Bella Vista Church of Christ
LIFELINES
March 28, 2001 Kirk Castleman
Prayer Hinderers
Prayer is a powerful and awesome responsibility! Think about it just for a moment: you and I are practically specks of dirt on a small planet spinning through an infinite solar system, and the Creator of all of it commands us to talk to Him. He loves to hear everything we have on our heart. He yearns for us to ask Him to bless us. He even keeps on listening when we ask for things that He must refuse. He never sleeps, gets tired, or is even bored while listening to us.
Heaven is open and His attention is infinite because Jesus is our connection to Glory. Paul says that Christ is our mediator (1 Tim. 2.5). God even puts the Holy Spirit in our hearts so that when we babble on like small children about things that would not be for our good, we have an intercessor who articulates our deepest needs and desires “with groanings too deep for words.” (Rom. 8:26).
Things happen when we pray that would not happen if we did not pray! Why do we think we can make it without prayer? “O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”
The tragedy is that we not only forget to pray, but that there are things which can hinder our prayers when we do pray. Peter writes in 1 Peter 3.7, “You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.” This passage concerns how husbands treat their wives. In Peter’s words, inconsideration in families is a prayer hinderer.
Is not anger a prayer hinderer? James says “the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.” (James 1:20) What about a grudge? What about an unforgiving spirit?
We misuse John 9.31 to insist that God cannot hear the prayer of a sinner. Perhaps we ought to put the shoe on the other foot even if it gets a little bit tight! Maybe there are prayer hinderers in our hearts! Let us pray, “O infinite Father, help us remove the prayer hinderers of our hearts so you can bless us.”
KIRK CASTLEMAN
Humble, Tex.
