7 Worry
Another reason people do not have their prayers answered is that after they pray, they worry.
Philippians 4:6 -: Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, presents your requests to God.
Anxiety, which is another word for worry, means spending today trying to figure out tomorrow or spending today fearing tomorrow
When we pray and then worry, we are not exercising trust in God . We are not fully releasing our burdens or needs to Him: we are taking them Back and working the over our minds. When we insist upon keeping our hands on the situations we pray about and not letting god have them completely, He does not have much freedom to answer our prayers, We say we trust God , but we want to have a backup plan in case God does not come through for us Worry is meditation on our problems, but we are told to meditate on God’s word not our problems
The opposite of worry and anxiety is peace , and if we re going to live in peace we need to learn how to live our lives one day at a time
Jesus says in
Matew6:34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Other words Jesus is telling us not to spend today worrying about tomorrow. All of our today’s have enough trouble- and we only have enough grace enough energy to deal with today. Just as each day has its own trouble, each day has its own supply of grace. God does not give us grace today to live tomorrow. We need to make the most of grace we have today, refuse to be anxious about tomorrow, determine to leave our prayers in God’s hands and not take our problems back by worrying.
8 Negative Confession
We can render our prayers ineffective with negative confessions when we allow doubt and unbelief to take root in our minds and than begin to speak negatively, we can hinder our Prayer. When we prayer and ask God to do something and then turn around and say,” I am afraid God will not come through for me,” that is a negative confession.
The words we speak are powerful, more powerful then we realize in fact,
Proverbs 18:21 -: Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.
In other words, we will have what we say , so we need to be speaking positively not negatively
Isaiah 53:7 says about Jesus “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
He knew that he could thwart or delay God’s plan by speaking negatively at the wrong time, Sure, his trial were difficulty – unimaginable grueling –but he did not complain.
We nee to able to make the same statement about ourselves –that when we are going through hard times we open not our mouths We do not complain; we do not murmur; we do not speak ill of others, we do not doubt god with our words You see, our words do not exit independently of who we are. Instead, our words represent how we are because they reveal what is in our heart.
Mathew 13:34 -: Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
When our heart are full of doubt, we will make negative confession, but when they are filled with faith , our words will reveal our faith and trust in God .When God hears a prayer followed by a native confession , he does not respond , but when we hears a prayer that is accompanied with words that express confidence in Him. He delights to answer.
9 Lack of Gratitude
A lack of gratitude is a hindrance to answered prayer, why should god do more for us if we are murmuring about what he has already done ?by the same token, if we genuinely appreciate His goodness and have hearts that are thanks full for all He has done, he will be inclined to continue to bless us.
Thanksgiving keeps us focused on God On the other hand a lack of gratitude cause people to never satisfied an to talk about discontent. I do not thing anything opens the door of enemy to influence a person’s life like murmuring an complaining, because we are agreeing with him when we grumble, However, when we speak words of thanksgiving we are agreeing with god because the bible is full of Scriptures that instruct us to be thankful an not to complain. A thankful person is a powerful person, and when we are thankful god is able and will to do more for us than He has ever done before
We can “be “thankful even if we don’t’ practically feel thankful. We can feel wrong and still choose to do what is right. Until we learn this dynamic principal, there is no hope of
Truly walking in the Sprit.
The Apostle Paul, who knew much suffering during his life, and certainly had reason to complain about some of his circumstances, said this,
Philippians 4:11-12 -:11 Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: 12 I know how to be abased and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
In other words we need to stay thankful in every situation no matter how we feel. True gratitude is not only being thankful when things are going well but also remaining steadfast when dealing with life’s struggles , obstacles and disappointments when god sees that we are thankful not matter what He can answer our prayer.