CONFIDENCE!

An admirable trait in everyone’s eyes is a person who has confidence. We look up to people who walk with an air of assurance. We feel safe with people who exude the feeling that everything is going to be alright. We tend to avoid people who are negative and always offer a gloomy report. The Apostle John spoke of confidence in this way:

¹⁴ This is the [remarkable degree of] confidence which we [as believers are entitled to] have before Him: that if we ask anything according to His will, [that is, consistent with His plan and purpose] He hears us. ¹⁵ And if we know [for a fact, as indeed we do] that He hears and listens to us in whatever we ask, we [also] know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that we have [granted to us] the requests which we have asked from Him. 1 John 4:14-15 (AMP) 

It is interesting to me that John says that believers are "entitled to" have confidence before God. We in this generation are well aware of what people feeling they are entitled looks like. It’s not necessarily a pretty picture. Yet, God wants us to be so assured of what He wants to do in and through us that He wants us to know that we know that know we belong to Him. And to be equally assured that when we pray, when we petition Him, when we ask for anything He will do it. The caveat of course is  if we ask, "according to His Will". This part isn’t hard however because any child in a loving household knows that if their father denies them their request, it is only because He has a better one in mind! That child can’t wait to see what the Father is actually going to do.

Maria