We come in prayer, and we can have the same confidence. We remember how many he has healed before us, and we ask with increased confidence in his willingness to answer our prayers. Every local church will bring their sick to the Lord in the regular church prayer meeting, and lay before him with brotherly affection the needs of those who share this weak and fallen nature which is subject to disease. We pray for physical healing, and the Lord is pleased to answer according to his will. We also pray for the souls of men, women, and children, and we see the greater need of the soul. As we pray we consider all the evidence in Scripture that the Lord is full of mercy and delights to deliver from the ravages of sin. All who ask are promised that they will receive. How could we come if we thought he would pick and choose who he would answer, if we thought that two people could ask with the same earnestness and dependence on him, and one would be heard and the other refused? Yes, God has chosen his own before the foundation of the world, and it is the work of the Spirit to put genuine faith in the heart, but the promise is that if we ask sincerely and yield our lives to him we will be heard. Having come as we ought to come, we do not face some lottery in the heart of God that for unknown reasons turns some away. This is very important, because without this assurance the human heart could not muster the boldness to come, and the confidence in God’s mercy that is needed. A true appeal to mercy is always heard – we must be sure of that, and we can be sure of it based on the character of our God. This is the assurance of this verse.