{"id":2410,"date":"2015-09-07T06:47:46","date_gmt":"2015-09-07T10:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/?p=2410"},"modified":"2015-09-06T06:49:11","modified_gmt":"2015-09-06T10:49:11","slug":"what-the-if","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/09\/what-the-if.html","title":{"rendered":"What The IF"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong><span class=\"s1\"><i>\u201c<\/i><i>IF <\/i><i>you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today\u2026\u201d<\/i> (<i>Deuteronomy<\/i> 28:1).<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em><span class=\"s1\">That\u2019s a big IF\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">God\u2019s promises are overwhelming. He has vowed to enrich your life here and now, beyond imagination\u2026 <b><i>IF\u2026<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The condition is significant. And when you dare read the second section of <i>Deuteronomy<\/i> 28 you will see the dark side \u2013 the horror \u2013 that happens <b><i>IF <\/i><\/b>(that is <b><i>WHEN<\/i><\/b>)<b><i> <\/i><\/b>we fail to \u201c<i>fully obey.<\/i>\u201d The bad news: not one of us can claim to have met this condition \u201c<i>fully<\/i>.\u201d As a result, we know we don\u2019t deserve abundance, and that doubt dulls our faith to believe God will answer these prayers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0So we hedge and protect ourselves with caution.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">You know what I mean. We\u2019ve all blushed at the thought of asking and expecting big things from God. But expecting is exactly how we must pray. The good news: Jesus has met this<b><i> IF<\/i><\/b> condition. \u201c<i>He has fully obeyed\u2026 all his commands\u201d <\/i>and can claim to deserve the blessings. Further good news: Jesus gives us his same position. On the cross he took our failure to obey as his curse and gave us his holiness as our blessing. That\u2019s an amazing deal!<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Today, again pray through <i>Deuteronomy<\/i> 28 \u2013 the text from yesterday. This time, read it with Jesus in mind. Ask him to take each specific blessing and hand it to you. He will do this if you ask.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So ask\u2026 with the <b><i>IF<\/i><\/b> dealt with for you!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIF you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today\u2026\u201d (Deuteronomy 28:1). That\u2019s a big IF\u2026\u00a0 God\u2019s promises are overwhelming. He has vowed to enrich your life here and now, beyond imagination\u2026 IF\u2026 The condition is significant. And when you dare read the second section&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":478,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15,7,4,25,3,1],"tags":[1350,1351,770,1189],"class_list":["post-2410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-bible-prayer","category-daily-prayer","category-god","category-jesus","category-prayer","category-uncategorized","tag-conditions","tag-covenant-blessings","tag-gods-promises","tag-promises-of-god"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What The IF<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/09\/what-the-if.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What The IF\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cIF you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today\u2026\u201d (Deuteronomy 28:1). That\u2019s a big IF\u2026\u00a0 God\u2019s promises are overwhelming. He has vowed to enrich your life here and now, beyond imagination\u2026 IF\u2026 The condition is significant. And when you dare read the second section&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/09\/what-the-if.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prayer, Plain and Simple\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-09-07T10:47:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-09-06T10:49:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark and Jill Herringshaw\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What The IF","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/09\/what-the-if.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What The IF","og_description":"\u201cIF you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today\u2026\u201d (Deuteronomy 28:1). That\u2019s a big IF\u2026\u00a0 God\u2019s promises are overwhelming. He has vowed to enrich your life here and now, beyond imagination\u2026 IF\u2026 The condition is significant. And when you dare read the second section&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/09\/what-the-if.html","og_site_name":"Prayer, Plain and Simple","article_published_time":"2015-09-07T10:47:46+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-09-06T10:49:11+00:00","author":"Mark and Jill Herringshaw","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/09\/what-the-if.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/09\/what-the-if.html","name":"What The IF","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-09-07T10:47:46+00:00","dateModified":"2015-09-06T10:49:11+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/29563cda917dd596f93dba2ff3a7fedf"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/09\/what-the-if.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/09\/what-the-if.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/09\/what-the-if.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What The IF"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/","name":"Prayer, Plain and Simple","description":"Prayer, Daily Prayer, Simple Prayers, Quick Prayers, Prayer Requests","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/29563cda917dd596f93dba2ff3a7fedf","name":"Mark and Jill Herringshaw","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/94f\/94fb184ea80985d82e603e3d8dd0056bx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/94f\/94fb184ea80985d82e603e3d8dd0056bx96.jpg","caption":"Mark and Jill Herringshaw"},"description":"Mark and Jill Herringshaw and their four children have been ministering in their local church since 1990. 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