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If Only You Would Ask: Praying God's Conditional Promises
We can know that if we pray, some outcomes will be different than if we do not pray because God made many promises conditioned on whether we ask. These promises relate to a galaxy of concerns and needs that are important to us and God, such as faithfully serving God and experiencing his blessings in our life, health, marriage, children, family, and job. If we fail to pray about everything as the Scripture commands (Phil 4:6), we will enter heaven and learn there were many things God would have done in and through us if only we'd asked! Sadly, Calvinism's determinism has turned these wonderful promises into nothing more than a promise that God will do what he predetermined to do regardless of whether we pray or not. Do not allow Calvinism's deterministic beliefs and distortions of Scripture to rob you of this blessed intimate prayer relationship with God.
198 pages, Hardcover
Published April 28, 2022
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3 people want to read
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February 27, 2023
If Only You Would Ask is a book that looks at the importance of prayer from the perspective of Scripture. Often Christians approach prayer from the perspective of philosophy and not the Bible. What I mean is: have you heard someone say something such as – the reason we pray is not to change the future, but we pray to change ourselves. Their understanding is that God has already determined the future, so we can’t truly change God’s plans through our prayers. Therefore, prayer was given to invite us into God’s already established plans or to bring us closer to God, but prayer doesn’t truly change the future.
While that sounds pious and humble, it is not how the Bible presents prayer. Rogers shows again and again in his book that the reason we pray is to change the future. When God sets conditions on our prayers such as James 1:5 5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
God is saying, if you pray I will give you more wisdom. If you don’t pray, I won’t give you more wisdom. Therefore our prayer changes the future from our perspective. If you don’t pray, we will be more foolish than if we had prayed.
Now Rogers does an excellent job presenting both the philosophical reasoning behind this understanding and how in passage after passage after passage – the Bible presents conditionals that are impacted by our choices.
You may be thinking as you watch this – how can my prayer change the future if God is omniscient and already knows the future? If it is set based on God’s perfect foreknowledge doesn’t that mean I can’t change anything.
Well God’s foreknowledge includes both whether or not your will receive more wisdom and the faithfulness of your prayer life. God’s foreknowledge takes into account whether you will or will not pray.
Therefore from God’s perspective the future is fixed, because He knows it. But knowledge is not causation, so that fixed future is not caused simply because God knows it. It is caused because that is how all events up to whatever future moment you are thinking of played out.
Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7:7 7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
In other words, God will give you more when you ask. God will allow you to find what you are seeking when you look. And He will open doors for you when you knock. But if you don’t ask, He won’t give. If you won’t seek, you will never find. And if you don’t knock, He won’t open the doors.
This is all conditional – you do your part and God will do His.
In God’s foreknowledge He knows what you will do and therefore in His perfect knowledge He knows what to give you or not to give you based both on how you pray and if giving you what you asked for would have harmed you in a way you could not foresee.
In God’s foreknowledge He also knows if you failed to ask. And therefore, He knows that He won’t give you anything precisely because you didn’t ask.
The Bible shows again and again that our prayer impacts our future events. Calling out for grace brings more grace from God. Calling out for mercy brings more mercy from God. It changes the future from what it would have been if we never called to God in prayer.
Rogers has a quote from John MacArthur that says Prayer is not an attempt to get God to agree with you or provide your selfish desires, but that it is both an affirmation of His sovereignty, righteousness, and majesty, and an exercise to conform your desires and purposes to His will and Glory.
While that sounds wonderful and spiritual. It just isn’t biblical. Jesus said we should ask in order to receive. James says we don’t have because we don’t ask. God encourages His people again and again to pray in order to receive their desires. Obviously, if we pray for selfish motives, God is not obligated to provide, but we are not taught in Scripture to pray to conform our desires to God’s.
We are taught in Scripture to pray, so God will provide more grace to us.
My only complaint in the book is Rogers description of the Gospel in chapter 8 on people choosing to Follow Christ. He presents the Gospel as making Jesus first in your life based on Jesus’ conversation with the Rich Young Ruler. He calls the essence of salvation making Christ first or you could say your highest priority.
And I strongly disagree with that. I would never say the essence of salvation is something that isn’t actually mentioned in the Bible. God does not give the grace of salvation to those who put Jesus first or make Him their highest priority.
We are saved because we believe in Jesus and His completed work and trust in Him to save us. He doesn’t save those who make Him first. If He did no one could be saved, because the unregenerate could never have the right priorities regarding Christ. God saves by grace every person who believes in His Son.
That is a small point, one I wouldn’t bring up if it wasn’t the essentials of the Gospel. But outside of what was a three page section, I really have no other complaint with the entire book.
I love to share favorite quotes from books, but I’m struggling here because I highlighted so much in this book that my highlighter ran out and I needed to get a new one.
So here are a couple that are in midst of many favorite quotes
Determinism makes prayer incapable of changing outcomes, which is not what we see in Scripture. Just on its face determinism or divine sovereignty as Calvinists call it makes no sense when examined with the teachings on prayer in the Bible.
And I love this: There is a pervasive urgency throughout Scripture to pray…Understanding the presence of conditionals as seen throughout Scriptures highlights the practicality of the numerous commands and calls to “prayer without ceasing…”
If Only You Would Ask is an excellent book. It isn’t long and if you have been struggling to be consistent in your prayer walk this book could change your life.
You can watch my review on my YouTube channel. Search for Rev Reads on YouTube to find the channel and the review.
While that sounds pious and humble, it is not how the Bible presents prayer. Rogers shows again and again in his book that the reason we pray is to change the future. When God sets conditions on our prayers such as James 1:5 5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
God is saying, if you pray I will give you more wisdom. If you don’t pray, I won’t give you more wisdom. Therefore our prayer changes the future from our perspective. If you don’t pray, we will be more foolish than if we had prayed.
Now Rogers does an excellent job presenting both the philosophical reasoning behind this understanding and how in passage after passage after passage – the Bible presents conditionals that are impacted by our choices.
You may be thinking as you watch this – how can my prayer change the future if God is omniscient and already knows the future? If it is set based on God’s perfect foreknowledge doesn’t that mean I can’t change anything.
Well God’s foreknowledge includes both whether or not your will receive more wisdom and the faithfulness of your prayer life. God’s foreknowledge takes into account whether you will or will not pray.
Therefore from God’s perspective the future is fixed, because He knows it. But knowledge is not causation, so that fixed future is not caused simply because God knows it. It is caused because that is how all events up to whatever future moment you are thinking of played out.
Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7:7 7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
In other words, God will give you more when you ask. God will allow you to find what you are seeking when you look. And He will open doors for you when you knock. But if you don’t ask, He won’t give. If you won’t seek, you will never find. And if you don’t knock, He won’t open the doors.
This is all conditional – you do your part and God will do His.
In God’s foreknowledge He knows what you will do and therefore in His perfect knowledge He knows what to give you or not to give you based both on how you pray and if giving you what you asked for would have harmed you in a way you could not foresee.
In God’s foreknowledge He also knows if you failed to ask. And therefore, He knows that He won’t give you anything precisely because you didn’t ask.
The Bible shows again and again that our prayer impacts our future events. Calling out for grace brings more grace from God. Calling out for mercy brings more mercy from God. It changes the future from what it would have been if we never called to God in prayer.
Rogers has a quote from John MacArthur that says Prayer is not an attempt to get God to agree with you or provide your selfish desires, but that it is both an affirmation of His sovereignty, righteousness, and majesty, and an exercise to conform your desires and purposes to His will and Glory.
While that sounds wonderful and spiritual. It just isn’t biblical. Jesus said we should ask in order to receive. James says we don’t have because we don’t ask. God encourages His people again and again to pray in order to receive their desires. Obviously, if we pray for selfish motives, God is not obligated to provide, but we are not taught in Scripture to pray to conform our desires to God’s.
We are taught in Scripture to pray, so God will provide more grace to us.
My only complaint in the book is Rogers description of the Gospel in chapter 8 on people choosing to Follow Christ. He presents the Gospel as making Jesus first in your life based on Jesus’ conversation with the Rich Young Ruler. He calls the essence of salvation making Christ first or you could say your highest priority.
And I strongly disagree with that. I would never say the essence of salvation is something that isn’t actually mentioned in the Bible. God does not give the grace of salvation to those who put Jesus first or make Him their highest priority.
We are saved because we believe in Jesus and His completed work and trust in Him to save us. He doesn’t save those who make Him first. If He did no one could be saved, because the unregenerate could never have the right priorities regarding Christ. God saves by grace every person who believes in His Son.
That is a small point, one I wouldn’t bring up if it wasn’t the essentials of the Gospel. But outside of what was a three page section, I really have no other complaint with the entire book.
I love to share favorite quotes from books, but I’m struggling here because I highlighted so much in this book that my highlighter ran out and I needed to get a new one.
So here are a couple that are in midst of many favorite quotes
Determinism makes prayer incapable of changing outcomes, which is not what we see in Scripture. Just on its face determinism or divine sovereignty as Calvinists call it makes no sense when examined with the teachings on prayer in the Bible.
And I love this: There is a pervasive urgency throughout Scripture to pray…Understanding the presence of conditionals as seen throughout Scriptures highlights the practicality of the numerous commands and calls to “prayer without ceasing…”
If Only You Would Ask is an excellent book. It isn’t long and if you have been struggling to be consistent in your prayer walk this book could change your life.
You can watch my review on my YouTube channel. Search for Rev Reads on YouTube to find the channel and the review.
Displaying 1 of 1 review