<p>5:14- see on Mt. 18:19; Jn. 15:27.</p><p><i>And this is the boldness which we have toward him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us</i>- If His Spirit and life abides within us (see on :13), then His will is within us, and the Spirit teaches us directly, revealing &quot;all truth&quot; to us (Jn. 16:13). This &quot;truth&quot; is here spoken of as knowing His will. As noted on Jn. 15:7, if His Spirit, His <i>logos</i> abides in us, then we shall ask what <i>we </i>will and receive it. Our spirit is His Spirit; and so we shall perceive better over time what is His will, and our prayers will be for those things. And they shall be answered. This increasingly positive experience of answered prayer, which comes about from progressively knowing His will, is another evidence that we are indeed indwelt by the Lord and can be confident that we have &quot;eternal life&quot;, His Spirit; for the context of :13 is encouragement to those who have believed and received the Spirit and yet still have their doubts. The Lord's Comforter discourse said as much- He there taught that answered prayer means that our joy will be full (Jn. 16:24).</p><p>Eph. 3:12 uses the same word about our &quot;boldness&quot; in access to God in prayer on account of Christ. The same Greek word is used about our &quot;boldness&quot; in the day of judgment (2:28; 4:17). Our attitude to God in prayer now reflects our general attitude toward Him (3:21; Heb. 10:35). We cannot clothe ourselves in some special spirituality when we come before Him in prayer nor at the day of judgment; who we are in our hearts with Him now is who we are in prayer and who we will be at the last day. We come &quot;boldly s.w. before the throne of grace&quot; (Heb. 4:16)- both before God now, and before Him at the last day. Each time we pray to Him, we have a foretaste of the judgment experience- if only we will take prayer seriously enough to perceive it. The word is used about the generally &quot;bold&quot; attitude we can have in witnessing before men in this life; for if we can be bold before the holiest of all, the very judgment presence of God, we can be bold before men right now in our preaching (Phil. 1:20; 2 Cor. 3:12; Acts 2:29; 4:13,31; 28:31), just as the word is used about the &quot;boldness&quot; of the Lord's own preaching which is the pattern for ours (Jn. 7:26; 11:14; 16:29; 18:20). For as He is and was, so are we to be in this world (4:17). But these are ideals; even Paul had to ask others to pray that he might preach as &quot;boldly&quot; as he ought to (Eph. 6:19). The reality of the judgment seat will likely be somewhat different, with many staggered in unbelief by the Lord's positive recital of all our good deeds.</p><p>But we must add a caveat. God indeed answers prayer as a result of the fact that we believe and as a token that we are acceptable before Him. But there are examples of where God answers the prayers of those who don't believe with a full faith, and even of those who later will be condemned (Zacharias; the believers praying for Peter's release; Mt. 7:21-23). The relationship between faith and answered prayer is not so simple as it appears in some passages. God is working with us at a higher level than simply responding to our words as a token of His acceptance of our faith.</p>