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Ask and Receive

THE BIBLE SAYS in James 4:2, “You do not have, because you do not ask.” I remember when that was a great revelation in my life because I was trying to make things happen in the energy of my own flesh, according to my own plan, and as the result of my own works. I was trying to change myself, trying to change my husband, trying to change my circumstances, trying to rid myself of all the things from my past that were hurting me. But I was not asking God for help.

When God revealed to me that I was lacking good things because I was not asking of Him, I began to ask Him for everything I desired and needed.

The Word says, “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). God began doing more for me as a result of my asking, proving to me that He wanted to take care of me. He showed me that if I would ask Him, just come to Him like a little child and ask Him, then He would do for me, He would take care of me, He would meet my needs.

I believe that you may be reading this book because you hope to get a breakthrough of healing from your wounded past. You may need for God to heal your broken heart. You may be tired of being all messed up and frustrated inside, as I was. You may need to ask God for help. If so, simply pray:

Lord, heal me. I am asking You for a breakthrough. Give me an answer. Show me the direction I need to go. Help me, Lord.

ASK IN JESUS’ NAME

I believe that there may be an issue that must be settled in your heart before you can believe that God will meet your needs. An important key concerning your breakthrough is found in John 16:24. Jesus was talking to His disciples just before His crucifixion when He said, “Up to this time you have not asked a [single] thing in My Name [as presenting all that I AM]; but now ask and keep on asking and you will receive, so that your joy (gladness, delight) may be full and complete.”

The Amplified Bible tells us what it means to ask in the name of Jesus. If you can grasp what it means to ask in Jesus’ name, it will give you a breakthrough to the miracle you need.

To ask in Jesus’ name means to present to the Father all that Jesus is. Therefore, when we go before the throne, we are not presenting who we are, but the authority Jesus has because of His covenant relationship with the Father.

We are not presenting our own record of good works. We have no perfection to present. But we go before the Father and say, “Lord, I come in the name of Jesus.” When we say that, we are really saying to the Father, “I am presenting to You what Jesus is.”

When you go somewhere in somebody’s name, you go with that person’s authority. For example, I am very close to our pastor in St. Louis. I consider him to be a good friend of ours. I could go to his office and say to his staff, “It is important that I see the pastor right away.” His staff know me and trust me well enough to let me in right away.

But if I could not go myself, I might send someone who was not known at the pastor’s office. If that person said simply, “I need to see the pastor now,” the pastor’s staff probably would not let him in right away. But if he said, “Joyce Meyer sent me,” the staff would receive him in my name because of the relationship I have with the pastor.

That is a picture of what it means to pray in Jesus’ name; that is why you can expect to have your needs met when you go to God the Father in the name of His Son—not because you deserve it. If there is anything I am trying to teach you in these few pages, it is that we do not deserve anything from God, except maybe to die and be punished eternally. But He has made a new covenant with us to give us what Jesus deserves. That undeserved covenant blessing is the glory of the message of grace.

We do not deserve anything, but we get what Jesus earned and deserved. And it is free! Free is an exciting word. We do not have to try to earn blessings with our good works or good behavior. In John 16:24 (paraphrased) Jesus said, “Up until now you have not asked a single thing in My name (that is, presenting all that I am).” In that same verse, He gave us a new instruction. “But now,” He said, “ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be full.” Jesus gave two instructions here: “Do not just ask, but ask and receive, so that your joy may be full.”

RECEIVE GOD’S BLESSINGS

Many people simply do not know how to receive from God. For example, they spend half of their life begging God to forgive them for some sin, but they never receive His forgiveness. They just stay in the begging mode. I asked for forgiveness for years, every night, in fact.

When Dave and I were first married, I did not know much of the Word of God. We were going to church; I loved God; I was born again; but I certainly did not know who I was in Christ, and I still had a broken heart. I believe one of the things that refers to being brokenhearted is to be broken in personality.

Our personalities get shattered and broken, and then we do not function the way God intends for us to function. Every person is to be a whole and balanced individual. But the devil wants to work us over to the point that we are all broken in personality. When that happens, we may try to relate to each other, but our relationships just do not work.

As mentioned earlier, I used to kneel at my bedside every night and beg, “Oh, God, forgive me. God, forgive me. God, forgive me.” Every night, I repeated that prayer: “God, forgive me. Oh, God, forgive me.” I was still talking about that load of guilt I had been carrying since my teenage and young adult years.

This went on and on for a couple of years, until the day I heard the Lord say to me, “Joyce, I forgave you the first time you asked Me. Now you need to forgive yourself.” Hearing God’s voice was not a common occurrence for me in those days, but I understood that He was telling me that I needed to receive His forgiveness.

If you ask someone for a drink of water, and that person gives it to you, but you refuse to swallow it, what can that individual do about it? It would be senseless to say, “I am thirsty; somebody bring me some water because I am so thirsty,” and then just hold the glass of water you are given. If you would not swallow it, your thirst would not be quenched.

You may have been given the Word about forgiveness, but you may not have decided yet to believe it. You may be waiting to feel forgiven first. But you will never feel forgiven until you decide that you are forgiven. You have to say in faith, “I am forgiven.” And you may have to say it for weeks or months before your feelings catch up with your faith.

Throughout the Bible we are instructed to receive from God. But it seems that Christians are always trying to get something. Paul did not ask the disciples at Corinth, “Did you get the Holy Spirit?” He asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed [on Jesus as the Christ]?” (Acts 19:2).

The Bible does not say, “To as many as get Jesus, they get the power to become sons of God.” It says, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12 KJV, emphasis mine).

Jesus is like a River of Life that is pouring out life-giving water, and we are invited to receive, receive, and receive. Jesus said:

He who believes in Me [who cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Me] as the Scripture has said, From his innermost being shall flow [continuously] springs and rivers of living water. But He was speaking here of the Spirit, Whom those who believed (trusted, had faith) in Him were afterward to receive. For the [Holy] Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (raised to honor). (John 7:38-39)

I have taught extensively on this subject of receiving from God, because I am so convinced that people are not receiving the blessings that God wants to impart to them. I am eager to see everyone in the body of Christ become mature and say, “Yes, that promise of God is for me, and I receive it so that I do not have to live under guilt and condemnation anymore.”

GOD LOVES YOU PERFECTLY

I can talk about the love of God throughout an entire weekend conference, I can demonstrate all the different ways that God has proven His love for us, but I cannot force anyone to receive His love. It is a personal choice that each person has to make. Even when we make mistakes and know that we do not deserve the love of God, we must still receive His love in order to enjoy the fullness of what He wants us to have.

I encourage you to practice on a daily basis opening your mouth and praying:

God, I know that You love me, and I receive that love; I am going to walk in it today. I am going to bask in Your love, because I know that You love me even though I do not deserve it. And God, that makes everything better.

The love of God is one of the most relevant messages needed in the body of Christ today. God’s love is the greatest issue in which people need to have a revelation. People do not need a teaching about the love of God as much as they need to personally experience and understand how much God loves them as an individual.

The love of God will carry you through to victory when all of the powers and principalities of hell seem to be against you. The love of God will carry you through the storms of life and into a place of calm peace. But you will never be more than a conqueror (see Romans 8:37) if you do not have a revelation of how much you are loved by God.

We have to know that God loves us even during the times when we make mistakes and fail. His love is not restricted to the days when we think we have performed well. We need to be confident of His love especially when we have trials, and when the devil is mocking us with accusations, such as, “Well, you must have done something wrong.”

When the accuser comes, we must know that God loves us.

Even if we did do something wrong, even if we did open a door for the devil to enter in, even if we did act in ignorance, God still loves us. God is on our side (see Romans 8:28), and He is going to show us what we need to do to get out of the mess we got ourselves into. But Satan wants to cut us off from the love of God, so that we never find the way back to God’s grace in order to live as His RIGHTeous sons and daughters.

JESUS SENDS HIS WORD

When we are in trouble, the Lord promises in His Word to deliver us. It is written in Psalm 107:20, “He sends forth His word and heals them and rescues them from the pit and destruction.” Jesus sent His Holy Spirit to teach us what we need to know. He said to His disciples:

I have still many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them or to take them upon you or to grasp them now.

But when He, the Spirit of Truth (the Truth-giving Spirit) comes, He will guide you into all the Truth (the whole, full Truth). For He will not speak His own message [on His own authority]; but He will tell whatever He hears [from the Father; He will give the message that has been given to Him], and He will announce and declare to you the things that are to come [that will happen in the future].

He will honor and glorify Me, because He will take of (receive, draw upon) what is Mine and will reveal (declare, disclose, transmit) it to you.

Everything that the Father has is Mine. That is what I meant when I said that He [the Spirit] will take the things that are Mine and will reveal (declare, disclose, transmit) it to you. (John 16:12-15)

I am so glad Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will guide us—not push and shove us, but guide us—to truth. The devil wants to pressure us and manipulate us, but the Holy Spirit wants to gently lead us. That is one of the ways that we can recognize whether we are hearing from God or from the enemy.

If you feel pressed, confused, controlled, or stressed about something, then it is not of God; that is not how He works. Instead, the Holy Spirit will gently “reveal, (declare, disclose and transmit)” the truth to you.

But, revelation will not benefit you if you do not receive it. We have transmissions through television, but we have to turn our set on in order to receive the messages sent to us. Likewise, we must receive the truth that God is speaking to us through His Word.

Jesus won everything that we would ever need to live victorious, overcoming, power-packed lives. When Jesus ascended on High, the Holy Spirit took what Jesus had earned and in essence said, “Now, I will go to the believers and work with them, ministering to them everything that Jesus has earned and provided for them. I will lead and guide them into all the truth.”

It is interesting that Jesus said there was so much more He wanted to tell us, but He knew we could not bear it all at once. But He promised that the Holy Spirit would take what is His and guide us into all truth.

RECEIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT

I was born again a long time before I enjoyed the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life. I loved God, and I would have gone to heaven if I had died; but I would have arrived there a wreck. Without the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, I would have never been a fruit-bearing Christian.

My life would have never glorified God here on the earth. I would have never been a witness to anybody else. As a matter of fact, if I had not received the Holy Spirit, claiming to be a Christian could have actually been a detriment to the work of God in my life because I was not acting like I was a Christian.

I was out of control, and I could not help it. I did everything that I believed a good Christian was supposed to do, but I had no victory because I did not have any knowledge of the Word of God. And I did not have the power of the Holy Spirit to guide me into truth or to reveal how that Word was to work in my life.

It was a glorious day when I first said out of my mouth, “I am the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ” (see 1 Corinthians 1:30). I felt my spirit do a flip; I literally felt life leap inside of me. I remember thinking, What was that? It was like the feeling a mother has when a baby moves within her for the first time—only, it was the Holy Ghost!

Before I received the Holy Spirit, I did not know that I was righteous. I thought I was rotten, no good, and messed up for life. I felt that there was no hope for me, and that is what the devil wants us all to believe, but it is a lie.

If you would like to learn more about the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, I encourage you to read my book Knowing God Intimately. In it, I explain how you can be as close as you want to be to God, and how to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit into your life. It is really as simple as praying, Lord, I receive Your Holy Spirit into my life. Fill me with Your presence, and teach me to clearly hear Your voice so that I may follow You all the days of my life.

YOU ARE PRECIOUS TO GOD

You are precious and valuable, and God has a plan to manifest His goodness and kindness through what He wants to do for you. It does not matter what you have done, or what has been done to you—the past remains in the past. God has a great future for you. You can have a wonderful life, but you have to receive it. As I have said, you have to agree and say, “That is for me.”

Jesus cried out to tell us that He has what we need: “Now on the final and most important day of the Feast, Jesus stood, and He cried in a loud voice, If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink!” (John 7:37). What you cannot do for yourself, He has already done for you. He invites you now to come and receive it, to drink it, to take it into yourself. You do that by believing that it is for you.

To drink is defined as “to take in or receive avidly”; “to receive into one’s consciousness.”¹⁴ Remember that Jesus said, “Now ask and keep on asking and you will receive, so that your joy (gladness, delight) may be full and complete” (John 16:24). If you ask and receive, then your joy will be full.

How are we going to impress a depressed world if we believers are as depressed as those who are without Christ? God wants His people to show forth the glory of His kindness upon them. As we receive God’s provision, our joy will be complete, which is the way the Church is supposed to be.

Act as a receptacle for God’s blessings. Take in what Jesus has paid for with His own life to provide for you. Study the Word so that you will be sure of His promises. Pray to Him, saying:

Here I am, Lord. Pour it on; I receive the fullness of whatever Your Holy Spirit has for me.