HOW TO ENJOY ANSWERED PRAYERS

TRINITY HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH

 

                                                         SERMON                         

18th September, 2022

SERMON TITLE:                How to Enjoy Answered Prayers

SERMON TEXT:                 Matthew 6:9 – 15

PREACHER:                         Reverend Ebenezer Olawuyi

 

MESSAGE

We serve a God who answers prayers, amen. I have shared this with you but I want to remind you again, peradventure some of you have forgotten. When I see young people who cry because they are bedwetting, I say, “Calm down, this man you are seeing was once a senior bedwetter.” If you have been in the boarding house, you know there is a double-decker, right? Also there are Seniors and in those days for you to be a senior, it was a serious thing, especially when the Form 5 (SSS 3) students are graduating and the Form 4 students are coming up – intoxication of power. I happened to be very privileged because I was serving the Senior Boy of the school so nobody dared touch me. I was serving him and staying in a cubicle in the Senior Boy’s room. I used to sleep on the upper deck and in the night, he didn’t need any alarm or anything to wake him up but for me to drop drips of urine on him after which he would wake up and beat me. It was a reproach to me because I had been battling with it for years. I never knew it will follow me to secondary school. It was a shame. I had done everything I could do, humanly speaking. You know what people say about eating early or not eating at night… those of you who have passed through it before know what I am talking about. They say, “Don’t eat late, latest 5pm and when you are drinking water, drink little water,” that does not help the matter for me. It is even when I observed this that I bedwetted the more. In fact, I will eat eba without drinking water, eat by 5pm and still bedwet. It was terrible.

I remember one day when I traveled with my mum to Benin to a family friend’s house, it was a big house filled with different people – their children and others. I stayed with the boys in the boys’ room. Can you imagine visiting and the thing following you to disgrace you there? The Lord will separate you from every reproach, Amen. It followed me again to Benin. I got there and decided not to eat late. I ate early and didn’t drink water so that I won’t bedwet, lo and behold…. In the boys’ room, there was a big bed and like 3 or 4 of us slept on the bed, I woke up in the morning around 5am, checked myself and I was heavily wet. O my God, what a shame! You really need to know how I felt and what I passed through but thank God, the year has turned around. I am praying for somebody here today, your reproach may not be bedwetting but whatever reproach is in your life, the God who healed me will heal you. The God who rolled away my reproach will roll away your reproach, Amen. Because I was a young boy and trying to be smart, immediately I woke up and discovered it, I went into the kitchen, took a cup of water and brought it to the bed as if I was drinking water on the bed, then pretended as if water had poured on the bed (Thou shalt not cover up your sins). I used that water to cover it up and I don’t think anybody discovered it because I poured water on the bed. It was a terrible thing. Everywhere I went, I was always afraid of bedwetting. The Senior Boy I was serving was tired, he would wake me up in the night and would have me carry my mattress which would have been smelling outside to spread under the sun and people would see it and say this boy is bedwetting. I continued like that until I got to Form 3 (JSS 3).

One day, I got pushed to the wall, my case was like Jacob who didn’t let the angel go until he blessed him. I knelt down and cried from my heart, “God, if you will remove this reproach from my life, I will serve you for the rest of my life.” I was crying and sobbing at that early age, I think I was about 13 years old then because I entered secondary school at the age of 10. I just discovered that that night I slept and in the morning, as usual, I checked myself and saw that I was not wet, I thought it was a mistake because in the past, it did happen that I skipped a day. The next day again, I woke up dry, nothing. The second day, third day, one week, two weeks, one month, without a drop on the bed, Jesus! One of the greatest miracle I ever experienced as a young boy was this one to prove to me that there is a God in Heaven who answers prayer. The reproach was rolled away forever after that day.

Beloved, I have come to tell you that we serve a God who answers prayers. Don’t give up praying, don’t be tired. Don’t say because you have done it once, then decide to keep quiet. We serve a God who is in the heavens and the Bible says His name is the God who hears prayers – To you all flesh shall come, thou that hears prayers; to you the vow shall be performed. I am praying for somebody under the voice of my ministration today, God will give you a testimony of answered prayers, Amen. Your case may not be bedwetting, your case may not even be a reproach like that, but you are asking God to do something for you, don’t give up praying.

Today, I will go through how you can enjoy answered prayers; what you can do to have guaranteed answered prayers.

1. Believe that God is Able: The first thing if you want to enjoy answered prayers is to not pray for praying sake, believe that you are going to enjoy answered prayers. Believe that you have come to meet the God who is able. He does not just promise, He is also able to perform what He has promised. Man can make a promise to you with good intentions and goodwill but he may not have the ability to perform it, his life is not even in his hands. There are people who make great promises for people but never live to fulfill those promises. God is able, He does not die, He lives forever. The Bible says concerning Abraham in Romans 4:21, “And being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform,” that was why Jesus was telling the disciples not to fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul but rather fear Him who is able to kill, destroy both soul and body and cast in hell. God is able to make us to stand and do anything, so know that God is able. He wouldn’t tell us to pray if He is not able to answer those prayers. Isaiah 45:19 says, “…I did not say to the seed of Jacob, ‘Seek Me in vain’;” God is saying, I have not told you to come and look for me in vain. You will not seek God in vain, that is, seek Him and go empty handed. Isaiah says, “Before you even ask, I will answer you, while you are speaking, I am going to hear you.” Believe that God is able to bring to pass what He has said, Hallelujah. In Isaiah 40:27 – 28, God was saying to Jacob, “Why do you say O Jacob, and speak, O Israel: ‘My way is hidden from the Lord, and my just claim is passed over by my God’? So, you must come to God and believe Him. In other words, come to Him in faith and believe that He is able to do what He has promised.
2. You must Establish a Relationship with God: John 15:7 says, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you,” this talks about relationship. If you want your prayers to be answered, you’ve got to have a relationship with God. Some people only pray during emergency and that’s why they are not known in Heaven. I keep saying, if this place is jam-packed and I have not seen my wife for so long, maybe for the past 1 year and she just came back. I might not even know she would be coming today and probably she just managed to get a seat in the back but if I hear her voice, I will recognize that she is the one. When you have a relationship with somebody, that’s what happens. Some of us only call God when we have challenges, we only relate with Him in the time of trouble and never relate with Him normally. Jesus is saying here that if you abide in Him, stay with Him and His words stay in you, then you can ask anything. Does the Word of God stay in you? Some don’t even have a quiet time. I was in a family to address an issue and in the process of resolving the issue, I asked them if they prayed together this morning because I know a family that prays together always stays together; if you pray together, there are some things that you would not do. They said they didn’t pray, meanwhile I met the children in the living room watching TV. The family does not have any prayer together; the husband and wife don’t pray together. I asked them if they had been praying but they said, “No”. Of course, what do you expect? A house devoid of Jesus will be taken over by the Devil. Friends, this is key, you’ve got to have a relationship with him. In such a family, if they have trouble and starts praying, God will say he doesn’t know them but if they are used to talking with God, relating with Him before, they will speak once and He will hear them. You’ve got to have a relationship with Him, that’s what the Scripture is saying here, let the Scripture abide in you, stay with the Word, have quiet time. Some don’t even read the Bible and don’t even have time to meditate on the Word.

In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus didn’t teach them to pray saying, “Our God who art in heaven…”, He told them to say, “Our Father…”, in other words, you can’t bump into somebody’s family without having a relationship with that family. He must be your father for you to be able to take out that privilege, that’s father-child relationship. That’s why He says, “Your earthly fathers being evil, if you ask bread from them, they do not give you stone, how much more your heavenly father”. Your earthly father, because you have a relationship with him, you can tell him that you are resuming school and need to pay your school fees but you cannot bump into someone who is not your father that you want to resume school and he should pay your school fees, he will ask you who you are. Because your father knows that it is his responsibility, he needs to do that, that’s why the Scripture says, your heavenly father knows what you are in need of. So, you need to have a relationship with Him, and that’s why when you pray, it has to be “Our Father…”, not “Our God…”. God is a God to everybody but not a father to everybody. He is a God to everybody because whether you like Him or not, one day you will meet with him and face judgment before him. Everyone will appear before him, both the evil and the good, but you’ve got to have a relationship with him for you to enjoy His blessings both now and in eternity. Friends, you want to enjoy prayers, don’t just wait till emergency before you meet with him; relate with your father, have communion with Him. the Bible talks about Jesus, when He got to the gate of Lazarus and was praying, He said, “Father, I know that you hear me,” He was so confident. It was not only in time of emergency, Mark 1:35 tells us that when it was yet early, Jesus went to a solitary place and prayed. It was His lifestyle, He communed with His Father regularly. He stays with His Father so in the time of emergency, He could come back and ask for answer. Have a relationship with God if you want to enjoy answered prayers.

3. Don’t Fret when you Pray: In our Devotional few days ago, I was talking about this. Don’t fret, don’t be anxious. If you want to come to God, you must come to Him in His own terms and not in your own terms. Don’t fret, don’t be anxious. Phil. 4 says, “Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayers and supplications, let your request be made known unto God.” You can’t be worried and anxious and say you are praying the prayer of faith, no, the two of them can’t be together. It’s only the prayer of faith that God will answer, not the prayer of fear and anxiety. If you know you are coming to God, cast your cares on Him for He cares for you. I keep saying that some wants to have the two, but you can’t eat your cake and have it. If you want to have your cares with you, then leave God out of it, you don’t need to bring Him into the matter, but if you want God in the matter, drop those cares on Him and forget about it, don’t fret. Psalms 37:7 says, “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.” Calm yourself down, always learn to calm down. It’s not natural for you to rest in the Lord, you’ve got to make up your mind to rest. Some people will say that they inherited it from their parents who used to get worried but when you become a child of God, you have to learn to drop worrying and just laugh over that challenge. So, if you want your prayers to be answered, stop fretting. You see some people coming for prayers and after it, they still live as if they are carrying that burden, worrying about the matter.
4. Pray according to His Will: Anytime you want to pray, the first thing you need to do is to find out what God is saying about the matter. I was sharing recently and said, “Always put the Word of God first.” For any action you want to do, ask yourself what God is saying about it. In anything you want to do, you must find out what God is saying about the matter. Everything must be in accordance with His Word. If it is not in accordance with His word, then He won’t have any business answering. 1 John 5:14 says, “…if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” If you ask anything according to His will, you know He hears you and if He hears you, you know you have received the petition you asked from Him. Ask Him according to His will. Is it the will of God for me to live, prosper, recover in this illness, for my children to prosper, to expand? You’ve got to know and find out what the will of God is. This new decision you are about to take, is it the will of God for you to take that decision? Oh, everybody is doing this, but you are not everybody, find out what God wants you to do. If He sends you, He will stand by you, if He sends you, He will back you up, if He sends you, He will supply, but if He doesn’t send you, you will be stranded. You must always find out what God’s will is. If you ask anything according to His will, you know He hears you and that you have received the petition you desired of Him.

In Acts 4:24 – 26, the disciples prayed that prayer when they were being challenged by the council in those days against speaking in the name of the Lord. After they were released, they gathered together and prayed that prayer, “O Lord, it is written, in your word…”, so, when they heard that, they raised their voices to God in one accord and said, “…Lord, you are God who made the heaven and earth…” (Acts 4:24). They reminded God of what He said in the book of Psalms – “who by the mouth of Your servant David have said: ‘Why did the nations rage, And the people plot vain things?” (Acts 4:25). When you pray according to the Will of God, you can be sure God answers speedily. For example, you pray and say, “Father, you said it in your word that by the stripes on Jesus, He was wounded for my transgressions and bruised for my iniquities, the chastisement of my pains was laid upon him and by His stripes, I am healed. My father, this is your Word, you said in Exodus 23:25, ‘You will serve the Lord and He will bless your bread and water. You will take sickness away from me and you will fulfill the number of my days’. Psalms 118:17 says, ‘I will not die but live to declare the works of the Lord.’ O Lord, stretch your hands and lay your healing hands upon me today. By the stripes of Jesus, I am healed. I will not die but live to declare the works of the Lord.” What you are doing is invoking the will of God into your situation. Pray according to the will of God, don’t just pray because you feel it should be so. Matthew Henry said, “Prayer is not overcoming the reluctance of God, prayer is taking hold of the will of God.” Prayer is not saying, I must make sure I make God do it, it is “Lord, I have discovered your will and I lay hold of your will. I lay hold of the horn on the altar and I will not leave you unless you bless me.” Anytime you want to pray, discover the will of God.

5. Be Fruitful: God is saying, “You want answered prayers? Let’s go on business. You are expecting great things from Me, attempt great things for Me. You’ve got to be fruitful because I am interested in filling the earth with the knowledge of the Lord. I am interested in bringing many that are under captivity, you are my tool, my hand and my mouth.” Jesus is saying, “I am not going to come here and do it myself, you are my mouth, my legs, hands, I need to bring this people to the knowledge of the Lord. Go, speak to them, bring them, as you bring them, I am going to make you happy. If you make me happy, I am going to make you happy.” The Bible says, there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents. There is jubilation in heaven, there is dancing in heaven, feasting in heaven and God is saying, if you do that, He will share the goodies with you. If you want to have answers… a lot of people want answered prayers but are never fruitful. If soul-winning were your job, would you still be employed? In other words, if you are not fruitful, bringing returns, would your employer retain you? Some of you have been in business, you love employees who add value to the organization. I keep saying to you not to joke with faithful employees, you can pay anything for faithful and fruitful staffs. Staffs who add value to your organization, don’t joke with such staff, but someone who is not adding value, you are praying that he/she goes, but for someone who adds value, if he wants to go, you tell him not to go and ask if he needs a salary increase because he is adding value.

Friends, do you know that happens in our relationship with God? When you are fruitful, God doesn’t joke with you. Someone is just a bench-warmer, coming to church for two-three years and can never say, “That by the Grace of God, through me, this person has known the Lord, has been added to the church.” For two, three, four years? That’s touching. How can you spend one whole week… how many people do you meet in a week? I am sure those you have contact with either directly or indirectly cannot be less than 30. How many of them did you ever open your mouth to tell about Jesus, how many? The Lord is saying this is what is giving him joy, but you are not bothered about what gives Him joy but about what gives you joy. When it gets to that point, the church has become ‘Bless me’ club, just come together, pray and sing and say, ‘Bless me’. Next Sunday again, come together and say, “I have come to you to bless me.” No, God doesn’t want such people, the church should be a place where disciples are equipped and sent out as missionaries into the world. You’ve got to be fruitful. You’ve got to yield your life, make sure your hands are God’s hands. You have colleagues in the place of work, your family members, neighbours, have you ever told them about Jesus? Have you ever invited them to church? Ask yourself, “Am I fruitful? Am I making addition to God’s Kingdom?” “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you that you go out and bear fruit that your fruit will abide, then whatever you ask in my name I will do.” If soul-winning were your job, would you still be employed? I guess that most of us would have been sacked. I preach not because I am a pastor but because I can’t imagine seeing someone… I was talking with a woman recently… you know, there are a lot of things you can use to tell somebody about God, for example, the testimony of the Speaker on Sunday is a good tool for you to use to talk to somebody. You can share it with somebody, extract the testimony and use it as a point of contact to preach but you know, where your treasure is, there you heart would also be. If your heart is not in Kingdom matter, you will not think about what you can do.

I was talking with a woman recently and they told me that the woman is this and that and that they had even closed the door on her, I told them not to give up and said I want to share something with her. Right there, I started talking to her and since that day I never left her alone, I have been sending messages, in fact, by the time I sent a message to her yesterday, I told her I hope I wasn’t bothering her and she told me that I was not bothering her. I am not giving up on her, she could have been a terrible woman but I am not giving up on her. She has not yielded but I have not stopped. I keep on praying and mentioning her name to the Lord. I mention her name to the Lord and asks God to give me the soul of this woman and I know my prayer won’t go unanswered. Who are you praying for for conversion? Is there anybody in your prayer list? And not only praying, are you doing something about it? Are you kingdom-minded? Are you interested in the joy of heaven or you are just interested in your own joy? You want your prayers to be answered? Be kingdom-minded. Be fruitful. Every interview we have to employ any employee, we engage the staff with a salvation story. It’s an opportunity we have, for the fact that you have come for this interview, you must hear the Gospel, it’s an opportunity. You may not be an employer of labour but you have colleagues, you have friends, classmates, business partners, family members, engage them. Your responsibility is to preach, the conversion belongs to the Lord. It’s the Holy spirit that will convict men, not you. Your responsibility is to open your mouth and tell them about Christ, the Holy Spirit does the conviction.

6. Ask in Faith: Ask without doubting. The opposite of faith is doubt. James 1:6 – “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.” The Scripture says also in James 5:15, “And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up…”, the prayer of faith, not the prayer of fear or doubt. And what is faith? Simply, believing God for who He is, believing God, knowing that God is still God, taking Him as His word, acting according to His word. So, if you want your prayers to be answered, you must pray in faith. Believe God without seeing Him. Faith is not something you see, it is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen. So, don’t wait to see before you believe, believe even when you cannot see. The problem with a lot of people, why they have prayer failures is because they want to see before they believe that God has heard. That’s why I have taught you over and over, don’t pray and then say, “God will answer our prayer”, no, that is a prayer of hope. Faith is not hope, faith is ‘now’. The Bible says in Mark 11:24, “Whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them”. Believe! That’s the prayer of faith, “I do not see it. I am not moved by sight or feelings. I am moved because the Word of God says it.” It is the prayer of faith that heals the sick. So, if you want to have answered prayers, ask in faith. The Bible says, let no man think he can receive anything who doubts; pray and believe it.

Let me put it this way, “God will do it” is a prayer of hope, “God might do it” is a prayer of doubt, “God can do it” is a prayer of fact, “God has done it” is a prayer of faith. That’s why the language of the believer is “I am strong”, you don’t hear Christians going around… that doesn’t mean we should deny the fact when we are down sometimes so that we can get help, but it is not something that we carry it as a pity party, going about everywhere and when you are asked, “What is wrong with you?” you say pitifully, “I am sick”. If you want to meet with someone who can help you, maybe your doctor, you don’t tell him you are strong when you have ulcer, how will he take care of you? Or maybe a Pastor or Minister wants to pray with you, tell him your situation, but you don’t go around telling everyone that you are troubled by ulcer. The Christian says, “I am strong!” even though you have a weakness in your body, say, “I am strong because the Lord says so.” “Even though I don’t have money in my hand, I am rich.” You may not have ten thousand naira in your bank account but you are a millionaire. You will count millions with this your hand, Amen. So, keep saying what the Word of God says. Sometimes, the Lord stops me from saying this: maybe somebody asks me for money and the truth is that I don’t have it and I want the person to really know that, I say, “All the money I have in heaven and on earth is this”, but the Lord has cautioned me not to say it again. So, I say, “For now, I don’t have this”.

7. Forgive your Offenders: Forgive your offenders because that can hinder answered prayers. It’s a choice, friends, release them. You can’t prevent people from hurting you, it’s not possible. The bible says very clearly, if you don’t forgive, your heavenly father will not forgive you. Matthew 6:12 says, “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”. If you don’t forgive, the Lord will not forgive you (Matt. 18:35). If you want to enjoy answered prayers, release people. In your prayers, pray for them that you release and forgive them. In the Devotional we had this morning, I told you that how can you hold people in your heart and your conscience will not prick you that you are holding grudges against them? I pray that God will give everyone of us a tender conscience because I can’t imagine a husband and wife fighting for two days and you claim to be praying, what sort of prayer is that? Your conscience is not pricking you? Some people will still attend prayer meetings and go to mountains, I can’t do it. God loves tender hearts, that’s why some people find it difficult to bring tears out of their eyes, they are so thick-hearted that nothing can bring tears out of their eyes. When I am in the presence of the Lord, worshipping the Lord, I shed tears like a baby. Let me shed tears on his feet and then clean it with my hairs again. How can you be having grudges against someone, having malice with them and yet you are not moved? That’s why I respect people who tremble at God’s word. I told somebody recently that, “You won my heart”, because after hearing the Word of God, she went out to meet someone she had been having issues with and reconciled with that person. In fact, I started seeing her differently than how I used to see her before. Some people say to another that there is nothing that can stop their fight and such people would still keep praying, such prayer will only enter Voicemail. Say it after me: Father, give me a tender heart. So, forgive one another, no matter who has offended you, release them because you can’t stop it. Even the secular world says, “To err is man but to forgive is God.” You can’t rule it out, there would always be an offence, that’s why some marriages break because they cannot stand. There would always be an offence, one person can be hard while the other is soft, but if the two of you are both hard, there is trouble.
8. Always be Thankful: Be filled with praise. Phil. 4:6, “Be careful for nothing…” Let your praises and thanksgiving be more than your requests. I enjoy answered prayers but let me tell you my secret, if I am spending one hour in prayers, I use about 50 minutes for praise and worship and 10 minutes for request and God answers. It accelerates the delivery of your answered prayers, that’s why the Scriptures say, “…enter His court with thanksgiving” (Ps. 100:4). Thank Him! Some of you don’t have things you can thank God for but there are one million things to thank God for. So, if you want your prayers to be answered, learn to praise God, sing to Him, thank Him, mention things to Him and thank and thank. Paul and Silas in Acts 16:25, “…at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.…” When you worship Him and praise Him, God hears you speedily because He begins to nod his head that you are giving Him His food. Remember Esther, she knew how to enter into the presence of the King, after she had done it, it was so easy to make a request. The King asked what he wanted him to do for her, she told him not to worry, just for him to come to a banquet, she wants to treat him to a feast and make him happy. The king went and what a banquet it was, he was moved and said, “Esther, what do you want me to do for you”. You have got to learn how to give God praise before you make your request known to Him. Thanksgiving makes answer to prayers speedy. It accelerates answers to prayers. Don’t be so much in hurry to ask from Him.
9. Build your Prayer on the Righteousness which is by Faith: Not on self-righteousness. In Luke 18:10, the tax collector was more justified than the Pharisee because he didn’t come to God on the basis of his self-righteousness. Beloved, what makes God to answer your prayers is not because you didn’t do all those evil, no, they are good and God will credit you for that, but what gives you accessibility into His presence, that God would look at you and allow you to come, is putting on the robe of Christ’s righteousness: the gift of Christ’s righteousness (Romans 5:17). You come to the presence of the Lord under the fact that I am coming not under my own righteousness. Anytime you come to the presence of the Lord, don’t come saying, “Lord, you know I pay my tithe, I am the highest payer, you know I have never fornicated.” All these are good, but that’s not your basis for coming into the presence of the Lord. Your basis for being accepted in the presence of the Lord is that you are putting on the robe of Christ’s righteousness. Titus 3:5 – “Not by the works of righteousness…” There is what is called a ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude, it’s a hindrance to prayers. Some people are too proud of their religiousity, that makes God to turn his eyes away from us.
10. Live in Righteousness: You may say that I just told you to come to the presence of the Lord with the righteousness of Christ, can’t we then just live carelessly and come to the presence of the Lord and feel that we are coming with the righteousness of Christ. For the fact that you are putting on the robe of righteousness and made righteous by Christ, God expects that you live righteously. If you are a teacher, you should practise teaching; a singer, practise singing; a medical doctor, practise medicine; a carpenter, practise carpentry; a driver, practise driving; if you are righteous, you should practise righteousness. If He has made you righteous, live righteously. 1 John 3:8 – 9 says, “He who sins is of the devil for the devil has sinned from the beginning…”, in other words, he who has received the robe of righteousness should no longer sin. The sinner practices sinning, the righteous practices righteousness. So, if you are righteous, practice righteousness. I am not talking about someone who falls into sin by mistake, that’s why God has made that provision for us in 1 John 2:1 – 2, that if we sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus who is the propitiation for our sins, in other words, we have an advocate that speaks on behalf of us to the Father that we have made a mistake but we don’t do it habitually, but someone who sins habitually and doesn’t mind, his conscience convicts him but he does not stop, that’s a person who sins habitually. If you sin habitually, your prayers can’t be answered. You will hinder your prayers because God knows that you are not in business with Him and are just playing games with Him.

You see some people who live a terrible life and when about to travel, because they don’t want to die, they pray before they go and commit themselves to the Lord, when they come back from their journey, they resume their sins. God doesn’t relate with such people, those are habitual sinners. Nobody should say, “I have the gift of righteousness, I can keep on sinning,” No! God does not hear sinners. Proverbs 15:29, “The Lord is far from the wicked, but He hears the prayer of the righteous.” God is happy to hear the prayers of the righteous, but the prayer of the wicked is an abomination before the Lord. A man who habitually sins is a wicked man, God wants the righteous to practice righteousness, don’t do things that are not right before the Lord and you will discover that your prayers will become God’s delight. I pray for you, from today, your prayers will become God’s delight. The Bible says, “And God was pleased with Jesus,” God will be pleased with your prayers.

Follow these things and you will begin to see evidences of answered prayers. God wouldn’t tell you to do what He knows He cannot fulfill. He has called you pray and so has the ability to answer your prayers. If your prayers are not answered, it’s not His fault, it’s because you are not meeting up the equations.

 

Prayer

Father, in the name of Jesus, help us to come to you in your own terms. From now, help us to begin to experience answered prayers. No longer shall our prayers be delayed, hindered nor frustrated. When we call, you will hear us speedily. We decree that from today, the wave of change begin to blow upon us. Hindrances are removed, mountains are leveled, crooked parts are straight, impossibilities become possible. We believe that there is nothing impossible with you. Thank you, Father.