16. Your Relationship with God Defines Your Prayers
16
Your Relationship with God Defines Your Prayers
The longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer wrote in his book Working and Thinking on the Waterfront, “Early in the morning it somehow occurred to me that never in all my life have I prayed.” 1 When I read that statement, I seriously considered writing a book entitled How to Manage without Prayer. Then I realized that there was nothing encouraging to say about a prayerless life, so I abandoned the project.
God’s people simply can’t manage without prayer, and yet many make the attempt. “You do not have because you do not ask God,” warns James 4:2, a text that suggests that prayerless people don’t know what they’re missing. Prayer is such a costly and irreplaceable privilege that we dare not neglect it or abuse it. As long as we are in this world, nothing can take the place of prayer.
An effective prayer life demands that we have right relationships with God, with other people, and with ourselves. If anything goes wrong in these areas, we can be sure that our prayer life will suffer. We want our prayers to “reach heaven” (see 2 Chron. 30:27) and be accepted by God (Job 42:9; Ps. 6:9). The last thing we want is what the Jewish remnant experienced after the Lord brought the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem: “Even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.… You have covered yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can get through” (Lam. 3:8, 44). We want our prayers to get through!
The Lord not only hears the prayers of the righteous (Prov. 15:29), but He delights in them and is pleased when His people pray. “The prayer of the upright pleases him” (Prov. 15:8). Every time He hears and answers our prayers, the Lord is sharing His love with us. “Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!” (Ps. 66:20). This is one of many ways He has of drawing near to us. “The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth” (Ps. 145:18). For us, prayer should mean not only delighting in God but bringing delight to God.
A deepening relationship with the Lord involves faith that leads to confidence and love that leads to obedience. Without faith we cannot please God (Heb. 11:6), and faith is essential to answered prayer. “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer” (Matt. 21:22). But “faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ” (Rom. 10:17), so we can’t ignore God’s Word and expect Him to answer our prayers. Jesus said, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7).
On the other hand, “If anyone turns a deaf ear to my instruction, even their prayers are detestable” (Prov. 28:9). The prophet Zechariah further clarified, “They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry. ‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the LORD Almighty” (Zech. 7:12–13). Why should the Lord listen to us if we don’t listen to Him?
Those who have faith in the Lord have an inner confidence that He hears and answers prayer (1 John 5:14–15), and those who love the Lord have a desire to obey Him. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15). They know the joy that obedience brings to their communion with the Lord. They also know that obedience is essential to a right relationship to the Lord, a relationship that leads to answered prayer. The psalmist confirms, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and has heard my prayer” (Ps. 66:18–19). The word translated “cherished” in verse 18 means “to admit that there is sin, to approve of it and do nothing about it.”
Disobedience is an insurmountable barrier to effective prayer, especially if that disobedience is masked by religious hypocrisy. In Isaiah’s day, the people of Israel crowded into the temple, brought sacrifices to the altar, and lifted their hands in prayer, but the Lord wasn’t impressed. He sent this message through His servant Isaiah: “The multitude of your sacrifices— what are they to me?” says the LORD.
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?
Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations— I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.…
When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.” (Isa. 1:11–13, 15) Size is the primary measure of success in many churches today, but the Lord didn’t rejoice over the temple crowds in Isaiah’s day. Dwight L. Moody said that “converts should be weighed as well as counted,” and when the Lord weighed the people in the temple congregation, they were found wanting. The hands they piously lifted in prayer were stained with the blood of helpless widows and orphans who had been unjustly treated and robbed of their meager possessions (Isa. 1:18–23).
Here, then, are four obstacles to answered prayer: unbelief, willful disobedience, neglect of God’s Word, and hypocrisy masked by religion.
These obstacles are still very much with us today.