11th July 2006- Expect Results

Expect Results
By Kenneth Copeland

Are all your needs met today? If not, why not?

According to the Word of God, it's either because you're not praying about them at all or because when you do pray, you're praying wrong.

What does it mean to pray wrong? In many cases it simply means to pray without expecting results. Many believers do that, you know. They use prayer as a kind of spiritual wishbone. They just play around with it. "This probably won't do much good," they think, "but who knows? It won't hurt to give it a try."

If that's been your attitude, then change it! Start getting serious about prayer. Stop praying just because it's proper. Stop praying just because you always pray at this point in the church service. And start praying to get results.

Start praying in the Name of Jesus, according to the Word of God, and expecting to receive what you ask for every single time. Isn't that a little presumptuous? No, but it is bold, and you have a scriptural right to be bold.

According to the Word of God, you have a standing invitation from your heavenly Father to "come boldly unto the throne of grace, that [you] may obtain" (Heb. 4:16). That word obtain is a word of certainty. The dictionary says it means "to get possession of."

So pray, expecting to get possession of what you need, not just once in a while, but every time! When prayers do go unanswered, don't just wander away saying, "I guess you never know what God's going to do." Tackle the problem with both hands! Go to God in prayer and in the Word and find out where you missed it and get the problem corrected.

When you go to God in accurate, Word of God based, Spirit inspired prayer, you do know what He's going to do. He's going to answer you. He's going to meet your need exactly as you asked Him. Start expecting Him to do it today.

• Point to Ponder: When you go to God in accurate, Word of God based, Spirit inspired prayer, you do know what He's going to do. He's going to answer you.

• Scripture Reading: 1 John 5:4-15

• Verse: This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. (1 John 5:14)

• What you can do about it: When prayers do go unanswered, tackle the problem with both hands! Go to God in prayer and in the Word and find out where you missed it and get the problem corrected.

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Scripture Reading (1 John 5:4-15):

5:4
for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
5:5
Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
5:6
This is the one who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.
5:7
For there are three that testify:
5:8
the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
5:9
We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son.
5:10
Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.
5:11
And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
5:12
He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
5:13
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
5:14
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
5:15
And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him.
New International Version

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