April 20, 2020
FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
THE SECRET OF UNANSWERED PRAYER
“Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matt. 26:41, KJV.
Yes, you read it right. As there is a secret and a divine science to answered prayer, there is also a secret for the exact opposite!
But who in the world of praying Christians would ever want to know this “secret” at all? It is so counterintuitive you may say. But of course.
Yet we continue to struggle with this prayer-enigma: Why are our prayers not being answered by God? I know you have many good answers but perhaps does not include the one revealed by the pen of inspiration quoted below:
“What will it profit us to cherish pride of spirit, and pray for humility? What will it profit to seek eagerly the friendship and applause of the world, and pray for heavenly affections? What will it profit to indulge in passionate temper and unChristlike words, and then ask for the meekness of Christ?
“This is NOT WATCHING UNTO PRAYER. In the lack of that faith that works by love and purifies the soul [Gal. 5:6] LIES THE SECRET OF UNANSWERED PRAYER.
“Some who profess to be Christians need a genuine conversion [or for some, a reconversion]. They desire to be accepted by God; they pray in a casual way that they may be accepted, and yet through their desire for gain, their worldliness and selfishness, their robbery of God, they SHUT themselves away from Him.
“His curse is hanging over them for the selfishness and worldly lusts [2 Pet.3:3; 1 Cor. 10: 6-10]. Their prayers will be wholly in vain UNLESS they comply with the condition specified in the Word of God.
“The uncertain experience of many professed Christians, of sinning and repenting and continuing in the same DWARFED spiritual condition, is the result of worldliness and unholiness of life. The saving grace of Christ is designed for EVERYDAY life [not only once a week]. Christ came not to save man in his sins, but FROM his sins [see Matt. 1:21]. The principles of truth, abiding in the heart, will SANCTIFY the life.” E.G. White, Man. 35, Jan. 8, 1893.
As we pray like we never prayed before because of this strange global pandemic, you can help make your prayers, not your dreams, come true by understanding that WE may be the very reason why the prayer-answering God is not answering our prayers! Do what must be done if you want your urgent petitions for deliverance from this Covid-19 to be “an effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man that availeth much.” James 5:16.
Constantly beware of this Prayer-Killer: “One who turns away his ear from hearing the law [of God, not man], even his prayer shall be an abomination.” Prov. 28: 9, NKJV. NMF