To Live is Christ — don’t send Him spam

My email spam filter is set on maximum. That means anything that looks remotely like advertising or pornography or any other unsolicited mail is stopped before it gets to me. I don’t even need to read it so I can make that decision because the filter does it for me.

Last week’s Bible study (the one I write and teach) was about prayer. We focused on praying in the will of God because the Bible stresses this as very important. When I pray in His will, He promises to hear and answer me.

However, there is a negative side to this too. If I pray selfishly or outside the will of God, I cannot expect Him to pay attention or answer. It is almost as if He has a “prayer filter” that reads what I am praying and lets through to Him only the prayers that are appropriate.

Today’s devotional verses speak about how to get past God’s prayer filter and be heard.

If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear. But certainly God has heard me; He has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me! (Psalm 66:18–20)

Before these verses, the psalmist is praising God, yet he knows that clinging to known sin ruins communication with Him. I know that too. Unless my heart is clear and all know sin is confessed, my prayers don’t get past the ceiling. In fact, I usually will not pray in the first place. Sin always mucks up my spiritual life.

God doesn’t like it either. A parallel might be a young driver asking her parent for the car keys. However, the last time she took the car, she got a speeding ticket and hasn’t yet paid that fine. She should not be surprised if mom or dad holds back on the keys. She has to clear things first.

God wants me to keep short accounts. Confessing my sin results in forgiveness and cleansing (1 John 1:9), but there is another reason for confession — I cannot pray properly with known sin in my life. There is little or no discernment concerning His will, my prayers are selfish, and I’m filled with “me first” requests.

I know these verses are not about sinless perfection. “Regarding iniquity” means that I am aware of my sin but not doing anything about it — it’s fine with me that it stays where it is. With that attitude, I am putting a warning flag on my prayers. They will not get through God’s prayer filter.

There is much more God has to say about these verses, but this gives my soul enough to mull over for today.