Pastor Kim begins by emphasizing that his current studies are not focused on end-times prophecy or what is happening around the world. Christians should not be ignorant of world events, but they should be careful not to spend endless hours watching videos about them when something more important is being neglected: spiritual growth with God.
If a Christian is prioritizing spiritual growth with God, then he should be studying those things more than end-times subjects.
Pastor Kim says that what he wants to study more is prayer.
Abiding in Christ and His Words
John 15:7: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.“
If Jesus Christ abides in the Christian and His words abide in the Christian, then the Christian can ask what he will, and it shall be done. Pastor Kim says that the greatest problem with the Christian Church today is that it lacks the power of prayer. Christians pray, but they do not see as many answers as they would like. They wonder what is wrong and why the Lord is not answering their prayers. His answer is that the problem is often that they are praying incorrectly.
God did not intend prayer to be something He refuses to answer. God intends to answer prayer consistently.
The problem is that the Church is weak in its prayer life. But John 15:7 contains a condition. Christ must abide in the Christian, and His words must abide in the Christian.
Christ Must Be the Center of Our Lives
Pastor Kim emphasizes how extraordinary it is that Almighty God, the King of glory who fills heaven and earth and all creation, would choose to come down and live inside a corrupted and sinful human body and choose to live in them.
But the question is whether the Christian actually lives as though Christ remains in him. What does the Christian yield to more often?
The flesh.
Rather than focusing on the Spirit, Christians naturally focus on their flesh. As soon as a person wakes up in the morning, it is easy for the flesh to become the first concern. He thinks about brushing his teeth, exercising, taking care of his physical body, eating breakfast, and dealing with the normal responsibilities of life. The flesh comes first.
But because of the crucified life in Christ, the flesh should be considered dead.
Romans 6:6 “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”
Because of the crucified life in Christ, the old man and the flesh should be considered dead. Therefore, what should the Christian’s focus be?
Christ.
The Holy Spirit is inside the believer, and Christ is in the believer. The Holy Spirit comes in the stead of Christ, and the Christian is sealed unto the day of redemption. The question is not whether Christ remains in the Christian.
The question is whether the Christian is remaining in Christ?
Is he focusing on Christ? Is he remembering Christ? Is he recognizing that Christ is remaining in him? Or is he constantly seeing the flesh as the dominant reality?
Pastor Kim makes the point simple: Christ is not always the first thing on the Christian’s mind.
Christ may not be the first thought when he wakes up. Christ may not be the first emotion he feels. Christ may not be constantly in his mind while he performs normal duties throughout the day.
Instead, the heart often follows what the flesh wants. That is the basic problem: Christians allow the flesh to remain dominant rather than allowing Christ to be the center of their lives. If Christ is the center of a person’s entire being throughout his life, then when he gives a prayer that is aligned with Christ, God is more likely to answer that prayer.
Why are prayers often unanswered?
Because they revolve more around the flesh than the Spirit, which is Christ formed in the believer.
Letting Christ’s Words Abide in You
How does a Christian know what Christ wants for his life?
John 15:7 gives the answer: Christ’s words must abide in him. This is one of the valuable weapons for having prayers answered. George Müller, who would point to a verse in the Bible and then point out to the Lord, in effect, “This is what You promised, Lord. Therefore, You have to answer it.”
The power comes from Christ’s words abiding in the Christian. If Christ is the center of the Christian’s life, then His words will also be at the center of his life. When the Christian prays for something to be answered, he should be praying according to God’s Word.
How to Get Powerful Prayers Answered
The key to powerful prayer is that it must be something God wants and something God would think.
But how can a Christian know what God wants? By allowing Christ to remain in you. If Christ is the Christian’s focus and Christ’s words are constantly in his thoughts, then he can increasingly understand how God wants things to be answered.
Pastor Kim gives the example of a father and child. God is the Christian’s Father. How would a child get his father to answer a request?
A child would not normally make a request that he already knows his father would reject or that would make his father uncomfortable. Instead, the child learns what his father thinks, what his father would say yes to, and what his father would say no to. Then the child can ask according to his father’s thinking.
In the same way, Christians should learn to understand their Father’s will. Many Christians pray: “Lord, I want this to happen, but I do not know what Your will is for me. So, honestly, do what You want rather than what I want.”
There is a problem with that prayer. The Christian is acknowledging that his will is different from God’s will without seeking to become more closely aligned with God’s will. A child should know his father’s will. If a Christian says, “I do not really know, Pastor,” the underlying problem may be spiritual weakness. The flesh knows what it wants. But the Christian may not know what his spirit wants.
That is why prayer warriors such as George Müller could pray with confidence. They knew that God would answer because they had become deeply aligned with the Father.
They knew God’s will.
What Makes You Happy?
Pastor Kim asks a simple question:
Does God want you to be happy?
What makes you happy?
And if something makes you happy, would that make God happy?
What would make God happy?
Does that make you happy?
Christians know that certain things would not make God happy. They also know that certain things will not ultimately make them happy if they live according to sin and the flesh. The important question is therefore not merely, “What makes God happy?” It is also, “What makes me happy?”
The reason is that the Christian’s happiness should be in sync with God. A truly happy person is someone whose desires are in sync with God.
The Father-Child Relationship
Pastor Kim returns to the father-and-child example.
Suppose a father loves sports and enjoys watching baseball with his child. The child knows this. When the child says, “Let’s watch the baseball finals together,” the child knows that the father would want to do it too. The request is something both father and child can enjoy. They are in sync. But if the father has completely different desires from the child, then the child knows that the request will not necessarily bring happiness to both.
This is how prayer is answered.
What makes the Christian happy should be in line with God. Christians often focus only on what makes God happy, and then they become miserable because they have separated themselves from the relationship. The Christian should consider what makes him happy and whether that desire is in sync with God. When the Christian is in sync with God through the Father-child relationship, what makes the child happy can also make the Father happy.
Christ remains in the Christian, and that is why prayer can be answered in a powerful way. If the prayer life is weak and ineffective, it may be because the Christian is not living in sync with Christ.
Growing Into Confidence in Prayer
Pastor Kim does not want Christians to become careless or presumptuous in prayer. A person should not simply say: “Lord, I know You are going to answer this because I believe it is Your will.” If the Christian has not spiritually matured, he may be mistaken. That is why spiritual growth is so important.
A Christian may begin with uncertainty in prayer. He seeks God’s will. As he seeks God’s will, he eventually finds God’s will. Then he learns God’s will. He becomes accustomed to seeing how God works according to His will. Through experience, he learns what to pray for that is according to God’s will.
This process requires spiritual growth and walking with God. If someone does not understand this, Pastor Kim says, it may simply mean that he has not grown yet. The goal is to grow and walk with God so that the Christian increasingly knows how God answers prayer.
Fleshly Requests and Spiritual Requests
Pastor Kim carefully distinguishes between fleshly requests and spiritual requests. Because God is a merciful and gracious Father, He may sometimes grant fleshly requests. Pastor Kim says that he has personally experienced this. But this does not mean that Christians can have the same 100-percent confidence concerning every fleshly request that George Müller had regarding prayers he knew were according to God’s will.
If a Christian wants that kind of complete confidence that God will answer a prayer, the matter must be about the Spirit. If the request is fleshly, there will be uncertainty. It is still appropriate to bring such a request to God and seek His will.
Pastor Kim points to Jesus Christ as the ultimate example. Jesus prayed according to the Father’s will. But Jesus also knew that what He wanted in His humanity might not be what the Father wanted.
Matthew 26:39: “And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”
Jesus did not say with absolute certainty, “Lord, I know You are going to take this cup away from Me.” He knew what Scripture prophesied concerning His death. Yet in His humanity, He expressed what He desired. “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.”
But He immediately surrendered that desire: “Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” This demonstrates the proper balance. The Christian can bring desires to God, but the ultimate prayer must be surrendered to God’s will.
Fleshly Prayer
Pastor Kim then considers the prayer of Jacob in Genesis. Jacob made a request concerning God’s blessing and made a commitment in connection with it. “God, if you will bless me with this, this, and this, then I will worship you as God.” That’s a fleshly prayer.
He also refers to the prayer of Jabez, which prosperity-gospel preachers sometimes use to claim that God will automatically grant requests for health, wealth, and prosperity.
1 Chronicles 4:10 “And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.”
God said to David, “If you had wanted more wives, I would have given them to you.” Pastor Kim’s point is not that there is something inherently wrong with making a fleshly request. A child may have requests that come from purely fleshly motives. The father may or may not grant them. Nevertheless, the child will still ask.
Likewise, there are times when Christians can make fleshly requests. There is nothing inherently wrong with asking. The problem comes when the flesh becomes dominant. A Christian should not allow fleshly requests to become the controlling focus of his prayer life.
The Balance in Prayer
Pastor Kim emphasizes that Christians should not think it is automatically sinful to pray for things that are fleshly. There are examples throughout the Bible of people making such requests. God is gracious. He may grant requests that Christians would consider fleshly. But there must be a balance. When the flesh becomes the dominant motivation, there is a problem.
James 4:2–3 “Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”
The issue is not merely that the Christian has a desire. The issue is when the request is consumed upon his lusts. Pastor Kim says he himself has made fleshly requests that might make someone think he was being very fleshly, yet the Lord was gracious and answered them. At the same time, there are other prayer requests about which he has confidence that the Lord will answer.
Why?
Because he knows what God wants. That is how a Christian begins to understand the difference between faith and presumption, between God’s will and his own will.