Requirements for Answered Prayer

“Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what He has done for my soul.  I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.  But truly God has listened; He has attended to the voice of my prayer.  Blessed be God, because He has not rejected my prayer or removed His steadfast love from me.” –Psalm 66:16-20 (ESV). “And He told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” –Luke 18:1(ESV).  “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” –James 5:16b (ESV).

November 6 marks the count-down date of the forty days of “Unite in Prayer” for America. Many prayers from many people have gone up to the  “Giver of every good and perfect gift.”  I trust that since we have become somewhat accustomed, with over a month’s emphasis of praying for God’s will to be done and for Him to give America another opportunity to live for and please Him, that we will not stop praying once we hear the results of this year’s election.  May we feel a keen responsibility to continue our earnest prayers, and at the same time a sense of commitment to seeking God’s face and asking for His guidance and blessings.  Much work lies ahead for our leaders and our citizens if we would right injustices and get America back from the brink of economic and moral degeneration.  We are all responsible for rebuilding America.  God is a “God of second chances” (which we need).

What are God’s requirements for our prayers to be answered?  The focal scriptures for today give us clues.  First is to fear God.  We recognize and acknowledge our God as Sovereign, Majestic, Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent.  He alone is worthy of reverence and honor.  Because of Who He is and what He does, we can give Him highest praise.  Then we must recognize that He will not cherish those who hold iniquity in their hearts, so we must approach Him after first repenting of our sins and cleansing our hearts.  If we are beset by resentment, anxiety and greed, or any other subtle and debilitating sin, God will not honor our prayers.  We approach Him, as the psalmist so aptly states, “with clean hands and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:4).  This cleansing should become a way of life for us, because as we pray daily we recognize our unworthiness in comparison to God’s holiness.  Only then are we in position for our prayers to be heard and for God to answer favorably.  How reassuring that God hears and answers His followers, and that His steadfast love surrounds and fills the believer!

Jesus, in teaching His disciples how to pray, gave them a parable that well illustrates what it means to “pray and not lose heart.”  Persistence in prayer was likened to the widow who kept going to the judge to plead for what she needed, and although the judge at first did not want to grant her plea, finally, because of her continual pleading, her request was granted.  Such persistence in prayer shows that we mean business with God and that we are willing to await His answer.  James writes a great truth about prayer.  We have probably memorized what he wrote from the King James Version: “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16).  In these ten words are bound up all the characteristics of earnest prayer:  coming from a righteous person and being fervent (intense, ardent, zealous), then it “avails much” (brings assistance, aid, profit, gain).  My plea is that we will be as fervent in praying or America following the election as we have been in the forty days leading up to it.  Let us measure our regular, daily praying by these standards of fearing God, cleansing ourselves of iniquity, being persistent, zealous and intense in our praying.  Alfred Lord Tennyson, English poet, wrote: “More things are wrought through prayer than this world dreams of.”

Prayer:  How earnest and ardent, Lord, have been these days of uniting in prayer.  Thank You for allowing us to know that we are not alone in approaching You, and that fervent prayer is heeded and answered by You.  Thank You, Lord.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.  

Keep on Asking, Seeking, Knocking

“Ask, and it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks, receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.  Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?  If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”  Matthew 7:7-11 (ESV).

Jesus used three strong verbs in this teaching about persistence in prayer:  ask, seek, knock.  And in the Aramaic language in which Jesus spoke, the commands are in the aroist tense, which is more understandably written, “Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking.”  By definition, aroist means an inflectional form of a verb which denotes simple occurrence of an action without completion.  In other words, it is an action that continues.  As a substantiation of the admonition of continuing to ask, seek and knock, Jesus gave two parables to undergird persistence in prayer.  One is of the importunate widow as recorded in Luke 18:2-5.  In it a poor widow came repeatedly before a judge to ask for protection against an opponent.  At first the judge was reluctant to make the order necessary for her protection, but because of her insistence, the protection was finally granted.  The second parable is sometimes termed “the three loaves,” or “a friend’s request at midnight.”  This story, recorded in Luke 11:5-8 tells of a friend who, because unexpected guests arrived from a long journey and he did not have bread to feed them, went at midnight insisting that his neighbor share bread.  Because of his insistence, the neighbor got up and gave bread to the one who asked it.  Then Jesus continued in Luke’s account to give the teaching on persistence in prayer:  “Ask, seek, knock.”

God always answers urgent prayer.  But the answer may not come as the asker, seeker, knocker expects.  Just as good, responsible earthly parents seek to give good gifts to their children, sometimes as they, God must be discretionary in His answer.  To grant everything children ask of parents would be what we commonly term “spoiling”  (or over-indulging) them.  This practice is not good in the character-building process, because it teaches children that things come easily and there is no need to work for or wait for results.  To obtain what we ask for, we must first conform our will to God’s will.  Oftentimes in this process of God’s granting our prayers, His answer is even greater and more rewarding than what we asked for in the beginning.  Personal testimony is often helpful to others in showing the truth of scripture.  In retrospect, I remember how God answered prayers of mine so many times in ways beyond what I asked or imagined.  I always liked school and enjoyed studying.  My mother died when I was only fourteen years of age, I had unprecedented responsibility in a farm family to assume duties of housework, cooking, looking after a younger brother.  The tasks seemed formidable and endless, and could I continue my high school education—and even go to college—with the responsibilities that were suddenly upon me?  Not only was I able to continue school, but even the added duties were working to grow me into a resilient and determined person, and at the same time one who daily went to the Lord for needs (and I will admit sometimes petty requests in prayer).  But in God’s omnipotence and omniscience, He answered. These characteristics about my powerful heavenly Father I didn’t know as a teenager, but I was learning about a powerful God who was ever with me. He was laying foundations not only for the immediate accomplishment of high school but of college and graduate school and beyond.  He knows what we need, even before we ask, but like the loving heavenly Father He is, He wants us to keep on asking, seeking, knocking.  He delights in answering our prayers in ways that are always best for us.  God is so good; to God be the glory!