We had started a series on why are our prayers ineffective and had completed the first part. Firstly, we meditated on the truth that the sin in the life of a believer causes barrier to prayer and renders it ineffective. Lets prayerfully move on to the next part of this series and may the Holy Spirit guide us in this endeavor.
2. Asking God with wrong motives renders our prayers ineffective.
When we ask something from God in prayer, first be sure of the motive behind it. Is there any unrighteous agenda or wrong intentions behind our prayers? Will it bring glory to God? Sometimes our prayers are in competition with other believers and we want our prayers to be answered by God to get into a stronger position than our fellow believers in Christ. Some believers pray in public just to show others but never have a personal prayer life and that’s just hypocrisy. Many church leaders expect answer from God just to compete with other church leaders. Many of them just need name and fame in this world. Knowingly or unknowingly selfishness has crept into our prayer life and all the objectives in our prayers have just become the matter of self glorification. These are all the examples of selfish praying. We pray, pray and pray but God doesn’t give because we want to spend it for our own selfish desires (James 4:3). Too much praying is going on nowadays but we are seeing more and more believers in backslidden state. Like Prodigal Son, to whom his father granted his selfish desires and he spent it all on his lustful desire but at the end he lost everything and he returned back empty handed in a backslidden state (Luke 15:14). God had given Israelite what they craved but while the food was still in their mouths God’s anger rose against them and many died (Psalms 78:29-31).
Lord Jesus Christ had taught the disciples on how to pray and that is an example on how to pray without any selfish interest. First and the foremost objective in our prayer must be the honor of our Heavenly Father, His kingdom expansion and His will to be done on earth (Matthew 6:9,10). He has promised to grant us whatever we ask not for our self glorification but in order that Father may be glorified in the Son (John 14:13-14). Let us leave our own selfish motives and ask according to His will and He will hear us (1 John 5:14).
Let us take some time to examine our intentions in prayer. Are we praying with selfish motives? Are our prayers for the glory of God? Do we desire in prayer His name to be honored? Are our prayers for His kingdom expansion? Are we praying for His will to be done or our own will?
Cry out to God and pray like David,
“May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.” (Psalms 19:14)
May God the Holy Spirit help each every one of us to get rid of all selfish motives in prayers!! May He help us to pray in acceptable way!!
