What Affects Our Prayers?

"Clarity" 4-13-11

When We Pray

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

I want to help you understand what it means to go to God and be still in His presence. I want you to really understand what it means to be an intercessor in prayer. I hope that God not only challenges you, but that He will grow me into a deeper prayer life with Him.

Tonight we are going to look at what happens when we pray and take a look at what affects our prayer life.

God hears our prayers. This may be a statement that you have completely overlooked, but I want to bring it to your attention. God hears YOUR prayers. God doesn’t just hear the holy persons prayers, He hears you when you call out to Him. That is an incredible truth that is made all too small. We have forgotten how important this is and how much it really means for us!

When we pray we trust God. The video we just watched goes through many different scenarios. When we ask for forgiveness we believe God to be forgiving, when we praise God, we believe Him to be almighty, to be worthy of those prayers. When we simply pray we are trusting that God has the ability to affect the outcome of our circumstance or situation.

Do you truly believe God when He says that He will hear your prayers? Do you really believe that God will answer you? The Experiencing God book put it this way, are you expecting God to answer you and are you actively looking for those answers to prayer?

What affects our prayer life?

There are several factors that can get in the way of our prayer life, or even the ability of God to work in and through us. What do you think they are?

Who remembers the points from the sermon on Sunday? One of the bullet points that Steve gave was the fact that we come into the house of God, or into His presence, with hearts that are unrepentant.

What is the main thing that God hates? Sin. How do we mend the relationship that we have with God? We do it through repenting of our sins. There is a false thought out there that you just come to Christ once and ask for forgiveness of sins, then you are good to go the rest of your life. We are still sinners though! We sinned yesterday, you probably sinned today, and if you are alive tomorrow, you will sin then too.

You cannot bring a person with chicken pox into the church without making a lot of people sick! We try to say that our sin is secret enough to not harm those around us, but Scripture tells us otherwise. We affect the power of prayer when we bring in our sinful mindsets, or sin stained bodies into the place of worship, or when we interact with other believers in prayer.

God wants pure sacrifices, not dirty ones. Just like we would not use a dirty, crusty, rancid bowl to put our cereal in, He can’t use dirty Christians to create pure followers after Him.

So, if sin interrupts our walk with God and even God’s ability to use us, then what is the main thing that we have to be vigilant in doing? Repenting of our sins! We have to cultivate habits of repenting daily or hourly if necessary. If you relationship with God is a priority, you will notice when you are not having the sweet fellowship with Him.

You may think, well, I don’t know where that is found in the Bible. We are saved from the wages of sin so why would God continue to hold it against us? It’s a good point, I will give that to you, but the issue is that we are still linked to sin. We haven’t been completely freed from it and we will not be until we stand in God’s presence in heaven. Look at 2 Ch 7:14 again:

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

God says that if MY people who are called by MY name humble themselves and pray… First of all, who are God’s people? Who is called by His name? Christians, to be Christ-like. We are called by His name. We have to humble ourselves and pray. We have to realize that there is sin in our lives that we need to deal with.

It gets even better. God says that we have to turn from our wicked ways. Wow. Will the self-righteous in the church please stand up and get offended? God is calling His people out. These are not people that live lives outside of God’s grace and wisdom, these are God’s people! This is you and me. We have to turn from our wicked ways.

Then what happens? What does God do after this all takes place? He will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. What does that tell you? Does God hear your prayers? From this scripture I would surmise that God hears your prayers of repentance before He will answer your prayers and petitions for other things.

This passage of scripture doesn’t say that God will answer all of our prayers in the order that they were received. It says that God will answer us if we seek His face and turn from our wicked ways.

As always we have to make sure this idea lines up with other scripture passages before we can accept it as being truthful. So, let’s do just that:

*Matt 3:8 ⁸ Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

            What do you think this means? We are called to bear fruit in our lives are we not? But if we are to look at our forgiveness in Christ as being a one time event, than this challenges that thought. We bear fruit when we keep ourselves in repentance.

*Re 2:5 ⁵ Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

This was a record of Christ speaking to the church at Ephesus. John wrote this while having visions of the things to come. Jesus is calling them (Followers of God) to the works that they did at first. So they were apparently working to please God, but they had fallen into some kind of sin. Earlier in this chapter Jesus accuses them of losing their first love, which should have been Jesus. They were called to repent and return to their original place of serving God.

*Pr 15:8 ⁸The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is acceptable to him.

This spells it out pretty simply. If we are in sin our praise, our offerings, our very selves stink in the presence of God. However, the prayer of the upright, the righteous, those who have repented of their sin, are acceptable to Him.

Entering the Throne Room

*Is 59:1–2 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; ²but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

Ok, so you are probably thinking that we have beaten this topic to death, but it is incredibly important for us to grasp.

What is one of the main reasons we do not see God’s power in our churches more often? Because we are really not coming into His presence as pure offerings to Him. Picture it this way; prayer is literally seen as being able to enter the throne room of God with a petition. Have you seen any of those movies set in ancient times? There is typically a long hallway leading up to the king’s throne. Guards are stationed all around the king and up and down that hallway. Can you imagine the reaction of the king if He knew for a fact that you had deliberately gone against His will? What do you think would happen? Off with His head! He dared to enter my presence and ask for something of me, while his heart is set against me and my kingdom!

We serve such a gracious God don’t we? Even though we come into His presence without the reverence that He deserves, even though we come to Him with hearts that are divided, He doesn’t just strike us down. He allows us the opportunity to repent, to be cleansed and to be used by Him.

So, what does it mean to be repentant? It is more than being sorry for something. The original Greek word says it this way: Repent, to change one’s life or purpose, based on complete change of attitude and thought concerning sin and righteousness.

Are you walking in sin? Secret or otherwise? Have you asked God to reveal to you sins that you are maybe unaware of? This is serious. We need to get serious with God and with ourselves. If we want to see people changed, if we want to have power in our prayer lives, we have to live humbly and pure lives before God. If we screw up, and we will, we have to take it to God and repent, turn from our evil ways and be cleansed.

            This is one of the most important topics to understand as we start really looking into what prayer means for us. We cannot go any further with this study until we are clean before God.