HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS Taken primarily from James 4

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS SIMPLY NOT ASKING (James 4:1-2 NIV) What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS SIMPLY NOT ASKING 2You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH A DOUBLE MIND (James 4:3a NIV) When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives,

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH A DOUBLE MIND (James 1:6-8 NIV) But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH A DOUBLE MIND 7That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH A DOUBLE MIND TWO-SOULED, literally having two breaths; talking out of both sides of our mouth.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH A DOUBLE MIND We ask God to help us with something, then we go away and fret to someone because we don't know how we will deal with the situation.

“Won’t somebody help me?”

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH SELFISH DESIRE (James 4:3 NIV) When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH SELFISH DESIRE Are we asking for things that we really need or simply things that will make us feel better?

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH SELFISH DESIRE Are most of our prayers centered upon ourselves and our own family?

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH SELFISH DESIRE An unbeliever discovered he could not say the Lord’s Prayer.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH PRIDE (James 4:6 NIV) But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH PRIDE (James 4:9-10 NIV) Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS The first step to spiritual revival is humility. (2 Chronicles 7:14 NIV) if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WHILE FAR FROM GOD (James 4:8 NIV) Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WHILE FAR FROM GOD (Hebrews 10:22 NAU) let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH EVIL IN OUR HEART (James 4:11-12 NIV) Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH EVIL IN OUR HEART When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you--who are you to judge your neighbor?

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH EVIL IN OUR HEART (Psalms 66:18-19 NAU) If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear; 19But certainly God has heard; He has given heed to the voice of my prayer.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH EVIL IN OUR HEART (Psalms 51:6-13 NIV) Surely you desire truth in the inner parts ; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. 7Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH EVIL IN OUR HEART than snow. 8Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. 9Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. 10Create in me a pure heart, O God, and

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH EVIL IN OUR HEART renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH EVIL IN OUR HEART sustain me. 13Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you. [see again Heb. 10:22]

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH UNFORGIVENESS IN OUR HEART (Matthew 18:35 NIV) "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING WITH UNFORGIVENESS IN OUR HEART Mark 11:25 "Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS 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.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS ASKING GOD TO BLESS WHAT WE ARE DOING, INSTEAD OF DOING WHAT GOD IS BLESSING James 4:13-16 NIV) Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS 15Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.“ 16As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS (James 4:17 NIV) Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. Our sins of omission are just as great as our sins of commission.

HINDRANCES TO OUR PRAYERS Thank God that Romans 7 is followed by Romans 8. (Romans 8:1 KJV) There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.