Hello. I hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy during this time of coronavirus. During times like these, people tend to either run out of resources that they have and run to God in prayer, or they reject God in this time when you think it is unfair. If you are in the first camp, you have probably prayed many times in your life, especially during trying times. Since then, you may have had prayers that you see as being unanswered or at the very least, they aren’t answered the way you wanted. Well today, we will go over a couple reasons why that might be the case.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me. 6 If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be My disciples.”
John 15:5-8
Hcsb Bible
Let’s get a misconception out of the way first. Praying to God is not like having a wish from rubbing on a magic genie lamp like in some cartoon. God is all powerful and can fulfill more than any genie that you can think of. Also, he doesn’t grant wishes according to our wills but his. So with that in mind, let’s start studying the passage.
Like mentioned in the previous post, in order to have fruits of the spirit, we first need to have the Holy Spirit inside us. If we don’t, we can’t do anything of magnitude for the Lord and will go to hell. The reason being, if we don’t have the Holy Spirit in us, then that means that we haven’t accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior and therefore haven’t taken the one ticket to heaven.
Without the Holy Spirit, the only prayer God will answer is that of a repentant nonbeliever wanting to be a believer. If we are not in Jesus and the Holy Spirit is not in us then we are praying to either a different god which doesn’t exist or haven’t fulfilled the requirements to make requests of God that we haven’t given power over us. So before you pray, ask yourself if you have truly accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
If the answer is yes and that you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then the answer may be that you don’t have his words on your mind as said in verse 7. If you haven’t been reading and meditating on his words in the Bible then your motives might not be pure. The reason being is that when you meditate on his word, his word changes your motives, changes your wishes to what God wishes in the world.
Your prayer requests may be very noble such as praying for world hunger to end or to heal your family member from cancer or this virus going around, but it may not be Gods will for you and your life. And if you have questions about Gods will then that can be a whole other series in trying to know Gods will for our lives. When you pray, keep in mind Gods words and the lessons that you’ve learned from his word and other Christians. That way, prayer changes you and your perspective instead of depending on God changing your circumstances.
Of course there may be plenty of reasons why God may not answer our prayer requests immediately in our perspective. It could be these two reasons or others. If you have any questions or disagreements, just comment below or message me and I’ll respond when I can either in a message or in a post. I hope you have a great day and grow closer to God today.
The Bible Life 