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Problems With Our Prayer Life

by Chris Simmons

God has promised that prayer can be effectual, powerful, and impactful. We read in James 5:16, “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” The word for “accomplish” (“availeth,” ASV & KJV) in that verse comes from the Greek word ischuo which W. E. Vine defines as “to be of force, to be effective, capable of producing results.” Yet as powerful as prayer can be, there are perhaps times in our lives when prayer doesn’t produce the results we seek nor is it effective in accomplishing what we desire. Why is that? When we have problems with our prayer life, we can’t look to blame God but rather we should look to His word and then compare what we read to ourselves. James not only wrote about what prayer can accomplish but he identified in chapter 4 what some of the problems might be when prayer doesn’t work.

First, the primary problem is that we just don’t use it! James said in James 4:2, “You do not have because you do not ask.” The problem with the Israelites in the wilderness is that they wouldn’t go to God and pray for the things they needed. They needed water and food but rather than humbly petitioning God in prayer, they chose to simply complain and murmur (Exodus 15:22-16:21; 17:1-7). How often do we not even bother to make our “requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6) as God has commanded? Paul exhorts us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) because the common temptation is to simply not do so. Our use of prayer is also a matter of devotion and consistency. If I pray once regarding a particular need or request, will I keep praying about it? I must ask myself, how “devoted” (Colossian 4:2) to prayer am I and will I demonstrate “persistence” (Luke 11:8) in those matters of my life which are truly important?

A second problem is often is that we ask but we do so with selfish motives and for selfish purposes. James wrote in James 4:3, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” Our “pleasures” are not valid reasons for requests to God and we should never expect such petitions to be heard and received by Him. The Greek word used here (heedonee') would seem to be where we get our word “hedonism” which simply refers to the pursuit of self-indulgent pleasure as a manner of life. When it comes to offering prayers that accomplish much, motives make an important difference. As we seek to benefit from prayer, we need to honestly ask some important questions such as, are my prayers about what I want and what will make me happy or about what the Lord knows is best and what will please Him? Are my prayers focused on God and my neighbor or are they all about me and my personal satisfaction? Am I praying according to God’s will or mine? “He hears us” when we pray and “we have the requests which we have asked of Him” when our prayers are “according to His will” (1 John 5:14-15). To avoid praying for that which is selfish, we must exercise self denial and great humility as we prepare our hearts for prayer. Jesus said in Matthew 16:24, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” Jesus said the “pleasures of this life” will “choke” our spiritual development and fruit we are called upon to bear (Luke 8:14) and will render our prayers ineffective.

Finally, our problem may simply be our “friendship with the world” and our lack of commitment to God. James wrote in James 4:4-5, “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: ‘He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us.’” It may not be our intention or our perspective but God views such “friendship with the world” as acts of hostility towards Him and makes us His enemy. The problem may be that our efforts to please God while keeping one foot in the world are actually viewed as acts of rebellion and are keeping our prayers from being received by Him. We can’t pray to God with a fleshly mindset and reap the spiritual blessings that we desperately need. Friendship with the world is a “mind set on the flesh” (Romans 8:7) which can’t and won’t subject itself to God. John wrote in 1 John 2:15-17, “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever.” Before prayer will ever accomplish much, we must make a choice (Joshua 24:14-15; 1 Kings 18:21) and remember that choosing to straddle the fence and think that we can be a friend of God and a friend of the world is in fact an act of hostility towards God. Remember, as has been stated in our Bible classes recently, “Satan owns the fence”!

The solution to these problems with prayer is identified in James 4:7-10 where God reveals the need to humbly submit and “draw near” to Him by repenting of our selfish ambitions and our love of the world.

If we don’t have enough faith to even ask God, or if our pleasures come first, or if our friendship is with the world, then we are not serving God and we will continue to experience problems with our prayer life and they will fail to accomplish anything. Remember Matthew 6:24, No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

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