Why are my prayers not getting answered?

[Guest morejesus]

My 6 year old son told me the other day that he had been praying for a Playstation 2 game system. He then said "I know I will get one because the bible says all I have to to is ask him." After this reply I knew I needed to sit down with him and explain to him some very important things about prayer. Since then I have heard several comments made from diffrent people asking why there prayers were not being answerd. So I felt led to do a study on prayer.

In Acts 13:3 the Antioch church is praying over Barnabas and Saul (Paul) after the Spirit of God had called them to be missionaries. The church did not send them into the mission field until they had fasted and laid their hands on them in prayer. In Acts 14:21-23 Paul and Barnabas had preached the gospel and after having taught them they ordained elders to lead churches. Before they left to continue Gods work they prayed for them. So we know the missionaries prayed for the church and the church prayed for the missionaries. This being the case their must be somthing to prayer. It must be of value to the work of the ministry or why bother doing it. God must be hearing the prayers and answering or this practice would have been discontinued long ago. So how do we make it work in our own lives? First we must understand that preyer should not be somthing we do out of force of habit or because we feel like its or job. Prayer is our way of fellowshiping with God. When we pray we need to do so with all sincerty it is not a game. When we are speaking with the Father he is right there with us and he can see into our hearts. Throughout the Bible mighty things have been accomplished through God from prayer. There is Power in prayer. When we learn how to pray correctly mighty things can be accomplished today just as they where in the days of the bible. God is the same yesterday today and forever.

God does answer prayer when it is done correctly. This is where my son god the impression that whatever he asked for he was going to get. John 14:14 If ye ask anything in my name, I will do it. Then why are my prayers not being answered? Now i can see how this verse would make some to think, all i have to do is ask God and he will give it to me. Now this is true he will give it to us, but there are certain things we must understand before this can happen.

John 15:7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. The first thing here is we must be abiding in him and he must be abiding in us. We must live in Him and allow his Words to live in us. How is this even possable? When we accepted Jesus as our Lord the Holy Spirit begins to live in us. It is through him that we should be lead. By reading Gods word and allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal to us we learn how to apply it to our daily lives. It is through the Spirit we fellowship with God and by reading the Bible and applying what we learn from in His word begins to live in us. This took me years and years to understand myself. I had the knowledge of the word but not the wisdom of it. In other words I knew what the bible said, I could qoute the Bible, but I did not understand it nor did I apply what it said to my life. We need to take time to let the Holy Spirit open our eyes to what Gods word is really saying.

John 16:23 And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give to you. We must be asking in the name of Jesus. It is through Jesus that we were saved, It is through Jesus that we are able to have fellowship with God.

Psalms 66:18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. We should ask ourselves am I harboring any sin in my life, is there injustice or unrighteousness in my heart? If you read Psalms 51 it is a perfect example of how to get rid of any forsaken sin that may be in our lives. David is praying for the remissions of his sin. He fully confesses them. He ask God for total forgiveness and to blot his sin out making him as white as snow. We should be doing this on a daily basis. Again not as a habit or as a job but because we really are sorry. Remember God knows our heart. We must ask for total remission of our sins.

Mark 11:25-26 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. 26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses. Wow, strong statement. Alot of people have done some really horrable things to me in my life, But Wait, What have I done to God? I have a had a really hard time with this in my own life. Forgiving dosent come easy for me. But then i look back at my own life and if you knew me in real life I was a total utter mess. I hated everyone. I did everyone wrong. I thought everyone was bad except me. Just so you know I was the only good person in the whole world until God showed me my sins. Then I was the worst person in the whole world and the Holy Spirit showed me Jesus. Then when I asked for forgiveness and forgave anyone who i thought did me wrong I became a son of God. Talk about ups and downs. This all transpired in about 1 hour. God is so awsome.

Oh sorry back to subject. We must make sure we are forgiveing everyone and if you do have a problem with forgiving just look at your past life. We were all so bad that God had to give his only Son on the cross so that we might live. His only Son he had no others. We must forgive plain and simple.

James 4:3 ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lust. Are we asking for our own selfish reasons? Are we asking so that are flesh might be gratified? This is the way my son was asking, and this is where he needed the correction. Our prayers must be spiritually motivated. Our motive for prayer should be for the glory of God not the gratification of flesh. Our prayer reqauest may be perfectly proper but in we are asking for selfish motives the will never be granted. Always when asking in prayer let it be for the glory of God.

1John3:22 and whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do the things that are pleasing in his sight. If we are not being obedient to God in our life he is not going to reward with an answered prayer. If my son does not obey me no way will he get any kind of reward from me. Why in the world would you reward someone for disobedence. That would be teaching by disobedence comes reward. If you had children and practiced this they would disobey every sec they where awake. It is only by doing what pleases God that he will reward us. Stay with me almost done.

Mark 11:24 Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Matthew 21:22 And all things whatsoever ye ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. I put two verses here because faith is so important. It was because of of faith that through Jesus Christ we could be saved. It was through faith that Peter walked on the water. It was through faith that moses led the Isrelites from bondage out of egypt, and faith that he parted the sea. It was by faith that Paul recieved his sight back. It is because of our faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God that our prayers will be anwsered. It is not faith of ourselves but faith that comes from God. We can build this faith through his word. It is through his word that we fellowship with Christ and through his word that our fellowship will grow. As our fellowship grows so will our faith in HIM. Romans 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. We must act upon this faith as well. Ill give you an example. Say we were on the side of a cliff at a old warn out looking rope bridge. The only way to the other side where we needed to be was on that rope bridge. If I was to say to you that the rope bridge was safe that I have walked accross it million times then walked of a left you alone at the rope bridge 1 you would believe me and cross it or 2 you would doubt me. If you beleived me you would walk right out to the middle of that bridge not worrying if it would fall our not. If you doubted me you might put your foot on it and give it a little bounce to check it or grab one of the ropes and pull on it a little to see if it is rotten. That is not faith. Faith is walking right out to the middle of it without fear or worry. When we pray asking for somthing it is this type of faith in which our Father is looking for. He wants us to beleive in him with all our heart and soul.

1John 5:14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. Are we praying according to Gods will? We must find out what Gods will is for us and pray according to it. We can know what Gods will is by knowing God. When we come to God in prayer we need to come with the heart of thy will be done lord not my will be done. Do this for me so that it will glorify your name Father, not because its what I want but because its what you want for me. When we learn to pray like this our heart becomes more acceptable to Gods answers for us. We can hear him tell us to be patient and wait or even no this is not what i want for you. God may have other plans for us that we do not know of. It is important to listen to him so we dont miss somthing. You never know, we might be missing out on some great things for ourselves by not praying according to his will.

If our prayers are not getting answerd just check ourselves and see if we have missed somthing. God may be trying to tell you somthing and want you to check an area of your life to get it back in the right place. This is not somthing he does to us to be mean. It is a way of teaching us.

Love all my brothers and sister at worthy. You will be in my prayers.

[Guest yod]

James 4:3

When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

I found out a long time ago that mountains WILL move when my desires are aligned with God's.

Psalm 37:4

Delight yourself in the LORD;

And He will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the LORD,

Trust also in Him, and He will do it.

When His ways become my desire, then He will perform everything I ask! how cool is that???

maybe that is what we should teach our children?

[Guest morejesus]

I have to agree with you. If we are walking in the Spirit we are in tune with what Gods will is for us.

1 Corinthians 2:12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

Edited September 6, 2004 by morejesus

[Botz]

MoreJesus...That was really good and helpful to read..Thanks.

I think your analogy of the bridge was interesting...

Someone once said we can have a strong faith in a weak bridge...but it will not get us over to the other side...and weak faith in a strong bridge and it will get us over....Our faith is only as strong as the object we put it into.

Be greatly encouraged and full of His praises. Botz :hug:

[Guest koppen]

We also have to remember that it also has to be the WILL of God, if we do not recieve what we ask then it may not be the WILL of God...God's WILL isn't always our WILL...God Bless!

I hope this helps some!

[larryt]

It is good to know what is brass above so we don't end up putting it up there. Good study. Here is another one.

Pr 28:9

[alecia]

Wow, thank you for posting this mj..

This was definitley something I needed to learn about, and didnt even realize it.

[Guest morejesus]

thank you Larryt that was a big help to me.

[stevehut]

I do believe that God always answers prayers.

And sometimes the answer is "no".

[ann2]

I believe that God does answer prayers but sometimes He says no.In His own time which we as humans want right now,He teaches us patience.