From His Heart

Guest (Male): Do you ever feel like you've been praying the same prayer over and over and over and getting nowhere and wondering if God is ever going to answer you? Today on From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve, you'll get some real answers to that puzzling question.

The lesson today is called "Why Doesn't God Answer My Prayer?" with the truth about God's way of communication with His children. The message is one of seven from Pastor Jeff's series, "Now That's a Tough One," answering the difficult questions of life that we've been in for the last half of this month. Today's message is the last in this series, but you can find out more about what is included in this powerful and enlightening series when you go to FromHisHeart.org and click the listen link.

There, too, you can listen to any broadcast you may have missed, download a free MP3 of it, along with Pastor Jeff's notes and message outlines. But first, let's settle in and get ready for a real blessing. Here's Pastor Jeff to answer the question we all sometimes ask: why doesn't God answer my prayer? Here's Pastor Jeff.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: When I got out of college and I was a deacon in my church in Houston, I was teaching a Sunday school class. We had a couple in our class, a young couple, and they were having their first baby. They were so excited, and then they found out that their baby had a heart problem. The doctors told them, "This baby's not going to make it. You need to abort this baby."

They said, "We would never do that. We could not do that." They told the church, and we prayed. The whole church prayed for them, and we believed God for healing. That baby was born, and the heart was not healed. That baby just lived a few hours and then died. It was a difficult funeral to go to with that little casket there. Why does God not answer my prayer? That's a good question.

Now, in Jeremiah chapter 33 and verse 3, we read this verse: "Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you, tell you great and mighty things that you do not know, which you do not know." Now, how many believe that scripture, Jeremiah 33? God says, "Call to Me and I'll answer you."

Well, you know, we raise our hands and we say God says, "Call to Me and I'll answer you," and we believe that. Yet almost all of us had our hands raised, practically, who said, "I prayed and God didn't answer." Those things don't seem to line up. Hey, why doesn't God answer my prayer? I want to present to you four reasons why God sometimes does not answer us in the way that we think He should, in the way we want Him to.

Four reasons. Reason number one: you may not be getting through to Him. Why doesn't God answer your prayer? Well, maybe you're not getting through to Him. Have you ever had the experience where all of a sudden you hit a patch and your cell phone doesn't work and it just cuts out? You try and call and it says, "No service." You just can't get through. That happens in different areas where your cell phone just won't work. It doesn't pick up a good signal.

Well, the same thing can happen in prayer. Maybe one of the reasons why your prayers aren't getting answered is because you're not getting a good connection with God. See, perhaps you're not related to Him. Lots of people pray and they don't get their prayers answered. One of the big reasons they don't get their prayers answered is because they're not related to God.

Jesus, when His disciples said, "Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples to pray," He gave them the model prayer, what we refer to as the Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer begins, the model prayer begins: "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Our Father." Is God your Father? You say, "Well, of course He's my Father. He's everyone's Father." That's not what Jesus said.

Jesus said to the Jews in John chapter 8 who didn't believe in Him, "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father." Those guys weren't children of God. The Bible says in Ephesians chapter 2 that without Christ, we're children of wrath even as the rest. John chapter 1 and verse 12 says, "But as many as received Him," received Jesus, "to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name."

You're not just born into this world automatically a child of God. You're born into this world automatically a child of wrath. You have to receive Christ in order to become a child of God. Maybe one of the reasons your prayers aren't being answered is because you've never received Christ and you're not connected to Him. You're not related to Him. See, some people's prayers aren't answered because God is not their Father. They've never been born again. Perhaps that's true of you, and the good news is you can be born again tonight and you can be connected to God.

Another reason that the prayers don't go up and they don't connect and we don't get through, it's not that we don't know Him, it's not that we're not related to Him, it's that we're not right with Him. We're not right with God. Look what Isaiah said in Isaiah 59, verses 1 and 2: "Listen! The Lord’s arm is not too weak to save you, nor is His ear too deaf to hear you call. It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, He has turned away and will not listen anymore."

Your sins can cut you off from God so that He will not hear you, He will not listen. He'll just say "no service" for you because of your sins. Psalm 66, verse 18, the Psalmist said this: "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear." If I let sin have a place in my heart, unconfessed, unrepented of sin, if I just give it a place in my heart and then I come with that sin in my heart before the Lord and I ask Him for things, God says, "I'm not going to hear that prayer."

Because you're sinning against Me and you are holding on to some filthy sin and you have the audacity to come before Me and to ask Me to bless you, to ask Me to work in your life when you're not willing to give up that thing that I hate so much, that thing that caused My Son, God says, to die upon the cross. If you and I have a regard for sin, if we hold on to sin, if we won't confess sin and repent of sin, God says, "I won't hear your prayer. I won't answer your prayer. I will not hear you."

One of the biggest sins that we commit is the sin of bitterness, the sin of unforgiveness. Jesus made it clear in Matthew chapter 6, verse 15, "If you don't forgive men when they sin against you, when they transgress against you, then neither will your Father forgive you when you sin against Him." Many of us have bitterness that we've allowed to get in our hearts because somebody has hurt us and somebody has done something terrible to us, and we hold on to that.

That cuts us off from God. That causes "no service" on the prayer phone. God says you need to get that right so that I can hear, so that the line can be clear and so that you and I can get together and that we can connect to Him. The first possible reason that God doesn't answer your prayer may be that you're not getting through to Him.

Reason number two: you may not be praying according to His will. 1 John chapter 5, verses 14 and 15 says this: "And this is the confidence which we have before 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 which we have asked from Him." Praying according to His will.

Now, sometimes we don't know the will of God, especially when it comes to sickness. we don't know what God wants to do. We pray and we trust God and we believe His word, and we say, "Lord, heal my loved one, Lord, heal my friend, Lord, heal this person or this disease, this cancer, this whatever it might be." We see God do that sometimes, and we see God not do that sometimes. On those kinds of things, you and I don't know.

But one thing that we do know when it comes to God and His will is that God's a good God and God is a good parent and a good Father. A good Father doesn't always give his children everything they ask for. If you as a parent give your child everything he asks for, you're not a good parent because your children will ask for things that aren't good for them. Lots of times in the home, we have to say as good parents, "No."

Child asks you for something, you say, "No." God says, "No." Sometimes God says no because we're asking Him for things that aren't according to His will, that wouldn't be good for us, things that He doesn't want to do. So sometimes God says no. When we say, "God, why do you not answer my prayer?" God says, "I did answer that prayer. I said no." Maybe your prayer is not according to the will of God. Maybe you're asking God for something and He keeps saying no. Maybe you need to change your prayer in a matter.

Reason number three: why doesn't God answer my prayer? Well, you may not be believing God will answer. Matthew 21, verse 22, He said, "And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive." Believing, you shall receive. When you pray, you're to believe. Now, the reverse of that is praying to God and not believing. James chapter 1, verse 5: "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him."

But let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. When we pray, we have to believe God is going to answer. Pray, believe, and you'll receive. Pray and doubt, you do without.

Because God has made it clear: "If you come to Me and you don't believe Me, I'm not going to answer your prayer. Let not that man expect to receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." You and I need to pray and believe God. We need to take promises from this book and bring them to the Lord and say, "Lord, You promised in Your word, and Lord, I'm trusting Your word."

Maybe one of the reasons that you're not seeing your prayer answered is because deep down, you don't believe God's going to answer. You don't believe God is able, and you're just going through the motions, but you're not connected in your heart and you're not connected with faith.

The fourth reason and one of the biggest reasons that we don't see God answer our prayer: you may not be persisting in prayer. Often times we pray and pray and pray and pray and quit. "Oh, God didn't answer my prayer, so I quit. I quit praying about that. God's not answering that. I just quit." So many of us, we want a microwave God. We want God to just throw in a prayer request, pop it in the microwave, and you hit one minute, and like popcorn, it just comes out.

"Well, this is cool." We want God to be some type of heavenly slot machine where you just dump in the quarters and prayer, you pull the handle, and out comes all this money, all these answers. And you say, "That's the way it should work." It doesn't work that way. God hasn't set it up that way. God loves it when we pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and never quit. Jesus said in Luke chapter 18, verse 1, "Men ought always to pray and not to quit, not to give up, not to throw in the towel."

Now, if you'll turn with me to Luke chapter 11, I want you to see a parable that Jesus told about prayer that's such an encouragement to you and to me that we need to persist in our prayers. Luke chapter 11, I'll begin reading in verse 5. Jesus is talking about prayer. The disciples said, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples."

And He said to them, "Suppose one of you shall have a friend and shall go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him.' And from inside he shall answer and say, 'Do not bother me. The door has already been shut, and my children and I are in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything. Go away.'"

"I tell you," verse 8, "even though he will not get up and give him anything because he's his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs." His persistence makes the difference. Verse 10: "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened." Now, we've heard that verse a lot.

When the scripture says in verse 10 about asking, seeking, and knocking, those are continual verbs. Literally, what it says is: ask and keep asking, seek and keep seeking, knock and keep knocking. That's what that guy did in the parable. "Hey, I need you to get up and give me three loaves. I've had some friends come in." "No, don't bother me." He just kept knocking. "Go away!" "No, I'm not going away. You come, you help me. You're my friend."

He didn't stop knocking. Jesus said that guy didn't get up because he was his friend. He got up because of his persistence. God, there's something about God, He loves it when we persist in prayer. When we just keep on and keep on and keep on. Listen, don't get the idea that prayer is somehow overcoming God's reluctance. It's not. God wants to do these things.

But prayer is entering into His willingness, and God has a purpose in delaying His answers, and that purpose is to help us and to grow us and to strengthen us. I ran across this story not too long ago. It said this: a man was sleeping one night when suddenly his room filled with light and God appeared. The Lord told the man He had work for him to do. The Lord showed him a large rock in front of his house and He explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might.

So the man did this day after day. For many years he toiled sunup to sundown, his shoulders squarely set against the cold massive surface of the rock, and he pushed with all his might. Each night, the man returned to his house sore and worn out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain. After time, he began to get discouraged, and the devil moved in and told him that he was wasting his time, that he was getting nowhere. "Look at that rock. That rock hasn't moved one centimeter." And that he needed to quit.

The man was so discouraged and so forlorn. He was about to quit and he thought, "Well, before I throw in the towel, before I quit, I'll ask God about it." And he prayed one last time and he said, "Lord, I've labored long and hard in Your service, and I've been putting all my strength to do that which You asked me. Yet after all this time, I've not even budged that rock by half an inch. What's wrong? Why am I failing?"

The Lord responded and said, "When I asked you to serve Me, you accepted the challenge. And I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all your strength. And that you've done. Never once did I mention that I expected you to move that rock. Your task was to push it. That's all. And now you come to Me with your strength spent, thinking you failed. But is that really so? Look at yourself. Your arms are strong. Your back is strong. Your legs have become massive and hard. Through opposition, you've grown a lot. Your physical abilities now surpass that which you used to have."

The man could see that it was so. God said, "True, you haven't moved the rock. That's because your calling was to be obedient to push the rock and to exercise your faith and trust in My wisdom." God said, "That you have done, and now I will move the rock." By all means in your life, in my life, we're to exercise faith, the faith that move mountains, but we must remember that it's God who moves the mountains.

Whenever everything seems to go wrong, you and I just need to push. When your money seems to run out and there's not enough to pay your bills, you need to push. When your relationships seem to be failing and your marriage seems to be going down the tubes, you and I need to push. Pray until something happens. You pray and pray and pray and pray, and you ask and keep asking, and you seek and keep seeking, and you knock and keep knocking.

Jesus said it's because of persistence that the man in the parable will get up and help his friend at the door. He said, "If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him and don't quit asking Him and don't throw in the towel on prayer?" One of the greatest privileges we have as children of God is to come boldly before the throne of grace and to sit in our Father's lap and to pray.

To intercede and find grace to help in time of need, and to pray for ourselves and to pray for other people. So often we don't pray. Jesus told a parable in Luke 18 about prayer and He ended the parable this way. He said, "When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" I believe what that means is, will He find faithfulness in prayer? Will He find His children praying when He comes? Are you praying?

God will answer, but you have to be connected to Him. You have to make sure your heart is right with Him. You have to, first of all, make sure that you know Him and that you've received Him as Lord and Savior. As a believer, you can't let sin get in your heart. You have to confess it. We all sin, we all blow it, but you've got to confess it and you have to get things right.

You have to pray according to His will. If you're praying wrong, maybe you just need to say, "God, maybe I'm missing this thing. Maybe I'm not praying right about this issue in my life. Lord, You guide me, You direct me. I want to pray the right prayer. God, I want to see You answer. I want to believe You for big and mighty and great things. Lord, I want to be one who doesn't ever quit."

Guest (Male): Today's message on From His Heart with Dr. Jeff Schreve was the final message in his series, "Now That's a Tough One." Go to FromHisHeart.org and visit the listen page to learn more.