August 6 : GOD DOES ANSWER

They were totally serious as they sat in my office and said, “God doesn’t answer our prayers.” I guess they noted the response on my face and so they related to me again how often they read the Bible together and prayed but God was not responding with answers to their petitions nor giving them what they needed materially.
Sound familiar? I replied “but aren’t you two living together and you are not married?” “Yes” was the answer. I went on to explain that you cannot intentionally break God’s law and commandments and expect God to answer prayer. Isaiah 59:2 says, “but your iniquities have separated you from God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not fear.” They seemed surprised to learn this. Are you?
Indeed Psalms 37:4 does say that God will give you the desires of your heart but it also says that we must commit our way to the Lord and delight ourselves in the things of the Lord. Maybe this is the heart of the spiritual problem of America, a country that always replies in a majority to religious surveys about believing in God and praying.
Many possess a home-grown religious philosophy that is divorced from Biblical principles. For the serious Christian is the principle of 2 Corinthians 10:5 “we demolish argument and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
Without this spiritually sensitive outlook, prayer becomes nothing more than a “heavenly slot machine” where you pull the handle and hope you hit it big with God.
True prayer comes out of a trusting, obedient relationship with your Heavenly Father. In the security of that Father-child experience, you can realistically pray and the door is opened for you to be answered.

“Why should it appear so surprising to some, Dear Father, that you answer
the prayers of your children? After all, You are a Loving Father. Amen”