Unanswered Prayers

Do you ever pray to God? You talk to Him, but He’s just silent. You feel like you’re talking to Him about everything, but He’s not really listening to you. He doesn’t hear you. Well, He does hear you. In fact, He know everything about you.

Psalm 139:1-4 “O Lord, You have searched me and know me! You know when I sit a down and when I rise up; You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it.”

So God hears your prayers. He knows everything. He’s God almighty. He even knows your thoughts. So He knows what you’re going to ask before you ask it.

Now. You need to know, that He’s not always just going to jump the moment you ask Him something. He doesn’t always answer us immediately. Why not, you might ask?

There are three main reasons why God does not sometimes answer our prayers.

The first thing you need to understand about promises of God, and that includes prayer, is that there are certain condition for the promises. And second, some of the promises is meant for God’s people, for Israel in the Old Testament, and some for those who follow Jesus in the New Testament. So it’s important to know, that you cannot just pull a certain verse from Scripture and force it kind of to apply it to your life for your specific situation. Unless God gives you a rhema word, through the logos word that applies to the specific situation, that you prayed for.

You need to know that even though God hears your prayers. There are several reasons why God would not answer you in certain situations.

1. Sin

Sin creates a wall between you and God.

Isaiah 59:1-2 “Behold, the Lord hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or His ear dull, that cannot hear; but your inquities have made a separation between you and God. And your sins have hidden his face from you so that He does not hear.”

So if you continue willfully to live in sin and you pray to God, then He might not answer you. For example, if you own a business and you pray to God that He blessed the business. You ask Him certain question about the business, but you do things in the business that is wrong. You know a little bit money under the table, a bribe here, bribe there. Then God will not probably bless you.

Proverbs 28:9 “If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.”

Isaiah 1:15 “When you spread out your hand, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.”

So if God is not answering your prayers. If you feel like there’s this wall between you and God, then ask yourself, “Wait a minute. Is there any kind of sin? Is there anything that I’ve done, that’s wrong?” and if you’re not sure, go and pray and ask, “God, is there anything that I did that is wrong? Please lead me through the Holy Spirit and reveal the truth to me.” And then if there is something, then the Holy Spirit will bring it up. He’ll bring it up into your thoughts and then all you got to do is ask for God for forgiveness. Ask Him, “God. I’m sorry for this that I’ve done. I ask that you forgive me.” That is one prayer that God will always answer.

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

You have to repair your relationship with God. You have to be in a right standing before Him. Remember. He says, “Be holy, because I am holy.” If you are in the right standing before God. If you are righteous, then your prayers will have great power.

James 5:16 “the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

Alright, I think you understand now that it is important to live right. To live holy before God, so that He will answer your prayers.

2. Praying against God’s will

Now, you need to know that God’s will is perfect, ours is not. If God always just gives us what we want it can be very, very dangerous, because we cannot see all the consequences of our decisions, but God can.

James 4:3 “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.”

So we pray to God, you have to come to Him and pray not with a selfish mindset, but you should pray within God’s will for your life. Pray with the right motives and with the right attitude.

There’s a lot of people who became Christians, because they heard if they become a Christian, God will bless them and give them what they want. If they ask anything then God will just give it to them like a genie, but they pray according to their own selfish desires. So they twist Scripture to fit in with what they want,

John 14:13-14 “Whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”

So God does promise it, but they forget the part where He says, in my name, if you pray, if you ask in my name, they don’t understand what it means to pray in God’s name. Which means according to His will. And remember, you cannot just go one verse in the Bible and just read that, and then take that out. You have to read and understand the Bible in a balanced way.

1 John 5:14 “And this is the confidence that we have toward Him that if we ask anything according to his will He hears us.”

So the Bible says, that God will answer our prayers and He will give you what you want as long the condition, as long as it is in line with His will. For example, a man gets a phone call from another company, asking him to come and work for them for more money and then the man just decides to take the job. And he ask God to please bless him with this new job that he’s going to take. He never ask God if it is His will to leave his current job for the other one. And God knew that the other job would be terrible for him, that he should not go. And He wanted him to stay at the current job to testify to a certain person that’s working with him, a colleague.

You see, the right prayer request should have been, “God, I’ve got this opportunity, it sounds amazing. Is it from You? If it is from You, please help me and talk to me, and guide me, because if it is from You then I will take it, but if it’s not from You, then I will stay where I am.”

Jesus Himself always walked within the will of God, the Father.

Luke 22:42 “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me, nevertheless, not my will, but Yours, be done.”

3. Not praying through faith

You have to believe, that God will answer you on the proper time which He will offer you consistent with what He knows you would like , not consistent with what you think you need

Mark 11:24 “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

1 James 1:6 “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea – driven and tossed by the wind.”

I talked to a person a short time ago who was during a very deep depression. A Christian man and he said, “You know I’ve sinned against God. I asked Him to forgive me and He’s just quiet. I keep praying to Him. I keep on asking Him and He just, He’s just quiet. He’s silent. I don’t know what is going on? So I prayed over and over again and Asked Him, God forgive me. Forgive me for this. Forgive me for that. The same sins. Please forgive me, but heaven is quiet.”

He felt dirty. Unworthy of God’s love. That was his feelings. That’s how he felt. And he felt that he’s not good enough, that God cannot forgive him. So he kept asking God for forgiveness all the time. But he didn’t realize that God already forgave him the primary time he asked God’s forgiveness. And now he’s believing this dwell his head that God didn't forgive him. He did not have faith In God’s promise. Rather he believed his own feelings. You can't do that. You have to believed and Trust God’s word. The promises In Scripture over your own feelings.

So, I talked to him and I told him, “Look you are sinning right now. This is a replacement sin, because you're calling God a liar, because He says in Scripture, that i will be able to forgive you in 1 John 1:9. And God is not a liar. So you have to believe Him.”

Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord; though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as a snow.”

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

And then this just went open to Him. The Holy Spirit helped him and he prayed and he said, “God, i'm pitying trusting my very own feelings and believing the lies in my head over your promises in Scripture.” And boom, he was freed from depression just like that.

You have to trust God and His promises. If you pray about something and He answers you, then you'll stop praying and have faith, full confidence That He will keep his promise. Remember you faith is not something, something temporary, or just something or someone, it is in God almighty.

1 John 5:14-15 “And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.”

You have to remember something. You will always pray according to God’s will and in faith if you abide in Jesus and His word.

John 15:7 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.”

Now, if you want a deeper relationship with God, you need to give him time. Your time. Go to your room, close the door where it’s just you and Him, and spend time with Him in prayer.

James 4:8 “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners and purify your hearts, you double-minded.’

Some people, they expect God to answer them, especially when they pray about big things, but then they still have this hate or un-forgiveness in their hearts towards their wife or their husbands, or someone else. You have to go and make it right first.

Matthew 6:14-15 “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

I’ve talked to a person who wants to figure for God and his wife also . They just want to actually work for God, live for Him, but they need something against one another , against the past. And it seems like they can’t advance from what happened. So they want God to speak them about how to work for God, but He’s quiet, He was silent. Was God not already speaking to them through Scripture, which they should first forgive each other? And He’s still waiting for them to first forgive each other, before He can use them effectively for God’s glory.

Sometimes, God is still waiting for us to do something that He already talked to us about, before He can speak to us about something else.