The Preliminaries of Prayer (Pt.2)

We began this month by discussing the importance of preliminaries of prayer. We saw how important it is to handle some of the basic issues before you begin to communicate with heaven and ensure a fluent prayer time. We shall be continuing with prayer preliminaries this week.

Your success in the place of prayer depends on how you are able to handle this issue effectively. Today, we shall continue along the same path of prayer preliminaries so that our time with God is productive.

God bless you as you apply the principles to your life.

Purification

My eyes are too holy to be holy iniquity says the book of 1 Peter 1:16. And God’s immediate response to sin is distance. Whenever sin is present in the life of a man, what God does is keep a distance from that man. Unless it is done away with, that man can’t have fellowship with him. This accounts for the reason why God is never close to the sinner. He loves the sinner, but he hates his sin.

Before you start to pray, carry out a heart check by verifying the status of your heart. Is it pure? Is it defiled? What is the state of my heart? Once you have confirmed the answer, do something about it. As believers, one of the things that can hinder your communication with God is sin. Towards this end, do not just begin to pray, seek to be purified.

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 2:1-2

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

God closes his ears to the one who finds sin a bosom friend. The ears of the Lord are open to the righteous only.

1 Peter 3:12

For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.

The hand of God is never too short to deliver a man (Isaiah 59:1-2). In fact, God is willing to always to help us if we allow him to do so. However helpful God wants to be, sin will stop him from doing so. The first thing to do to ensure the flow of communication between you and God is to clear every huddle.

After thanking God for the privilege to come before him, the next thing to do is to ask God for mercy through the blood of Jesus. And if we are sincere enough, he is more than just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is where many believers are missing it when it comes to receiving the answer to their prayers. The standard of God can’t be changed because of anyone. If we want him to hear us, then we have to do away with the things that he hates – sin. Adam and Eve our first parent ate a single tree and lost a garden. Lucifer, now Satan, drank the pills of pride and lost his place. That is God’s attitude towards sin.  If our prayers must make an impact, then we must make sure that our hearts are clean and purified. That is the first place to begin. A man of God said, “Imagine if the whole prayers being prayed in your own country are answered?” What would have happened? The problem is not that we aren’t praying, but we aren’t doing it in the right way. We are in the place of prayer, yet there is a bitterness in our hearts against a brother or a sister. We must first deal with that before we can receive our answers from God (Matthew 5:23, Hebrews 12:15).

The Right Attitude

James 4:3

Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

Before you go into the place of prayer? What is your attitude? Why are you making demands on God for these things? To prove a point? Attitude means a lot to God. It is possible for two people to contravene God’s principle and for God to respond differently to the two individuals – the response of God was orchestrated and directed by attitude. David committed adultery, cheated on his wife, killed, and defiled his body, the temple of the Living God. Saul committed the sin of disobedience once – and that was the end. His whole Kingship was stripped away from him. Why did God react differently to these two people – attitude?

While David was remorseful over his sin, Saul rather blamed the people.  When God wants to always have a righteous Israel, so that he can have fellowship with them, for the period of 4o years, he suffered and polished their manners.

Proverbs 16:2

All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord.

These are preliminary things that we must have to deal with if our prayers must be heard every time. Our attitude counts. If they are wrong, the prayers won’t be heard. If they are right, it will be heard.  Straightened your attitude in line with the will of God. We shouldn’t be spending hours in the place of prayers, yet we come out with our requests unanswered. Esther prayed a single prayer and the whole Jewish nation was preserved and saved (Esther 4:16). Daniel prayed a single prayer, and it freed them from captivity (Daniel 9:2-3), and Nehemiah prayed one prayer and the wall of Jerusalem was rebuilt (Nehemiah 1:11). Aren’t we rendering prayers? Why do we get fewer results? The issue is motive. The bible says all a man’s ways may be innocent unto him, but the motive is weighed by the Lord. Someone said, “If we do what the saints of old did, we would see the results that they saw.”

If only we could scrutinize our motives before praying, our answers are sure. And we would notice that what seems like a genuine motive is smeared with the inner desire of what we want.

God help us.