Page 68 - The Importance of Prayer Student Textbook

have them. So, every day we pray for our daily bread as commanded, and the normal expectation is that
we would receive it. If we ask for deliverance and victory in our Christian life, every day, a normal
expectation is that we would receive victories. Jesus realized that as He prayed, the normal expectation
to His prayers were that the Father always hear Him and would answer His prayers. John 11:42. The
Psalmist cried out in Psalm 65:2, Oh thou that hearest prayer unto thee shall all flesh come. Our God
wants to be known as the God who hears and answers prayer. Ok, if this be so then why are so many of
our prayers go unanswered?

James 4:2 says, you have not because you ask not. However, in verse three it says, When you ask, you do
not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. It
is possible to be moved to pray by the Holy Spirit, yet when we begin to ask, we ask with selfish motives.
We may pray prayers that are perfectly scriptural to pray but the motive for asking is tarnished by our
motives. Remember the true purpose for anything we do must be the glory of God. I Corinthians 10:31…
whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. If we ask for anything that is motivated out of our own self-
gratification, then our asking is amiss. Again, our asking may be scriptural such as wanting to see souls
saved. But if our motive for asking is for self-gratification so that we can boast about what we have
accomplished, God is under no obligation to answer our prayers. Another example is that a wife may
want to see her husband saved because life would be so much easier to live if he were a Christian. But
this again is a selfish motive. Her desire should be that her husband would come to faith so that he could
join her in their attempt to bring glory to God. Our low purposes in prayer hinder many of our prayers
and revivals tarry. Our minds can become a temple filled with self-pleasure, self-righteousness, and even
self-willed. Pride and self-effort is so hard to detect but the Holy Spirit can reveal all of our pleasure-
seeking motives. When He does, repent of self and ask God to help you to bring your motivations to
seek Him with all of your heart for God’s glory. Always remember, that a life that is not examined is a
kind of death.

Isaiah 59:1-2 says, Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.But
your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He
will not hear. This verse makes it very plain that our sins are so repulsive to God that He hides His face
from us. We may pray and pray, yet we do not see our prayers answered. We may think to ourselves
that the days of miracles and great answers to prayer were for another dispensation or day as the
Israelites did. At the time of the writing of Isaiah the children of Israel thought that the arm of the Lord
was not extended to them, as it once was. Not so, says Isaiah, and he declared that Gods ear is just as
attentive as it has always been, and His face can be found. But Isaiah declares that there is a hinderance,
and it is your own sins. Can we make the same declaration of God today, as Isaiah did many years ago?
Yes! However, If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me. Psalm 66:18

Another hindrance to prayer is found in Ezekiel 14:3 Son of man, these leaders have set up idols in their
hearts. They have embraced things that will make them fall into sin. Why should I listen to their
requests? What is an Idol of the heart? An Idol is anything that takes the place of God which draws our
affections to it. Timothy Keller has written an entire book entitled, Counterfeit Gods, in which he deals
with hidden idols in our lives. Keller believes that there are more idols in the world than there are
realities. He says that the heart is an idol factory and that contemporary people have just as many idols
in their lives as primitive people. Perhaps the greatest and most unrecognized idol is greed. (See
Colossians 3:5) Again, it is beyond the scope of this book to elaborate as I want to on this subject, but
there is nothing new under the sun regarding idols of the heart. The three idols that have been around
for centuries is gold, girls, and glory. If you find yourself with insatiable appetites for these things and
yet you find no lasting satisfaction from them, the most probable explanation is that you were created

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