How to avoid your prayers being unanswered
In Parts 1 and 2 we discussed four possible reasons that some of our prayers might appear to go unanswered. The possible reasons were 1) being out of fellowship with the Lord 2) God has said no because your prayer was not his will 3) Lack of unity between persons and 4) A delay in the answer to your prayer.
We are now going to consider, based on our four possible reasons, how we can avoid getting into the position where our prayers might be unanswered.
1) Keep in fellowship with the Lord, this includes keeping short accounts with God in terms of sin. 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Do not think about or dwell on anything that is inherently sinful, think about things are good, and pure and honest. We should keep his commandments, there are only 4 main ones in the New Testament a) Love the Lord your God with all…, b) love your neighbour as yourself, c) love one another as I have loved you. How did Jesus love us? … unto death. d) Also love your brother who can be seen.
King David, the sweet psalmist cried out to God in Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.
2) Get to know the will of God better by studying your bible and by listening to good sermons and remember that when you pray, that it is a dialogue, and we should allow space and time for God to speak to you. Take good Christian counsel from your minister or other Christians that you trust. We must allow God to say no, for He knows better than us.
3) Unity: You husbands must treat your wives with honour, live together in a good and Godly atmosphere, treating her as joint heirs in the grace of life. This approach applies to all Christians as demonstrated by all the (n=46) ‘one another’ commandments such as in
1 Peter 1:22 (b) says ‘see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently’:
4) Delay in the answer, be persistent in prayer in case there is a battle in the heavens.
Ask the Lord if he has a bigger purpose in mind, sometimes God uses delays to strengthen our faith.
It took Elijah’s servant 7 visits to go up and watch for signs of the rain. Be patient, be obedient.
The late Billy Graham’s wife, Ruth, whilst single, several times prayed that God would allow her to marry a certain man, but God said ‘no’ because he had someone better for her!
Parting thought: Daniel 3:16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
17 If it be so, our God whom we serve can deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
18 But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
Maybe if God does not seem to answer our prayer, we need to do what is right anyway!
Amen
Closing Prayer
Reference materials.
CCF tapes BBS098 Roger Price Prayers of Faith (see additional resources section on this website).
Pete Greig, The Prayer Course Session 4
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