1. PRAYING WITH OURSELVES
The only thing Jesus' disciples ever asked Him to teach them how to do was how to pray (Luke 11:1). I'm convinced the majority of modern-day Christians don't know how to pray. Even worse, they don't care to learn and are unwilling to invest the time and pay the price to truly pray.
In His parable of the Pharisee and Publican (Luke 18:9-14), Jesus taught that the Pharisee "prayed with himself" (v. 11). God didn't pay any attention to his prayer. Have you ever felt like God wasn't paying any attention to your prayer? Have you ever considered that such may be the case, because you, like the Pharisee in our Lord's parable, are praying with yourself. Well, here's six sure signs that we are praying with ourselves instead of to God when we pray.
- We pray with ourselves when we’re not on speaking terms with God, due to unconfessed sin in our lives. (Psalm 66:18; Isaiah 59:2)
- We pray with ourselves when we attempt to strut into God’s presence clothed in the filthy rags of our own self-righteousness. (Isaiah 64:6; Luke 18:11-12)
- We pray with ourselves when we pray self-initiated prayers of self-interests, which God is neither interested in nor cares to talk about. (James 4:3)
- We pray with ourselves when we attempt to persuade God to do our will rather than petition Him to do His will. (1 John 5:14-15)
- We pray with ourselves when we attempt to impress God or to inform God. (Matthew 6:7-8)
- We pray with ourselves when we attempt to counsel and correct God rather than commit ourselves to God’s care and control in the midst of life’s most trying circumstances. (Job 38:1-2; 40:1-2; 42:1-6)
2. PRAYER IS NOT A FORCED CONVERSATION WITH GOD
We can neither force a conversation with God nor force His hand. God will only talk to us about what He wants to talk about and only do for us what He wants to do. It doesn’t matter what we want to discuss with God or what we want God to do for us.
3. ANSWERED PRAYERS
God always answers the prayers of His children. However, His answer is not always an acquiescence—a granting of our request. Sometimes, if we’ll listen carefully, we’ll discover He is turning us down, putting us off, wising us up, or, much to our own chagrin, finding us out.
4. CONFIDENCE IN PRAYER
There is no book in the Bible more important to learn in order to live confidently in Christ than 1 John. This extraordinary epistle also teaches us the essentials for praying confidently to God. According to John, an important prerequisite for confidence in prayer is to be divinely assured that our prayers are in accordance with the divine will (1 John 5:14-15). Another important prerequisite is a guarded conscience (1 John 3:20-22). A guilty conscience robs us of our confidence in prayer. The least little prick of our conscience over the least little infraction of God’s commands can cause us uncertainty on our knees. We will have no confidence that our prayers are being heard, much less of them being answered. In light of this, we must be careful not to commit any sin, as well as to confess any sin we commit the instant we commit it, so as to receive God’s immediate forgiveness for it (1 John 1:9). Only by guarding our conscience in so careful a way can we assure ourselves of confidence in prayer.
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