PLEASE JESUS, HAVE MERCY! I MUST BELIEVE MY PRAYER HAS ALREADY BEEN ANSWERED!

[Chrysostom]

Your cry for mercy is itself a good and right prayer, and it is right to bring it to Jesus alone, for only He can show mercy and only He saves. The blind men did not approach with many words but with loud cries alleging nothing else but mercy, and so also you do well to cry, have mercy, and to keep crying.

You have been troubled because others mocked this prayer and made light of it, even comparing it to Moses at the Red Sea. Do not be shaken by such insults. Faith everywhere goes beyond human reasonings and weakness. At the sea the people both believed and feared, and it was by faith and prayer that they passed through. Those who mock do not understand that God works in this way, to train us to have confidence and to cleave to prayer. If others seek to look good by belittling your prayer, leave them to God. He sees the heart and He hears what is spoken in secret.

You say this must now remain an unspoken prayer and that God knows what it is. That is true. Reveal your way unto the Lord and confess before Him in prayer what lies in your memory, even if you do not speak it before others. He knows it fully. It is good that you would bring it to Jesus in His Name only, for prayer is a great weapon and an unshaken wall when we first make God propitious by supplication and then go forth into the day.

Continue in this earnestness and do not think that to have prayed once or twice is to have fulfilled all. The racer who runs ten heats and leaves the last undone has lost all. So we must not forsake mercy and truth, but bind them about our neck continually, as children of the compassionate One who makes His sun to rise upon all. Prayer is not without works, nor works without prayer. When we ask for mercy we must also show ourselves worthy of mercy, adding works that are worthy of blessing, being merciful to our neighbor and walking in truth and not in deceit.

We join you now to pray in the Name of Jesus Christ alone. We ask Him to have mercy upon you according to His great compassion, to increase your faith and confidence in prayer, and to answer this unspoken request according to His perfect wisdom and holy will. We do not ask Him to bless what is contrary to His design, for true mercy and true faith go together, but we ask Him to grant what is truly good for your soul, to conform your heart and your life to what is holy, and to lead you into all truth. May He who alone can do this give you peace, keep you from discouragement, and help you to persevere in prayer and in well doing through your whole life, trusting not in presumption but in His grace.

 

[Silas]

Your cry for mercy is the right place to begin, and it is good that you bring it to Jesus alone, because it is only through Him that we have access to the Father. Scripture teaches that justice is getting what we deserve, mercy is not getting what we deserve, and grace is getting what we do not deserve. We never come to God asking for justice, for we would not want what we deserve. We come asking for mercy, and we thank Him that His mercy endures forever. It is not something we earn or claim as a right. God has said, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So it is not by our will or our effort, but by God who shows mercy, and that mercy is available to you today through faith in Jesus Christ. He is the author and finisher of our faith, and even the faith to believe is a gift from Him.

It is right that you want to keep this matter between you and the Lord as an unspoken request. Prayer is not meant to inform God of something He does not know. Jesus said your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. He knows the unspoken burden completely. True prayer is not trying to get your will done on earth, but to get God's will done, and to let Him shape your heart to want what He wants. That is why we can bring even silent prayers with confidence that He hears and understands.

It hurts to be mocked for praying, and especially when someone uses ridicule to make themselves look good at your expense. That kind of mockery is a common tool the enemy uses to oppose the work of God in a life and to discourage those who are seeking Him. Many have been turned aside by ridicule. The example of Nehemiah is helpful here. When he was mocked and despised while trying to do what God had called him to do, his first response was prayer. He brought the insult to God and asked God to hear. He did not stop praying, and he did not use prayer as an excuse to do nothing. He prayed and he also took wise and responsible action. Prayer goes together with prudence. Do not let the ridicule drive you into fear, because fear and faith cannot live together. Where fear takes over, faith departs. Bring the mockery to the Lord in prayer and keep walking faithfully.

You said you must believe your prayer has already been answered. It is important to understand what true faith is. The Bible says faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. It is not simply saying with words that you have faith. Anyone can say, I have all the faith in the world, but saying it is not enough. The question Scripture asks is, what does it profit if a person says he has faith but has no works to show for it. Can that kind of faith save him. The answer is that a genuine faith will always show itself in a changed life. Faith without works is dead, because it has no evidence. Abraham believed God, and that faith was shown to be real when he obeyed God and was willing to offer Isaac. His faith and his works were working together, and his works made his faith complete. Noah believed God about things not yet seen, and he built the ark even while others mocked him for a hundred years. Real faith obeys and endures even when others laugh.

So examine what you believe. True faith trusts God to do His will, not simply to do what we insist upon. It is good to trust Him for the answer, but let that trust be tied to His wise and merciful will, not to demanding a specific outcome in a specific way. If your faith is genuine, it will produce the corresponding life. It will lead you to love what God loves, to obey His word, and to show mercy to others, even to those who have mocked you. Jesus said, blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy, and that he who shows no mercy will receive judgment without mercy, but mercy rejoices against judgment. Ask God to help you show mercy to those who insulted your prayer, as you are asking Him to show mercy to you.

Keep bringing this unspoken matter to Jesus. Trust Him as the one who alone saves, who alone is righteous, and who gives mercy freely to those who call on Him. Let Him be the one who strengthens your faith and shapes your life to match what you profess to believe.