Unanswered prayer? One reason . . .

People do not always agree and get along. I read and watch mysteries and even though most are fiction, they are based on this reality. Someone wants something they cannot have so they harm others trying to get it. Mostly, that thing they cannot have is a selfish desire. For this, God says:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:1–4)

The root of the problem is selfishness, another word for sinfulness. The object of desire could be legitimate but in this description the reason for wanting it is all about me, me, me. As a Christian, all I have to do is ask God for those things that I need, even the things that I want, but if my motivation is to bless myself or glorify myself, or make me the star, then the prayer will not be answered. I have made my wants and my stuff more important than listening to and obeying God.

It happens. I’m too embarrassed to name some of what I’ve asked for wrongly and God said no. I’m ashamed of the emotions that rose up because I didn’t get what I wanted and the arguments I’ve been in for the same reason. Yet if it were not for those experiences, I’d not know the reality of a couple of big reasons that God does not answer prayer.

One is that I do not ask. I assume I can get it for myself, perhaps knowing in my heart that it is the wrong thing to ask for anyway.

The other is that I ask but with that selfish motivation that this thing is for me, to satisfy me, to make me the winner, to do for me what I should not want but am asking anyway.

There are lessons learned from being selfish. While God often shields my foolishness from the public eye, just knowing that others see how I’m thinking and acting is awful. Worse yet, knowing I’m putting myself above the care and wisdom of God is humbling. For this, I should be thankful. The alternative, a hard heart, would make the next few verses meaningless . . .

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. (James 4:6–10)

From being so selfish and from realizing God becomes deaf to my selfish prayers makes me realize my pride and the way the devil manipulates my thinking. It also makes me realize that this passage has a logical sequence. It is summarized at the beginning: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” This is well described in the next lines.

Submit to God comes first. There is no power to resist Satan or my own selfishness while I try to hang on to it. I cannot serve Him while I am trying to serve me.

Resist the devil comes on the heels of submitting to God. Stop listening to the devil’s lies and destructive suggestions. If I am yielded to God, he must leave and he does. Sometimes it takes me a while to figure out what I’ve held back from God, but once that happens (and is confessed) the pressure is off. I win — by giving up!

The reset of it is easy. Mourning over sin is not fun, but in the end, God exalts me. That is always unexpected, even though I know this verse. God is utterly amazing!

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Jesus, there are times when I’ve prayed, “You are my Savior, save me” and You come to the rescue. However, there are times when I’ve prayed, “Give me . . . .” and asked for foolish and sinful things. I’m so glad that You are not like a genie in a bottle that grants every wish. You keep me from the silliness and sinfulness of myself. For that, I praise and thank You.

Today’s thankful list . . .

The Word of God that tells me how to live in victory.

The energy that comes with freedom from selfishness.

Ability to choose.

Finally being able to get my sister on the phone.

My personal trainer who refuses me the luxury of whining.

Being able to record rugby games in the middle of the night to watch the next day.

Crisp cold air with sunshine.

Salmon sandwiches on homemade bread.

Overcoming fear by dying to it

An elder in a large California church offered this illustration. He said our life with Christ is like a glass. When it is upright, He fills it with the Holy Spirit. Only sin can tip over the glass and empty it. Only confession of sin can put it upright again. The Lord does the filling; we do the confessing.

Another point of this illustration is that we are either filled or not filled, yielded to Him or not yielded to Him. As he talked, the elder tipped the glass down then up saying this is what we can expect in life. The best we can do is to keep short accounts and stay upright longer than we are tipped over.

How does this upright glass look in practical living? Countless ways. One of them is in how I respond to someone who hurts me. Jesus said . . .

“But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matthew 5:39)

Chambers says this is “the humiliation of being a Christian” because the natural person refuses to hit back because he afraid to, but the spirit-filled person does not hit back because the Holy Spirit is in charge. Such a response manifests the life of Christ. I cannot fake the disposition of Jesus either. He is manifesting Himself through me, or He is not. However, a personal insult becomes an occasion of revealing Him.

I could list hundreds of occasions. Is Jesus demonstrated in me because His Spirit fills my life? If not, then I am blocking Him by insisting that I run my own life, defending my rights, determined that I will be comfortable, and resisting any sort of humiliation or loss. In other words, I will be my own boss. As Isaiah 53:6 says, going my own way is the root of sin.

Chambers says that attitude hurts the Son of God. I’m not sure about the word ‘hurt’ but the Bible does say that I can grieve Him. Chambers says the only way to prevent it is to take the blow myself, experience the grief myself. That is, ‘fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ.’ In the above example, that means no resistance to any evil done to me. Instead, like Jesus I must turn the other cheek.

There are other evils and other ways to take the blow of evil. Doing this often has amazing results. Henry Nouwen writes that I should stop fighting my worst fears, and instead experience them. When I do this, I will discover what Jesus can do in that kind of total surrender.

For example, consider the fear of being abandoned. Nouwen suggests to go somewhere alone (yet Jesus is there) and think of being abandoned and how it will feel, not resisting the fear and horror of it, but letting those emotions come full force. As this happens, the natural response is to fight it, but Nouwen says yield to it and let it do what it wishes. There will be a pain so severe that you feel as if you are being crucified and dying. He says to stay there and keep trusting the Lord. Jesus will come and take that horror on Himself. In that moment, that fear will be conquered — you will have died to it and it no longer has any power over you.

The above ‘exercise’ (for want of a better description) follows a pattern: Jesus offered Himself to die for sin once and now sin has no longer any dominion over Him. While this may seem strange to some, it has had a profound effect on two of my fears. By figuratively letting them slay me, they now no longer have any power over me — because in the experience Jesus released me through death to new life.

Sometimes theology correct but not very useful unless it becomes real in experience. For me, I’d rather learn alone in a room how Jesus conquers fear than going through an actual attack from the very thing that I fear!

The purpose of obedience

For the people of God, one principle has not changed throughout history. It is the principle of obedience giving victory. I cannot expect to live with God’s fullest blessing if I deliberately ignore what He commands.

And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. (Deuteronomy 4:1)

In the former covenant, God said that those who believed in Him must listen to His laws and obey them. If they did, they would not perish. In this verse, “live” is about physical life. That is, His food laws kept them healthy and His civic laws kept them orderly. His laws about worship kept them distinct from their enemies around them. In their obedience, God protected them from drought and famine and from being conquered and destroyed. He blessed them with victory after victory in taking possession of the land that He had given them, as long as they obeyed.

Even though the people of God wanted to do what God said, their sinful hearts kept interfering with their good intentions. Their ears would not listen; their obedience wavered. They were attacked and many were destroyed by war, famine and disease. They possessed the land, yet not fully. Sin was always their problem and at the root of their disobedience.

Yet in that old covenant, their eternal salvation was not about obedience but about faith. God promised a Savior, a Messiah and their belief in that promise was key to their eternal well-being. 

In the new covenant, believers do not look forward to the promised Messiah but back toward the One that God sent, Jesus Christ. By faith in Him, sin is not only forgiven but those who believe in Him are given eternal life. This life goes beyond physical protection. That is, by listening to the Gospel and obeying what it says (believing in Jesus) no matter what happens to my physical body, I will live forever. 

Jesus also enables victory. Because I have Him, I can take possession of all that God gives me. I can hear God speak and have a Holy Spirit-desire to do what He says. I am protected from my enemies. God even promises that nothing will happen to me unless He can use it for good in my life. That “good” is about being transformed into the image of His Son. When I am like Jesus, I am in full possession of the “promised land” that God has given me.

Of course, all of this asks for obedience from a willing heart. While God did ‘zap’ me in the sense that salvation is of Him and from Him, I have to cooperate. In saving me, He touched my heart with faith and understanding. That was a zap. He also bestowed new life and made of me a new creation. That was a zap. Yet when it comes to obedience, I am not a robot. I can go my own way and give into sin. If I want to really live in the power of God and take possession of this wonderful life that is mine, I must listen to Him and respond by doing what He says. 

Obedience never earns salvation and a place in heaven, but it does make a difference in the life that is lived here on earth. The best part is that Jesus makes obedience possible.

It is Finished

Hoping for a quick victory, I now realize that the battle has just begun. We are praying for someone whose life has fallen apart and seeing some progress. Because of unexpected yet welcome events, it appeared that God was at work and this person was open and ready for change in his spiritual life. However, any evidence of that was missing yesterday. 

I get discouraged easily when I cannot see progress. I come to the Lord thinking that my prayers have been in vain and nothing is working as I’d hoped. However, God reminds me again that I’m to walk by faith, not by sight. He also reminds me to keep my eyes on Jesus. From His life, I learn much. He is not only my example of how I need to live, but also my example of how I need to think. 

Today’s devotional reading is based on a short verse from His prayer shortly before the crucifixion. As He talks to God about eternal matters and His desire for the future, He says,

I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. (John 17:4)

Jesus actually had not yet died for the sins of the world. How could He say that He had finished the work His Father sent Him to do when He still had one major act of obedience ahead of Him? 

The person who wrote the devotional says it is because Jesus knew that when His will was yielded, the battle was as good as over. In the shadows of Gethsemane, Jesus battled the cup of suffering and death. That battle ended when He said, “Not my will but thine be done.” As soon as He willed to die, He already triumphed over death. The cup is “easy for the lips to drain it when once the heart has accepted it” because “the real battlefield is in the silence of the spirit.” Because He conquered that battle, it was over and Jesus had finished what God sent Him to do. 

In the same way, prayer is my battle. Having God’s assurance of answered prayer is very powerful. It ought to be the same as declaring, “It is finished” even though the answer is not yet in sight. This is almost too profound for me, yet I can see that the Lord wants me to cling to this, not to what my eyes can see. He has given assurance and expects His word and promise to be my confidence, enough to say it is finished.

I can see that this confidence is no different from faith in eternal salvation. I have eternal life as a gift from God. I am completely assured of heaven, yet cannot see anything of it with my eyes. What is my assurance based on? Is it not the promises of God and faith in Him to keep His promises? 

In the same way, He promises to answer prayer. Do I have to see the answer before I believe what He says? Unfortunately, I’ve thought that way and too easily abandoned prayer because the answer didn’t come as quickly as I’d hoped. Now I can see that because of the faithfulness of the One who promised, I can consider this as good as done and pray with the assurance that “it is finished.” 

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Lord, I need to confess my doubts. So often, my faith wavers under delay and lack of visual evidence. That has never happened regarding my eternal destiny, so why should my faith jump all over the place when it comes to assurance about other things that You clearly promise? Forgive my quickness to doubt You in these things that You have once given me faith to believe. Increase my faith and may my heart be like Your heart, realizing that once You determine what needs to be done, You will not only see it through to the end, but even now consider that it is already accomplished.