Confident Prayer

1 John 5:14-17 

14 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.
16 If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that. 17 All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death.

Our confidence is not only in an absolute guarantee of eternal life as written in the previous verses, which is our salvation from God’s wrath on our sin and its power over us.  We also can confidently pray with petitions that align with His will, knowing that He will certainly answer those according to His plans and in His way and time.  This does not mean that we just name a request and He must answer it; no, we are to pray for things according to His will which we do not always interpret correctly from scripture (especially when it may be an isolated verse out of context).  Do we ask for our own gain, or for God’s glory?  If it is for God’s honor and glory as He wills, we are confident He hears and will certainly answer on His schedule and in His manner.  This is because He put the desire in our heart to pray for those things of His will to begin with (Psalm 37:4, Psalm 10:17) which align with His word.  If we ask only for what we want to have or to have happen without seeking if it is according to what God wills, we have no such guarantee of an answer.  The example here is of praying for a sinning brother.  If the sin does not have severe consequences deserving of death, we can pray for life by merciful grace for that person.  The giving of life by God mentioned here is mercy from deserved judgement, while the sin leading to death is likely one with unstoppable consequences such as murder.  We are not to pray for release from such consequences of sin, but for forgiveness and healing restoration from unrighteousness that does not have that kind of price which must be paid.  This is a hard saying which is difficult to understand for all situations, so the guidance of scripture and counsel of the Spirit and godly men may be required before praying hastily or only what we want in a situation.