Keep Praying

 

Yesterday morning God challenged me to pray for revival. I did. The devil didn’t like it. He spent the afternoon assaulting my thoughts to the point that I forgot what I’d been praying for. By the time I recognized this was a spiritual attack and connected to Satan attempting to thwart those prayers, I wondered how God could even listen to me over that barrage of unholy thinking. 

Today the Spirit took me to my books on prayer and I did a search on hindrances. The first discovered comment said, “The difficulties most often complained of as hindrances to prayer may be traced back to want of love.” I could see the connection to my battle, but also the answer. Remembering God loves me totally, relentlessly, without stopping or needing me to be lovable. Knowing this removes that hindrance and draws me into a deeper desire to pray, to talk with Him. Want of love can stop prayer, but knowing His love motivates it.

Other clues about hindrances to prayer also describe problems I’ve had that keep me from praying. One is this: “He who is too busy to pray will be too busy to live a holy life.” Being busy is almost a disease in the lives of many Christians. We joke about it, complain about it, yet as my hubby often points out, most of our busyness is by choice.

Even so, life’s duties can become pressing and crowd out prayer. One author says: “This way of hindering prayer becomes so natural, so easy, so innocent that it comes on us all unawares.” If we will allow our praying to be crowded out, it will always stop us from prayer. Satan rathers ‘we let the grass grow on the path to our prayer-chamber than anything else.’ 

Lack of prayer indicates a “Gone out of business” sign on my life. It can also mean I’m living for some other name than God’s and to somebody else’s glory, likely my own. In the early church, the apostles understood prayer as their most important business: 

And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” (Acts 6:2–4)

 For them, prayer was the priority, not an opening and closing remark whenever they met together. I’ve also realized how putting prayer first changes the day, yet doing it remains a challenge. Besides my own lax, that devious enemy works to stop me.

He didn’t stop Daniel. His enemies had a petition that meant death for praying, but “When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.” (Daniel 6:10) This got him tossed into the lion’s den, yet God delivered him. Little wonder the NT says this: 

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8) 

I need to be alert, but also persistent and obedient because many hindrances to prayer are related to disobedience. For instance:

Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered. (Proverbs 21:13)
If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination. (Proverbs 28:9)

The Bible also points to pious activity for personal gain (Isaiah 58:1-14, Matthew 5) and most of all, unconfessed sin (Isaiah 59:1-3, Zechariah 7:12-13, Psalm 66:18, many more)

For me, busyness, selfish desires, or feeling as if my prayers bounce off the ceiling because God doesn’t care about what I care about (lack of His love) are hindrances. I have dozens of books on prayer but reading them does not remove any obstruction. The only way to do it is by praying.

PRAY: Jesus, You are loud and clear. Protect me from the enemy’s lies and other obstacles as I go to prayer. . . .   

Love is incompatible with sin

 

The devotional title for this day is, “Love never justifies sin” yet I could not find a Bible version that translates today’s verse that way. Instead, it says: (Love) does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. (1 Corinthians 13:6)

A bit of research on the word ‘rejoice’ reveals that love does not rejoice in sin because the love of God cannot rejoice in sin. The two are totally incompatible. In other words, if I am feeling good about seeing sin in others, then I am not loving them, indicating that the love of God, which is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, is not in me. Thus any happy feelings that I might have are only a self-centered delight in getting my way and a certain indication that the love of God is not governing my heart.

This anomaly also indicates the reason for such delight — I could be using the sins of others to justify my own. For example, if talking about others behind their backs makes my old nature feel good and I am seeking those who also enjoy  that, then we are involved in a grave sin (gossip) and trying to justify it by spending time with others who also enjoy putting down other people. This is not about love at all, no matter how good it might feel.

MacArthur gives several examples of how people justify sin yet that does not always produce joy. Some who point at the sins of others to make themselves look good are grouchy and miserable. Living without love can produce all sorts of selfishness yet it cannot fill us with joy over sin. If happy feeling exist about sin, it is from the flesh or old nature. The reasons could include making excuses for my own sin, putting down others to make me look good, giving into worldly ideas, enjoying a sense of superiority when I see others who are ’worse than me’ and all sorts of ‘me first’ self-centered ideas.

Godly love cannot produce joy over sin just like cows cannot fly and trees do not go swimming. The Lord’s nature is never thrilled over sin. He is so against it that He sent His Son to die for it. No joy. However, He may laugh at it . . .

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. (Psalm 2:1–4)

Sometimes I watch a detective show on television, not because I enjoy seeing crimes committed but because I see the justice done at the end of the show. I’ve read novels where the villain got away with his crime and tossed that book in the trash. Rejoicing over sin is not an attitude that goes away by avoiding or never seeing sin. This joy or lack of real joy is a matter of the heart and of who is in control of my life. I cannot enjoy sin because Jesus lives in me. That is one of several evidences of the new life He gives when a person is saved. The only thing that can make me feel good about sin is when I’ve said NO to God and allowed the world, the flesh, and the Liar control my thinking. Then sin becomes appealing, but since sin robs me of joy, I seldom want to stay there. Fake joy does not last.

PRAY: Oh Lord Jesus, I am so grateful for the Holy Spirit joy that You give, and that nothing can be its substitute. Feeling good when I get my way is not like the joy that is deep within, there even when things are not as I’d like. It is related to Your “peace that passes understanding” promised to those who trust You. It is the evidence of the Spirit living in me. And when that joy is gone, it is evidence that my life is not right, that something needs to be confessed, and that You are calling me to come closer. Of course love does not rejoice in sin. If it did, that would be like You applauding when I do sinful things. That runs totally contrary to what You did about sin — You died for it.

PONDER: Do a NT word search for joy and note the reasons for it. Consider passages like Matthew 5 as well.