Confidence for life is the focus of these three verses, but many times they are discussed with an eye to something else: the lottery-life. When we learn there is a Bible verse about getting whatever we ask for we run to that gas station to buy some of those magic beans. How can I ask God for things so that he gives them to me?
The lottery-life is an inversion of what John intended; it skips the point he deploys in verse 13.
13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: 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 what we asked of him. (1 John 5:13-15–NIV)
No week passes without me hearing the laments of the aging. “Growing old is not for wimps.” “Everything worked fine until I retired.” Cancer, heart disease, cataracts, aches, pains, and ill-health all rapidly find their way onto a not-so-silver platter of complaints.
What is going on here but the experience of dying. The good old days are recalled; the future is feared. A nursing home existence bubbles its anxiety-producing relevance at us. Ugh. Any thinker sees it. Even those with the most confidence will catch it. See, we don’t want our bodies to quit. “Too bad,” sneers the drum beat. It is to that sneer that John brings verse 13.
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