Mark’s sermon last night on prayer faced the fact that there are times, of course, when the promises in Luke 11:9-13 do not seem to be very real to us. Obviously, if we are demanding things from God, we may well be disappointed with His answers, for He is able to refuse our requests when He knows these will not serve to further our spiritual growth. Just as every parent knows it is unwise to give a child everything it asks for, so too God may well withhold things from us which we think are perfectly desirable and needful! Mark looked at other obstacles to receiving answers to prayer, however, looking at 1 John 3:21-22 and how our hearts condemn us when there is sin in our lives which separates us from God and prevents us from entering His presence confidently and freely.
When there is sin in our lives, our prayer life is inevitably affected, for we feel guilty. We know that God knows our sin, even if we manage to deceive other people. As a result, we lose our confidence before God and we feel awkward in His presence, with the result that we tend to spend less time with Him. God wants us, though, to ‘come anyway. Confess your sin and I will remove it from you. Let me forgive you and renew the relationship we have.’ When this happens, we are able to approach the throne of grace again with confidence and can ask, seek and knock with full assurance of faith.
The chief obstacles to prayer, therefore, are:
1) Are we asking for the right things? (see James 4:3)
2) Is there something in our lives stopping God’s blessing?
If we can be sure that these obstacles have been overcome, we can be confident in God’s goodness as a loving Father in answering prayer.