Will God really hear my prayers?
Does God hear everybody’s prayers?
That’s certainly a question we all want to know and want some assurance of soon as possible depending on what’s going on in our life at the time. The company you work for is getting ready to cut 500 jobs and you find out your job is among the ones to be cut. You don’t have much saved up and so you began to pray to God for help because you don’t know what you are going to do, and so you pray and ask God to help you. Does God hear that prayer? Here’s another situation. You just applied for a job that pays $100,000 a year. There are 20 other candidates you are competing with, and so you pray to God for that job. Does God answer that prayer? What has God actually said about prayers that He will hear?
Beloved, as I read through the word of God because that is always what Jesus refers to when He answers any questions when it concerns things about God.The Scriptures have a lot to say about prayers God will hear and prayers God will not hear. In the Gospel of John, chapter 9, tells the story of a blind man who had his sight restored by Jesus Christ. He had been blind from birth and everybody knew it and so this was such an amazing miracle that had been done for him by the Lord that he is being questioned by the Jewish rulers as to how he had received his sight because they did not believe in Jesus Christ. They believed Jesus Christ was a sinner, rather than God.. and so the blind man, in defense of Jesus, makes this bold statement before these Jewish leaders who were questioning him,
“Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him….( John 9:31)
What we can learn from this blind man who had his sight restored by Jesus Christ is this,.”God does not heard everybody’s prayer. Now as God, He sees and hears everything that goes on in heavens and everywhere on the earth, so it is not that God didn’t physically hear the prayer of the person who will not honor Him as God,. but God is not moved to act on behave of those whose heart has no place in it for God and Lord over it.The people whose prayer God hears are those who worship Him and do His will. Beloved, the Scriptures tell us this same truth all over the Bible. Look at it in a few more places,
“For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him….(2 Chronicles 16:9)
“Come and hear, all you who fear God,And I will declare what He has done for my soul.
17 I cried to Him with my mouth,And He was extolled with my tongue.18 If I regard iniquity in my heart,
The Lord will not hear.19 But certainly God has heard me;He has attended to the voice of my prayer.
20 Blessed be God,Who has not turned away my prayer,Nor His mercy from me! …(Psalms 66:16-20)
“ if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
….( 2 Chronicles 7:14 )
What we can see here also is that even if I profess to be a Christian, and harden my heart and just refuse to act in ways I know in my heart God would have me to act and don’t live according to God’s will, He will not hear my prayers,
“One who turns away his ear from hearing the law,Even his prayer is an abomination..(Proverbs 28:9
“If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear…..( Psalms 66:18)
“if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. 22 And whatever we ask we receive from Him,(why?),..because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. 23And this is His commandment: … that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment……(1 John 3:20-23)
Beloved can you see right out of the Scripture, how you can know God will hear your prayers? Pause just a minute and think about what God says in the last part of that passage. This is how we can know God hears my prayer,..
“because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. 23 And this is His commandment: … that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment……( 1 John 3:20-23)
Then God tells us one final thing about prayer to God if we are to expect God to answer our prayers. What we ask has to be according to His will.
“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him,.. that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him…..(1 John 5:14-15)
God has a purpose for every individual life and God will permit certain things to happen good and bad in order to fulfill His sovereign will and purposes in each one of our lives, but does He open to hear everybody’s prayer? Absolutely not. The one prayer God will always answer that opens the door to heaven right into the very throne room of the eternal God for us is the prayer to ask His Son Jesus Christ into your life and trust Him alone to get you into heaven.That’s God’s will for us all. God actually said that,.
“And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”…( John 6:40 ).