“And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear.”
And if you call on the Father
God does not answer prayer for these reasons:
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- lack of faith (Matthew 21:22 compared with Romans 14:23)
- no relationship with God (not a Christian)
- carnality (Psalm 66:18)
- selfishness (James 4:2,3)
- lack of compassion (Proverbs 21:13)
- domestic difficulty (1 Peter 3:7)
- pride (Job 35:12,13)
- lack of filling of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:18)
- failure to obey God (1 John 3:22)
- failure to be compatible with the will of God (1 John 5:14)
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Effective prayer life comes from understanding who and what God is and who and what we are. It is easy to tangle ourselves in self-pity. When we come to understand that we have nothing to offer God, and God has everything to offer us, then we will understand the essence of biblical prayer.
PRINCIPLE:
We pray effectively when we realize that God answers on the basis of His grace.
APPLICATION:
The best thing we can say about our prayers when we are out of fellowship is that they will be burned at the judgment seat of Christ.
We should not pray like this, “As the sun rises across the hills and the wind drifts softly through the trees.” God has seen all the scenery anyway! We do not impress God with elocution. He is impressed with the work of His Son and the appeal of His Son for us (Hebrews 7:25).
