those good gifts. On the other hand, it also doesn’t mean we won’t receive them. I also know it DOES NOT mean we receive what we asked BECAUSE we did something for God. God is not a tit-for-tat God, nor does He need our help to show His grace.
Something of what it might mean — first, notice the word “receive.” Why does it say we will “receive” rather than He will “give.” I think there may be a clue there. My hunch is, backed up somewhat by various commentaries, that this receiving has something to do with our hearts being changed by the process of loving like Jesus did — after all, he gave up his life voluntarily and RECEIVED the reward of sitting at the right hand of the father. Perhaps this verse is telling us that instead of refusing God’s good gifts to us, we will receive them. Sometimes I don’t want what God gives me. I want an easy day at work where all the files are ordered and each task is neatly accomplished. Instead, He gives me a child who needs to be taken to the doctor and completely throws off my schedule. These verses say something about the intimacy of our relationship with God, about how we approach God and how we receive what He gives us, because He is our Father and we are His beloved children. I’ll finish by quoting the IVP Commentary on this:
“We do not come to God as strangers pleading for special favors, but as those whom God calls “children.” Just as requests and petitions com prise much of the language of children to their parents, so petitionary prayer constitutes much of the address of Christians to their heavenly Father. When we are told that we receive . . . anything we ask, we are not promised that every item on our wish list will be granted to us. We are, rather, reminded of the intimate bond that we have with God, a bond that makes it possible for us to bring our petitions to God at all. For petition does not bring about intimacy, confidence and trust; rather, intimacy and trust elicit petition. We can bring our requests to God with confidence because we indeed belong to the truth: we belong to God.”
For reflection:
What kinds of requests do you make of God? On what basis do you make them? Have you ever approached God with the sense that doing something for Him will get Him to do something for you?
What are you learning about love and your relationship with God and how it frees you to live “bold and free”?
