1. Are You Hindering Your Prayers?

2. Elements of Acceptable Prayer
“Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name…”
ddressing God
“And forgive us our debts [sins], as we forgive our debtors…”
onfessing sin
“I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth” Lk. 10:21
hanksgiving
“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one…”
upplication

3. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Done To Be Seen Of Men
Matt. 6:5-6 - "And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 6 But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

4. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Done To Be Seen Of Men
James 5:16 – “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”

5. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Done To Be Seen Of Men
Failure To Ask
Matt. 6:8 - “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.”

6. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Done To Be Seen Of Men
Failure To Ask
Matt. 7: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”

7. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Done To Be Seen Of Men
Failure To Ask
Phil. 4:6 - Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
Heb. 4:16 - Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
James 4:2 - You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask

8. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Done To Be Seen Of Men
Failure To Ask
Having An Unforgiving Spirit
Mark 11:25 - "And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”
Matt. 6: "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses”

9. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Done To Be Seen Of Men
Failure To Ask
Having An Unforgiving Spirit
Eph. 4:32 - And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.

10. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Done To Be Seen Of Men
Failure To Ask
Having An Unforgiving Spirit
Improper Husband-Wife Relationship
1 Pet. 3:7 - Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.

11. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Done To Be Seen Of Men
Failure To Ask
Having An Unforgiving Spirit
Improper Husband-Wife Relationship
Eph. 5:25 - Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,
Eph. 5:28 - So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.
Titus 2:4 - that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children

12. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Done To Be Seen Of Men
Failure To Ask
Having An Unforgiving Spirit
Improper Husband-Wife Relationship
Doubt
“To be undecided or skeptical about something”
Heb. 11:6 –But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him

13. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Done To Be Seen Of Men
Failure To Ask
Having An Unforgiving Spirit
Improper Husband-Wife Relationship
Doubt
James 1:5-7 – “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 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. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord”

14. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Done To Be Seen Of Men
Failure To Ask
Having An Unforgiving Spirit
Improper Husband-Wife Relationship
Doubt
Luke 1 – Zechariah and Elizabeth
Matt. 7:7-8 – "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

15. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Done To Be Seen Of Men
Failure To Ask
Having An Unforgiving Spirit
Improper Husband-Wife Relationship
Doubt
Mark 11: So Jesus answered and said to them, "Have faith in God. 23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. 24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

16. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Done To Be Seen Of Men
Failure To Ask
Having An Unforgiving Spirit
Improper Husband-Wife Relationship
Doubt
Not Praying According to God’s Will
Matt. 6:10 – “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Col. 3:17 - And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him

17. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Done To Be Seen Of Men
Failure To Ask
Having An Unforgiving Spirit
Improper Husband-Wife Relationship
Doubt
Not Praying According to God’s Will
James 4:3 – “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”
1 John 5:14-15 – “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.”

18. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Disobedience
Prayers of the Disobedient
Isaiah 59:1-2 - Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. 2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear

19. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Disobedience
Prayers of the Disobedient
1 Sam. 15: So Samuel said: "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.

20. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Disobedience
Prayers of the Disobedient
Jeremiah 14: Thus says the Lord to this people: "Thus they have loved to wander; They have not restrained their feet. Therefore the Lord does not accept them; He will remember their iniquity now, And punish their sins." 11 Then the Lord said to me, "Do not pray for this people, for their good. 12 "When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence."

21. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Disobedience
Prayers of the Disobedient
Prov. 28:9 - One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, Even his prayer is an abomination

22. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Disobedience
Prayers of the Obedient
Prov. 15:29 - The Lord is far from the wicked, But He hears the prayer of the righteous.
John 9:31 – “Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him.”

23. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Disobedience
Prayers of the Obedient
Psalm 66: “Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will declare what He has done for my soul. I cried to Him with my mouth and He was extolled (very happy/praised) with my tongue. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear. But certainly God has heard me; He has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me!”

24. How Our Prayers are Hindered
Disobedience
Prayers of the Obedient
1 Peter 3:12 - For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their prayers; But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."
1 John 3:22 - And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.

25. What’s it to me? Praying is a privilege - not a right.
Our obedience to God’s law is the only way we can receive that privilege.
Our disobedience is a guaranteed way to lose that privilege.
Can you talk to God today?