Opportunity For Answered Prayers

What Must I Do To Have My Prayer Answered?

Introduction to the 30 Thousand Foot Prayer – Part 6

“If you are praying only because you are in trouble, then you are in trouble.” – Unknown

Why do some people get their prayers answered and others don’t? This is an amazing question. It’s really a good one. Does God have His picks and chooses? Or are we disqualifying ourselves? The interesting thing is that everyone has the same opportunity for answered prayers. The ordinary just keep settling for the unanswered ones. You can’t get an answer when you don’t know the rules of prayer. So what gives? We’ll discuss a few missing pieces. Don’t drop out on us yet, this you must know.

Prayer is one of those things that people think they know how to do when they truly don’t. Here are a couple of reasons why I say they don’t:

When called upon to pray and someone is hesitant, refuses, doesn’t feel it or doesn’t appear to know how to pray in front of someone else, that’s a great indication that they just don’t know how to pray. It also means that they are not comfortable with praying, which means they don’t do it all the time. A person who prays, makes it a regular habit. In other words one who knows how to pray makes prayer common, when those who don’t make prayer uncommon.
Another reason I know most (51% or more) people don’t know how to pray, is because of the results they get from prayer are less than 90% positive responses. Folks who don’t know how to prayer, more specifically how to communicate with God, have very few results when they offer prayer to Him.

Doing what’s right is a qualifier.

“The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and his ears are open to their prayers. But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil [what normal people do naturally].”” – bible.com/116/1pe.3.12.nlt

You may be inclined to rest in the comfort that God hears us all whether we are good, evil, followers of Christ or not, young, old, believer or unbeliever. I am sure you have heard, “anyone who calls on the name of the Lord.” While this is true and I would never argue that truth, in addition to this it says those who receive better results in prayer are those who remove any actions that could possibly hinder their prayer requests reaching God. In other words, normal people believe they don’t have to actually do what’s right and their prayers be effected. If they believed this, they’d actually get in check because anyone who prays wants their prayers answered.

You will never be able to get around what God has set in place. If the scripture says God watches over those who do right [the uncommon, less popular], and if you expect better results, then you better do what God says do, do right. Doing what’s right is what uncommon people do. The prerequisite for God having open ears for your prayer submission is that you do right. How in the world can you expect God to answer you when you do wrong? Or never consider your actions? Am I saying that anyone who does wrong can’t get an answered prayer? No. I’m saying if you don’t clean up your wrong by doing what’s right, you close God’s ears to receiving your prayers. And that’s normal. Let’s step out of normal and into a life that yields supernatural results.

Does God have His picks and chooses?

To answer this question I need to bring to your attention, what I call God-emotions. God-emotions are attributes that move God. This list is not all inclusive, you’ll have to read the Bible in its entirety for that. But here are just a few to bring this point home.

God is love.
God is moved to action by His love for the world.
God has patience.
He waits patiently for us to establish a relationship with Him.
God is caring.
He hears us when we cry out to Him.
God is jealous.
He wants us to make Him our priority.
God can be angered.
Our actions, when we do the things He doesn’t like, angers Him. Even though He is slow to anger, He can get aggravated with us.
God can be disappointed.
There have been times when God was sorry for creating man-kind because His creation became wicked in all its ways.

After reading those God-emotions, I bet you’re wondering what does that have to do with today’s topic on qualifying to get your prayers answered. What does God-emotions have to do with prayer? Allow me to explain it this. I had someone ask me once why aren’t my prayers getting answered? I ask (not in this language) have you considered God’s emotions? What I mean by this is have you tried to touch God’s emotions when you offer your prayers? Are you constantly working at putting God first in your life, your home, your relationships, even your problems? Why would He respond to you if you don’t touch who He is?

What are you doing to touch God where He cares? Who do you think He will answer first, the person who gives Him time and attention everyday or the person who only speaks to Him when they need saving? Here are a few Bible examples of those who touched God and He came through for them.

Noah touched God’s emotions by being righteous. God found a liking for Noah because Noah did what was right. As a result, his life and the life of his family were spared.
Joseph touched God’s emotions in such a way that He found favor with God and everything he did was successful. Joseph was unlike his brothers, he was different, unique, set apart. What emotion of God’s can you touch to inspire His movement in your life?
Paul left his life of persecuting believers to a life of promoting Christianity. Because he was obedient to the voice of God, which God loves, Paul lived a life full of answered prayers.
These guys touched on God-emotions.

These examples show how touching God’s emotions isn’t a common act that happens. In fact, it’s rare which means having God’s interaction in a person’s life is also rare. It’s rare but it’s available to all. We must simply learn how we can better position ourselves for the answers we seek. You see salvation is free, but answered prayers require us to do something.

I hope this message has opened your eyes to what you might be missing to get your requests to the ears of God. It might be something as simple as finding the God-emotion you connect with. It’s time to do what it takes to get the answers you seek in prayer.

Until next time, remember to pass this message on, it might just be the key you need to touch one of God’s emotions.

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