A Study on Prayer - #2

SIN Is A Major Hindrance to Answered Prayer

Purity of Our Lives

God requires His children to live godly lives in order for Him to answer our prayers. This PRINCIPLE OF PRAYER is really simple to understand. If a Christian is living in willful, unrepentant sin but he prays asking God for something, expecting to receive it, he will be greatly disappointed because God is not going to answer that prayer. If God DID grant the request in that prayer, He would be condoning that person’s sinful lifestyle. The attitude of many  Christians is this: “I believe in God, so I am saved. God loves me. So, no matter how I actually live, God is going to hear and answer my prayers.”  NOT SO.

Our God is not a permissive God. If we expect God to answer our prayers, we must live in ways that honor God.

Suppose you tell your son, “Son, this morning I want you to clean up your room – make your bed, pick up everything on the floor, sweep and mop the floor.” But he does not obey you. Evening comes and your son asks you, “Father – may I go to the movies this evening with my friends?” You reply, “No son, you may not go, because you did not do what I told you to do this morning. You dishonored you by failing to obey my clear instructions.”  But if you answered your son like this, “Yes, you may go. You don’t really have to obey me. I’ll give you whatever you want anyway!” You would be making light of your orders and rewarding his disobedience. That is not how God works with us. God is not a permissive Father.

There are many scriptures that teach this important principle. I will share just a few.

 Isaiah 59:1-2 – Isaiah was talking about prayer to God: “Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.  But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”  This verse tells us that God is neither weak / impotent nor deaf – that He is completely capable of both hearing our prayers and acting on our behalf, but that God WILL NOT listen to us because of our sins. God CHOOSES NOT TO LISTEN TO US. Sin blocks / hinders God from answering our prayers, even if it is God’s will to do what we are asking of Him.

Micah 3:4 – “Then they will cry to the LORD, but he will not answer them; he will hide his face from them at that time because they have made their deeds evil.”

Psalm 66:18 – If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”

James 5:16 – “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”

The opposite is equally true – “The prayer of an unrighteous man is powerless and ineffective.”

What is “a righteous man”?

The Bible speaks of righteousness in two ways:

1. Passive Righteousness – this is the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received as a gift by faith. When we put our faith in Jesus Christ – believe the gospel message and become followers of Jesus, God makes us righteous in His sight.

2 Cor. 5:21 teaches us this principle: “For our sake He made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” On the day we believed in Jesus, God placed our sins onto Jesus and at the same time God placed Jesus’ righteousness onto us. It was a free gift from God received by faith in Jesus Christ.

2. Active Righteousness – this kind of righteousness is how the Bible describes obedient believers. The Bible speaks about believers living a righteous life – being obedient to Jesus as we follow Him every day – allowing Jesus to be the Lord of our lives – Lord over our thoughts, our words, and over all of our actions. When a believer lives like that, he is called a “righteous person”.

I believe that James’ meaning of a “righteous man” encompasses BOTH of these – Passive and Active righteousness. The prayers of a follower of Jesus who is walking in obedience to God are powerful – God listens to the prayers of this kind of Christian and acts on our behalf.

2 Chron. 7:14 – “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

These are God’s clear requirements for believers, if God is going to hear and answer our prayers:

“My people who are called by my name” – people who know God – who belong to God. God is not required to listen to the prayers of people who do not believe in Him, except for a confession of sin, a profession of faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, accompanied by repentance from sin.

Humble yourself – come to God knowing that He is Lord and that we are totally dependent on Him; that our good lives do not obligate God to grant our prayerful requests. God is sovereign. His response to our prayers will be in line with his nature and his will.

“Pray and seek my face” – don’t just assume that God is going to give you what you desire – you have to ASK! “Seek my face” = to seek a close relationship with God. Not just seek the things we want! Seek God himself.

“turn from their wicked ways” – effective prayer requires holy living – to turn away from those things in our lives that we know are wrong and begin doing those things He delights in. Repent – turn around and go the other way! (Military term – “about face, march!”)

Even if we know the Bible – have memorized hundreds of verses – know all of the promises of God – know all the commandments - what God wants us to do, IF we are not living godly lives (holy, pure), God will not answer our prayers. He will close his ears to our prayers. That does not mean we have to be sinless in order for God to answer us. Only God is sinless. But we live daily with our sins forgiven “up to date”. We strive to live daily in ways that are pleasing in His sight.

THE CONSEQUENCES - “THEN I WILL HEAR FROM HEAVEN AND WILL FORGIVE YOUR SIN AND WILL HEAL YOUR LAND”:  When we believers meet the conditions of prayer which God has set forth, THEN he will listen and answer our prayers.

We must not presume that just because we are children of God that He will listen to and answer all our prayers.

These are promises God has made to us. Can God lie? Does God ever change His mind? (Num. 23:19)  We must know the requirements which God has set forth in the Bible in order for Him to answer our prayers.

Next week we will study about other requirements for answered prayer: Faith and Knowledge of God’s Word.