Story Published:
Nov 12, 2009 at 6:42 AM CST
Story Updated:
Nov 12, 2009 at 7:57 AM CST
James 4:2-3 says, “You lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not because ye ask not.
Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” In these verse, there are two reasons why we won’t obtain the things we ask of the Lord.
The first one is simple to fix. It says, “ye have not because ye ask not.” Who is responsible for asking? Well, that would be us. If we don’t ask, the Lord cannot answer our prayer, can He?
I know many folks who are in this situation. “I can handle it all by myself, thank you.” That may be a true statement, but if the most powerful Being in the universe told you He would help if you asked him, you would be of above average intelligence if you asked.
As before, this reason for not having a prayer answered has nothing to do with the Lord.
The second reason mentioned in these verses was “Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”
Does it say anywhere that the Lord is not answering this prayer because He has something better for you? I love that euphemism. It sounds spiritual, doesn’t it? It says that you’ve done all you can, and the Lord chose to override your request for a better answer.
The only problem is I’ve never seen anyone get the “something better”. As with all the other verses we’ve looked at, the problem with not getting the prayer answered lies with us, not with the Lord.
It is easy for us as limited beings to become selfish in our prayer. We treat the Lord like the grocery store, “I’ll take one of these, one of those, two of these….” Being selfish stunts our prayer life.
The Lord doesn’t hear selfish prayers. It’s ok to pray for your needs, but remember there’s your local church, your community, your nation, and humanity in general that needs your prayers.
There are other scriptures that we could mention to show where the problem lies in answered prayer. In every case, it is always something that we as humans needs to fix, change, or adjust. The problem is never with the Lord in heaven.
This isn’t always the most popular message to hear because it deals with personal responsibility, but if applied, you will see a great increase in prayers being answered “YES”.
