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Obeying God ---Before Praying to Him · (Un) Common thoughts of Christ

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: We call this short podcast meditation.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hearing God before asking God you hear it all the time.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm praying for you.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'll pray about that.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just pray and trust God.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And those are good words, right words, but there's a question we almost never stop to ask.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: What gives prayer its power?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: What makes it something God actually hears?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because Scripture quietly and very clearly raises a serious issue.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: If I am knowingly walking outside of God's word, if I am resisting what he has already spoken, if I am holding on to something he has told me to judge, on what ground do I expect him to answer?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: We often treat prayer like a request line, as if we can speak to God about anything, while ignoring what he has already said to us.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: But God never separates prayer from obedience.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to how direct the word is.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Solomon in Proverbs 28:9 shares with us this.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination that changes the tone immediately, not just hindered prayer, not delayed prayer, but something God refuses.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because prayer is not meant to replace obedience, it is meant to flow out of it.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now consider another searching word.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: In Psalm 66, 18, the psalmist gives us, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is not about stumbling.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Every believer knows what it is to fail.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is about regarding iniquity, allowing it, defending it, keeping it.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is possible to speak to God with our lips, while quietly reserving a part of the heart from Him.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And Scripture says plainly, the Lord will not hear.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where many sincere believers struggle, because they are praying, but they are not listening.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: They are asking God to act, but not yielding to what he has already said.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so prayer becomes strained, uncertain, sometimes even empty.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now listen to how the New Testament brings balance to this.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And again, over in 1 John 3.22, Apostle John gives us, and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: That is not legalism, that is relationship.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Answered prayer is connected to a life that is in harmony with God, not perfection, but direction, not sinless, but subject.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then we are given the governing principle.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Apostle John again states in 1 John 5 14.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: But this raises a quiet question: how can I expect to ask according to his will?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: If I am not willing to submit to his word, because his will is not hidden, it is revealed, God reveals truth so that it may be obeyed, not just understood, not just discussed, but obeyed.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now listen carefully to the words of the Lord Jesus Himself in John 7-17.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: If any one wills to do his will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on my own authority.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Notice the order in which our Lord Jesus is giving, not know first, then do, but be willing to do, and then you will know, light is given in the path of obedience, and the Lord goes further in.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: John 7 18.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is true.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now the issue becomes motive, self-will or God's will, self-glory or God's glory, and that reaches directly into prayer, because if prayer is centered in my will, it is already on the off course.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then comes the searching conclusion with our Lord Jesus continuing in John 7.19.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: They had the word, they knew the truth, but they were not keeping it.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And here is the connection we cannot avoid.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: If understanding truth depends on obedience, and prayer depends on knowing his will, then prayer itself must rest on obedience.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: The prophet Isaiah brings it even closer in Isaiah 59, 1 to 2.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, nor his ear heavy, that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have separated you from your God and your sins, have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Notice, it is not that God cannot hear, it is that he will not.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sin creates distance, and distance affects communion.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now step back and look at the pattern forming, turning away from God's word, holding on to known sin, walking outside his will, all of it leads to the same result, heaven, grows quiet, but this is where the message must turn.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is not written to leave us there, it is written to bring us back.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of asking, why isn't God hearing my prayers?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Scripture gently asks, Am I hearing him?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we are waiting for God to show us more.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: While he is waiting for us to obey what we already know, we want light for the next step, but we have not walked in the present one, and prayer, in that condition, becomes confused.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: But when the heart yields, when there is honest self-judgment, when we take God's side against what he has already shown us, something changes.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Prayer becomes simple again, clear, direct, living.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because prayer was never meant to function apart from obedience.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: They are not two separate things, they are one pathway, hearing God and speaking with him.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this brings us to a very quiet but necessary conclusion.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: God is not looking for better words, he is looking for a subject heart.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So the way forward is not complicated.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is not more effort in prayer, not more intensity, not longer requests, it is a return to this submission to the word of God.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Bring the heart back under Christ, judge what he has already spoken about, yield where there has been resistance.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then, prayer is no longer forced, it is no longer uncertain, it becomes what it was meant to be communion.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: So to close with this thought, when the ear is open to God, heaven is open to the soul.