What blocks your prayers from being heard? Why do you cry out to God, and it seems like He does not hear you? Are there certain things in your life that need to be in place for you to be heard by God?
“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” – Psalm 66:18 KJV
Iniquity is sin. If you have known sin that you are committing that you have not repented and turned from, then you will not be heard by God. He promises not to hear you if you are sinning.
The Seared Conscience
Our morality has gone so far off the course that what we once knew were sins–our consciences are seared to those sins. This happens through the erosion of morals in the people around us and by watching television, movies, and ungodly websites.
I know of a pastor who led many people to the Lord, who because of tens of thousands of hours of television watching, became seared in his conscience. His daughter had been brutally raped by a stranger, but years later he cracked a joke about something similar. The people with unseared consciences were appalled at the joke as they stared in horror at this man. The others in the room with seared consciences laughed.
Even the godliest men fall into depravity when they do not regularly fast and pray before God to purge them from worldly influence. Abstaining from ingesting worldly influence can reverse some of the damage.
Our time belongs to God. But we don’t even consult Him about what to do with our time. Instead we squander it on worthless things that lead us to seared consciences.
We are not devoted to the Lord. We are not wholehearted. We do not care about the things of God except as mental exercises at church that are disconnected from our experience. We have a form of godliness but deny its power (2 Timothy 3:5). God never reaches our souls. We don’t commune.
Do you want your sin more than you want God?
You don’t want a relationship with God if you want your sin more than you want God. Jesus is not Lord if you are continuing in known sin. You don’t know Jesus if you continue to walk in sin because God is holy. The only way to draw near to God is to get rid of sin. Are you broken about sin? Saying some words into the air does not make you saved. Jesus must be functionally Lord of your life in order for you to be saved.
Whatever you are placing higher than God–the sin you are committing–that is Lord. If you are controlled by greed, anger, gossip, lust, ungratefulness, laziness, or complaining, then you are not controlled by God. If you are a man who wants to harm your wife rather than love her–you are under fleshly, demonic, and worldly influence. The reason you are reaching for another drink is that you are miserable and are doing whatever your flesh wants. You are enslaved to it–in chains. You are in bondage to whatever you are overcome by. You will never be satisfied by gratifying your flesh. It is an insatiable pit. There is nothing there but misery for the people around you.
“They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity–for people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” – 2 Peter 2:19 NIV
So what blocks your prayers from being heard by God? Sin. If you want a real relationship with God, ask Him to expose your sin, and then get rid of it.
To follow my prayer posts, like my Prayer page on Facebook, YouTube, and Google+.
