BIBLICAL APPROACH TO PRAYER

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.
3. You ASK and do not RECEIVE, because you ASK AMISS, that you may SPEND IT on your PLEASURES.”
James 4:2,3 (NKJV)

• What you do with whatever God gives to you matters. He is interested in how you use whatever He makes available for you.
- God knows your mind, the intent of your heart ❤️. If you will not use His blessing which is given you by Him wisely, He may not give you more—grant your request for abundance.

• People use different methods and means in getting what they want.
- If you as a believer want to use worldly methods to get your needs met, you may not be surprised that it will not work.
- The principles of the world, worldly people, cannot work for the children of covenant—believers in Christ.
- Using worldly method to get your needs met would prove abortive.

• Some lust, even as a believer, they have strong and intense desire for what they do not have.
- Some do not mind to murder, either physically or to murder other people with their mouth, that they may get what they want—and yet they could not get it.
- Some covet, having or showing a strong desire, they wanted very much to possess what belongs to someone else but could not obtain it—get it. They covet their friends’ spouses and whatever (Exodus 20:17; 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7).
- They fight and war, battle for what they do not have, what belong to someone else.
- They are jealous of what others have, but they could not get it; so they fight and wage war to take or collect what does not belong to them.

• They do not have whatever they wanted because their manner of approach is bad, is not in line with God’s pattern.
- A believer should not pursue things like the people of the world.
- They do not have what they wanted, because they do not ask for it. And some who did ask could not receive (James 4:3).
- They asked even amiss, they do not get what they asked for, because their motives are all wrong.
- They wanted only what will give them pleasures: God is not in their thoughts, plans and goals.
16. “Then He [Jesus] spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully.
17. “And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’
18. “So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods.
19. ‘And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”’
20. “But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’
21. “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God.”
Luke 12:16-21(NKJV)

• Many people’s prayers 🙏 could not be answered, because what they intend to do with what they are asking for will not glorify God, thus He does not answer their prayers 🙏– does not grant their requests.
- The man in the above parable shared by the Lord Jesus Christ wanted to store the blessing he got, to greedily enjoy it alone.

• God blesses with a purpose
- If your intention on getting what you are asking for, from God, is to gratify flesh, to satisfy your lustful desires, He may not grant the request.
- One of the things that will give your prayer credibility before God is to have a request that encompasses His programme on earth planet.
- If what you are asking for will not benefit God and His kingdom, that is, will not benefit mankind; to be candid, such a request may not receive consideration before Him.

• Friendship with the world
- If you crave friendship with the world 🌍, that is, you abhor God’s pattern of doing things—you like to gratify the flesh, you may not have the best of God.
- Friendship with the world is enmity with God, the Bible says (James 4:4).
- Whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
“Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
James 4:4 (NKJV)

• God wants fellowship
- God does not want to meet your needs only. He wants your person also–He desires your fellowship (Genesis 3:8-10; Psalm 16:11).
- God created man for fellowship—we are created for His pleasure, exist by His will (Revelation 4:11).
- God paid the highest and costliest price to get man reconciled with Himself (2 Corinthians 5:18-21).
18. “Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ …
21. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
2 Corinthians 5:18,21 (NKJV)
- He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die for the sin of mankind (John 3:16; Romans 8:32).
- God is not mad at human race, rather He wants man, desires mankind, for fellowship—communion.

• Sin breaks your fellowship with God
- Sin will create a gap between you and God, and it will make your prayers obnoxious to Him (Proverbs 15:8,29).
- As a Christian, to receive answers to your prayers 🙏, that is, receive your requests, have your needs met: you have to live right, that is, holiness (Hebrews 12:14).
- Do not use the pattern of the people of the world: lust, murder, covetousness, fight, and war, to get what you want (James 4:2).
- Make your requests known to God through prayer:
6. “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by PRAYER and SUPPLICATION, with THANKSGIVING, let your REQUESTS be made known to GOD;
7. and the PEACE of GOD, which surpasses all understanding, will GUARD your HEARTS and MINDS through CHRIST JESUS.”
Philippians 4:6,7 (NKJV)
- Ask, make request with good motives (1 Samuel 2:3; Proverbs 16:2).

• What are the good motives?
~ You ask God to meet your needs with the motive of being a part of building His kingdom on earth 🌎 (Haggai 1:7-11; Luke 8:1-3).
~ You want to give out of what God has blessed you with to support the work of God (Proverbs 11:24)—not like the greedy and callous rich man in the parable we read above (Luke 12:16-21).
~ You want to support God’s servants in their God-given visions (Philippians 4:14-16).
~ You want to give to the needy (Galatians 2:10).
~ You want to give what you have, money, to mission work (3 John 6-8).
~ You want to witness for Christ, to souls that are perishing (Acts 1:8).
~ You want to use your gifts, talents, or vocational gifts to build your local church (Ephesians 4:16).
~ You want to live right, in peace and holiness, for without which no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14).
~ You want to love other people with the love of Christ (Romans 13:8,10).

• If you walk with Him as you ought, your needs shall be met—you will come out of whatever predicament you may be in now.
1. “When the Lord brought back His exiles to Jerusalem, it was like a dream!
4. Restore our fortunes, Lord, as streams renew the desert.”
Psalm 126:1,4 (NLT)

• PRAYER
- Your blessings are restored in Jesus’ name.
- Season of unanswered prayers comes to an end in your life in Jesus’ name.
Peace!