Listen Up

If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
(Psalm 66:18 – ESV)

There are several reasons why some of our prayers don’t get answered the way we want them to. One reason that we get so many “no” answers is because we have sin in a cherished position in our hearts. Yes God answers prayer, even when we are in sin, because in some fashion, we always are. But when we are harboring intentional, willful, deceitful desires and we plot to do them, we cherish and relish them, then it affects our prayer life, there is no doubting that fact.

Who is the authority in the conversations between you and God? Obviously it is God, and so if both of you are trying to talk, which one needs to be quiet and listen first? We do, of course. So if we are cherishing some sin, God is trying to tell us to stop that and He won’t hear us until we listen to Him first.

You might reply, “I still have prayers answered”. Yes, that may be true, it would seem. However, let me tell you that it is probably because these things are things God was going to do anyway whether you prayed for them or not. They happened in spite of you not because of you and you cannot expect it to happen that way always, can you?

Yes, God hears us even when we are in sin. Bur we need to heed the words of Isaiah 59:1-2 – Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

The Lord is speaking to us about our sin, we see it, and we know it is there, but we don’t want to let go of it. God is telling us that our letting it go is more important to Him than answering our prayer about something else, at least most of the time. We think that the prayer is important to us, but believe me, God wants us to get rid of our sin more than we want what we are praying for. If we are unwilling to get rid of the cherished sin to get the prayer, then that is the proof.

Now God isn’t working on some, “give this up and I’ll give this to you” basis. Our sin isn’t a bargaining chip we can use with God. But think about it for a minute; if you don’t want to give the sin up, it obviously means you want it more than the thing you are currently praying for, doesn’t it? It is like we want God to give us a scale, or a chart that tells us what we can get if we will just give up this particular sin. As we are holding on to that cherished sin, we know that we cannot pray with any fervency, we cannot pray with any real faith, because we know that as we are asking God to give us something, He is asking us, “what is that behind your back?”

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©