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HINDRANCES TO PRAYER:
HE WILL CALL UPON ME, AND I WILL ANSWER HIM: PSALM 91: 15a, New International Version
When a nightclub opened on Main Street, a church that was only a few blocks away, organized a twenty-four hour prayer vigil. They asked God to burn down the club. Within a week, lighting struck and burned the club to the ground. The owner sued the church, which denied responsibility. After hearing arguments from both sides the judge said, “It seems that wherever the guilt may lie, the nightclub owner believes in prayer and the church doesn’t.”
The first hindrance to answered prayer is – ‘prayerlessness’. Sounds simple, but our prayers are not answered when we don’t pray. Saying we believe in prayer is not the same as praying. In James 4; 2a, New International Version it is written, “You want something but don’t get it.”
We must take time to ask God for what we want and need. Sometimes we process situations in our minds, or talk about them with our friends, or wish, or hope, but we don’t pray. Thinking, wishing, hoping, and talking with others in not prayer; only prayer is prayer! When we have a need or a situation that concerns us; we’re only praying; when we talk to God about it.
God is waiting for us to make requests of Him in prayer. He never gets tired of us coming to Him! He is able, willing, and ready, to act on our behalf, but only if we pray.
It is recorded in Matthew 7: 7 – 8 New International Version that Jesus said: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
I believe that God has three possible answers to our prayers.
- ‘Yes!’
- ‘Not yet!’
- ‘I have something better for you!’
Is “he” in your life 24 / 7 ?
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