Having just read a book about prayer, and having sought recently to increase the presence of prayer in my life, I turned a few days ago to the topic of persistence in prayer. I soon found something I had written about this in the past and thought I would share it with you today, hoping that it will prove beneficial to you as it has to me.

It is the Lord’s delight to give us what we ask of Him in prayer. With David we all ought to cry out, “O God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth” (Psalm 54:2). If Christians did not believe in the efficacy of prayer, there would be no reason for us to ask anything of God. He tells us that we can have this confidence. “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” (1 John 5:14,15). While most Christian pay lip-service to the superlatives in that sentence (“whatever” and “anything”) very few really believe it.

The fact is that our prayers are often hindered. There are times when it feels like our prayers are reaching the ceiling and going no further; times when we are lying face-down on the floor and feel that our prayers are rising no higher than the fibers of the carpet. While we can be sure that God does hear our prayers, there are times when He chooses not to heed or answer them. What is especially tragic is that I am the only one who can hinder my prayers. You are the only one who can hinder your prayers. I cannot hinder your prayers anymore than you can hinder mine. And while we may have done much to hinder our prayers, we are not necessarily even aware of this. Allow me to present six ways we can hinder our prayers so that God will not answer them. This list is incomplete, for there may be other ways our prayers are hindered, but it contains the most likely and significant ways.

Selfish Motives

All humans are selfish. It is part of our human nature that we naturally regard our own interests ahead of the interests of others. And sadly, we often regard our own interests ahead of God’s. In the passage we read above, 1 John 5:14 and 15, the apostle tells us that our confidence comes from asking “according to his [God’s] will.” James similarly exhorts “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James 4:3).

So the first hindrance to our prayer is our motives. We must ask in accordance with God’s will. We must ask only for things that are consistent with the character and nature of God. We must ask for things that are for the spiritual benefit of ourselves or the person we pray for.

Turning Away From Scripture

If we are not spending time immersing ourselves in Scripture and are not obeying what we have learned, we should not expect God to answer our prayers. Our defiance in ignoring the life-giving Words of the Bible may hinder us from having our prayers answered. Solomon goes so far as to suggest that prayers made from such a hardened heart are an abomination to God. “If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination” (Proverbs 28:9).

When we read the Words of Scripture, we ask and encourage God to speak to us. He provides the understanding we need to live lives that bring glory to Him - lives that are increasingly consistent with His standards of grace and holiness. If we thumb our nose at the importance of this discipline and if we disobey what He teaches, He will not answer our prayers.

Unforgiving Hearts

The Christian has been forgiven for the greatest of offenses. He has been forgiven for knowingly, purposely and unrepentantly transgressing the Law of God. And yet we are often slow to forgive our fellow man for the smallest of transgressions, for even the biggest of the sins committed against us are as nothing compared to how we sinned against God. God does not honor this attitude. In Mark 11:25 Jesus says, “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

Our ongoing assurance of pardon before the Father is in some way dependant on our willingness to forgive others. We must be attentive to our hearts, to ensure that we are not harboring hatred and resentment towards others. If we have this attitude we should expect our prayers to be hindered.

Family Discord

It is God’s will that families live together in peace and harmony. It is, of course, impossible for us to live in perfect peace, but God demands that we maintain close relationships and that we seek harmony in our family relationships. It is foremost the responsibility of the father, as the head of the household, to ensure that there is not discord within the family. When this discord exists, especially in the relationship of a husband to his wife, his prayers may well be hindered. The apostle Peter, a married man himself, exhorted husbands to live with their wives in an understanding way, being sensitive to their needs, “showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7).

The relationship between a husband and a wife is to reflect that of Christ to His church. It is to be a relationship of absolute love, adoration and sacrifice. If Christ gave His life for the church, how can a husband do any less for his wife? This is, of course, impossible when the relationship is strained or broken. Thus a man should examine his relationship with his wife to ensure this is not a hindrance to his prayers.

Unconfessed Sin

Just as unforgiveness can hinder our prayers, so can sin in our lives that we have refused to confess before God. “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (Psalm 66:18). Before we conclude that God has simply not heard or prayers or that it is not His will to give us what we ask, we need to examine our hearts to see if unconfessed sin stands as a barrier between ourselves and God.

While we need to continually examine our hearts, we need also to ask God to reveal our sin to us. We should ask those closest to us what they have observed in our lives. While God most often reveals sin through the reading of and meditating upon His Word, we should realize that if we do not learn our lesson from Scripture, He may have to resort to harsher tactics where our sin is revealed before others, even publicly. While this may be difficult and humiliating, He does so because He loves us and does not wish for this sin to continue to corrupt us and to stand as a barrier between Himself and us.

Doubt

God wants us to have confidence in His ability and willingness to provide what is necessary for us to attain to godliness. He wants us to believe that He can and will do what He says. Thus when we doubt - when we ask expecting rejection and when we ask almost hoping for rejection - we will hinder our prayers. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord” (James 1:5-7).

Our prayer cannot be separated from our faith. If we are to ask God, we must ask with expectancy, believing in our heart of hearts that God can and will give what we want, provided that what we want is really what we need! We are to ask with confidence and expectancy.

Conclusion

The eighteenth chapter of Luke is premised with the following words: “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” Jesus goes on to share the parable of the persistent widow. It is a parable designed to teach the importance of persisting in prayer. It is God’s desire that we persist in our petitions before Him. When we ask and do not receive, we need to examine ourselves and question why our prayers are being hindered. Are we asking selfishly? Have we turned away from God, harbored unforgiveness in our hearts or ignored sin in our lives? Or have we allowed discord to creep into our families? These questions can lead us back to the Word of God and guide us to an examination of our hearts.

Gaithersburg, MD - From Sovereign Grace Ministries, based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, comes news of an exciting new competition. Throughout the Fall, Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM) will travel the length and width of America, visiting malls and megachurches across the nation seeking The Successor®.

The ministry expects more than 10,000 young men to vie for their chance to become The Successor®. Of the thousands of candidates, eighteen will be chosen to travel to Gaithersburg where an eighteen-week competition will gradually reduce the number to one. The winner of this competition will be named The Successor® and will become apprentice to C.J. Mahaney. He will be groomed to succeed Mahaney as leader of Sovereign Grace Ministries.

Mahaney serves on the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and on the boards of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) and the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation. He is the author of The Cross Centered Life; Christ Our Mediator; Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God: What Every Christian Husband Needs to Know, Humility: True Greatness, and Living the Cross Centered Life. He is no stranger to such competitions. In 1998 he conducted a similar competition to choose his successor as Senior Pastor of Covenant Life Church. Surprisingly, there was only one applicant and, after a long and grueling competition with himself, Josh Harris was declared The Successor®.

Upon arrival in Gaithersburg, contestants, who will live together in a dorm-like setting, will be divided into two teams: Team Humility and Team Servant. Each week the teams will be assigned a task and required to select a Servant Leader to lead in the task. The winning team will receive a reward while the losing team will face elimination. Rewards are expected to vary from opportunities to meet backstage with Bob Kauflin during the GLAD reunion tour (GLAD will be opening for POD on their upcoming tour) to time alone with C.J. on the shores of Lake Mahaney (which is to say the reservoir immediately behind Covenant Life Church).

Each week the losing team will meet in the Spurgeon Room where a showdown will take place that will see Mahaney fire the weakest contestant. Elimination will proceed in two phases. In the first stage, every one of the members of the losing team will be confronted with their successes and their failures. They will be given the opportunity to plead their case. The Servant Leader will then select one or two team members he feels are most responsible for the loss and they will accompany him to the Spurgeon Room where they will face a final showdown with Mahaney. After further examination by C.J. and his assistants, one contestant will be fired. Because the words “You’re fired!” are no longer in the public domain, Sovereign Grace Ministries has trademarked the phrase, “Would you please serve us by serving somewhere else!” and these are the words it is expected Mahaney will use to declare his decision and remove a contestant.

The eliminated contestant will be immediately sent home while the others will continue in the competition. He will be given an opportunity to say his final words as he is driven to nearby Baltimore Washington International Airport.

Serving as Mahaney’s assistants will be the stern-faced Carolyn McCulley and the long-serving Bo Lotinsky. They will be his “eyes and ears” on the ground during competitions and will be expected to provide updates to Mahaney. They will be present in the Spurgeon Room during the elimination showdowns and will be free to scold contestants or to ask questions of them.

While the details of individual tasks remain a closely guarded secret, rumors have long circulated on the Internet that one would involve re-organizing “the world’s best bookstore” which is in the lobby of Covenant Life Church. Currently selling primarily books, teams will be expected to integrate the most exciting, humble and discerning Christian potpourri and Bible-zines, thus raising the store’s profitability. Another task will involve redesigning the covers of C.J. Mahaney’s books to increase the visibility of overtly religious iconography.

When only four candidates remain, they will face a long and grueling series of interviews with a wide variety of church leaders and theologians. Each of these interviewers will provide their assessments of the candidates to Mahaney. The two weakest candidates will be fired, leaving two finalists. These two will embark on a head-to-head competition which will ultimately determine the winner. While details are sketchy, it is expected that one finalist will be required to teach a day-long course defending cessationism at the Sovereign Grace Pastor’s college while the other will have to teach a course defending continuationism at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

The season finale will be held live in the Covenant Life Church auditorium. Mahaney, McCulley and Lotinsky will be given a final opportunity to grill the remaining two candidates. And finally Mahaney will announce his decision. The winner will become The Successor® and will eventually succeed C.J. Mahaney as leader of Sovereign Grace Ministries. He will be hired at an extremely average salary and will be expected to move into the Mahaney home for at least one year. He will accompany Mahaney to conferences, preaching engagements and pick-up basketball games, thus learning the skills he will need to successfully serve as leader.

Because of SGM’s complimentarian beliefs, the competition is open only to men. Additionally, only men aged eighteen to thirty will be considered. While evidence of the early onset of male pattern baldness will not be considered a necessity, most industry insiders expect that it will be regarded as an asset.

Television rights to the competition have been sold to the Trinity Broadcasting Network and the show is expected to air coast-to-coast. It will be slotted between This Is Your Day with Benny Hinn and Daily Affirmation from Lakewood Church with Joel and Victoria Osteen.

Stay tuned for details of Sovereign Grace Ministries’ coast-to-coast search for candidates coming this Fall. You could be The Successor®!

I don’t envy the man who writes a book on prayer, for I can’t think of too many topics that have been written about more extensively than this. There are many spiritual classics dealing with the topic and surely an author must wonder if anything he writes can contribute to the discussion. New to the fray is Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference by Philip Yancey. A guaranteed bestseller, this book, by virtue of the topic and the author, is sure to sell tens or hundreds of thousands of copies. And so it was with some interest that I read this book, interested in learning what so many people would learn from Yancey.

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, many Muslims throughout the world are terribly upset by comments made by the pope during a recent speech. While speaking to a group of university professors in his native Germany, the pope cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, Islam’s founder, as “evil and inhuman.” He has since offered a less-than-complete apology, saying that he is deeply sorry for the reaction his words have caused. “At this time I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims,” he said on Sunday. “I hope that this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect.” Of course apologizing for a reaction is no real apology, but we’ll leave that aside for a moment.

I found it interesting that the Vatican released a statement shortly after the speech in which Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said the pope’s position on Islam is unmistakably in line with Vatican teaching that the church “esteems Muslims, who adore the only God.” To equate Allah with the God of the Bible is absolutely absurd for they bear only the slightest resemblance. Christianity and Islam are as different as any two religions could be.

Regardless, Muslims around the world are protesting. Here in Canada a news outlet spoke to Adnan Husain, professor of history of Islam and interfaith relations at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Husain said he’s concerned about the ramifications of the pontiff’s comments, which he said reinforce widespread and incorrect stereotypes about Islam. “I am very concerned about how this reinforces stereotypes, but particularly, how it sharpens a sense of religious conflict and cultural clash during these times when there is a stated war on terrorism taking place.”

Now I don’t often attempt to do P.R. for the Muslim world, but I can’t help but feel that Muslims could help destroy those “widespread and incorrect stereotypes about Islam” by reacting to this situation with calm. They could react peacefully, calling for dialogue and charity. In short, they could react in the way most Christians do when God is slighted and blasphemed. They could react with righteous indignation rather than burning anger. And yet, here is what the press reports:

“Palestinians used guns, firebombs and lighter fluid to attack four Christian churches in the West Bank town of Nablus. Gunmen opened fire on a fifth church in Gaza.”

“In India, angry Muslims clashed with police during a protest in Kashmir. More than 20 were arrested.”

“In the town of Tulkarem, a 170-year-old stone church built 170 years ago was torched before dawn and its interior was destroyed, local Christian officials said. In the village of Tubas, a small church was attacked with firebombs and partially burned, Christians said. Neither church is Catholic, the officials said.”

“An Iraqi insurgent group threatened the Vatican with a suicide attack over the Pope’s remarks on Islam, said a statement posted Saturday on the Web. “We swear to God to send you people who adore death as much as you adore life,” said the message posted in the name of the Mujahedeen Army on a website frequently used by militant groups. The message’s authenticity could not be independently verified. The statement was addressed to “you dog of Rome” and threatened to “shake your thrones and break your crosses in your home.”

This is just a sampling of what the press is offering. There are also plenty of pictures of burning churches, and angry, screaming Muslims holding placards denouncing the pope. To be fair there are several other organizations that have accepted the pope’s apology and no longer display such outrage. But the violence continues as do the threats and the anger.

The point is, if you want to undo stereotypes the best way of doing so is not to blame a person who supposedly reinforces a negative stereotype, but in reacting in a way that different than the stereotype. The stereotype of Muslims tells us that they would react to the pope’s words with anger, violence and calls for blood. Sure enough, many Muslims reacted with anger, violence and calls for blood. So who is reinforcing the negative stereotype?