Joyce Meyer - Why Prayer Isn't Answered? - Part 3
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Well, thank you for joining me today in enjoying everyday life. How many of us don’t want to do that? We all want to enjoy every single day of our lives because I was abused in my childhood. I never really got to be a child, and I really didn’t even realize that until I was probably in my late 40s. It was then that I decided I was going to learn how to enjoy my life. It was interesting; I had to learn what my joy stealers were before I could really learn how to enjoy my life. There are certain things that the enemy will use against you to steal your peace. For example, if I have to hurry a lot, it’ll steal my peace.
I have to try to make sure that I don’t put things off until the last minute and then feel pressured by it. Joy is the same way. There are certain things that will steal your joy, and worry is certainly one of them. But God gives us an answer to worry. He says, «Be anxious for nothing, but in all things by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.» You know, the only way that we can fight the enemy and win the battle is by speaking out Scripture when he lies to you.
That’s what Jesus did, right? I think it’s in Luke 4 where he was taken into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by the devil. It’s kind of interesting that the Holy Spirit led him out there to be tempted. Why? Because he had to win that battle. It was kind of like David had to fight Goliath before he could become king. We’ve all got a few Goliaths in our lives, and we have to learn how to stand up to them and defeat them. I felt like learning how to enjoy my life was something that was not just what I wanted to do, but I felt like it was something that God wanted me to do.
Because John 10:10 says, «The thief comes only to kill, steal, and destroy.» But Jesus said, «I came that you might have and enjoy your life and have it in abundance, to the full, until it overflows.» If one of the reasons why he came was for me to enjoy my life, then I need to learn anything that’s stealing my joy. Worry certainly will do that; I’m sure you all agree. When we stopped, I said I wanted to talk to you about Paul’s prayers.
First of all, there’s nothing wrong with asking God to give you things, but you want to make sure that that’s not the largest portion of your prayers. We need to pray for spiritual things. I don’t know how many people really do until you look at the way Paul prayed. I wrote down in longhand-you know, cursive, that thing that a lot of people don’t know how to do anymore. I wrote down in longhand what those prayers were, what they actually said, and it would help you just to do something like that. When you really look at it and ask yourself, «Am I praying for these things?» I don’t even know that we’re taught to pray for them like we should.
God wants us to have nice things, but in 3 John 2 it says, «Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in every way and that your body may keep well, even as I know your soul keeps well and prospers.» He’s saying, «I want you to prosper in every way to the degree that your soul prospers.» Your soul prospering indicates spiritual maturity. The last thing we need is to be spiritually immature and have a lot of things. I mean, if you had a lot of money and you’re spiritually immature, you’re not going to use it for what God would have you use it for. The money we have is not ours anyway. When God asks for any of it or anything you own, if you decide to keep it anyway, you won’t ever enjoy it after that.
Once God puts his finger on it, it’s his, which is his to start with. We need to use things to be a blessing to people. The more you bless other people, the more blessed you will be. How many of you have experienced that in your life? Three? Okay. Maybe I best stop here and get a new message. That has become a lifestyle for me, and I think we need to build a lifestyle of giving, not a lifestyle of getting.
So Paul prays in Ephesians 1 and 3. I pray that he’s praying for the churches. I pray that you might know and experience the love of God. Not just know it, but experience it. You need to learn to recognize, «Oh, that’s God loving me. That’s God giving me favor. That’s God doing that for me, not luck or coincidence.» Even when somebody does something for you, that’s just God working through them. Yes, it’s proper to thank the person, but not without thanking God. I pray that he would grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation and insight into mysteries and secrets; that he would give you a deep and intimate knowledge of you, Lord.
That you would be able to understand the hope to which he has called you; that you would know and understand the greatness of his power in and for us who believe. The same power that raised Christ from the dead. Well, we could sure stop there for a while. The same power that raised Christ from the dead dwells in each one of us. The Bible says if that same power that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, it will quicken your mortal body. Amen. Be strengthened in the inner man with the mighty Holy Spirit indwelling your inner man and personality. I tell you, I know a few people who could use the Holy Spirit dwelling in their personality. I used to be one of them. I hope I’ve changed enough now, but you pray that for me anyway.
How many of you believe Christians need to be nice and not mean? Yes. Polite and not rude? Amen. Happy, not depressed? May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love. May you grasp the experience of that love; know the height, the depth, the length, and the breadth of that love. He talks a lot about love, and so that should be what we major in, really. It’s love-not getting everything we want but learning how to love better. That you might come practically to know and experience that love which far surpasses mere knowledge.
In other words, we can read about love, but until we experience it for ourselves. I can tell you God is showing out in your life all the time. He’s loving you and doing things for you, and half the time we don’t even recognize it. That you might be, I love this, a body wholly filled and flooded with God. Just a body full of God. In Philippians, he says, «I pray that your love might abound.» He’s at it again. Yet more and more and display itself in a greater way. They were walking in love, but he said, «I pray that your love would abound yet more and more, and that you would learn to sense what is excellent and of real value and choose what is vital, and that you would abound in the fruits of righteousness.»
Well, I haven’t seen a new donkey in there or a new tent, and he didn’t ask for stuff. I pray that you would be filled with the knowledge of his will, understand and discern spiritual things, walk in a way that’s pleasing to God, be strengthened and invigorated with the power to experience every kind of endurance and patient perseverance with joy. That you can go through anything and stay happy, right? Always giving thanks to the Lord. Thanksgiving should be all throughout our day. We should be thanking God. That you can endure whatever comes with good temper. Uh-oh. A few people need that. See, Dave has to stay happy no matter what I do. Otherwise, he’s not being scriptural.
Then Paul prayed for himself in Philippians 3, verse 9. He said, «I pray that I might be found and known in him, not having a righteousness of my own based on my own works, but only that righteousness which you give and bequeath unto us.» A couple of verses down, he says, «I am determined.» I love that. «I am determined to know him and the power of his resurrection.» He said it was the most important thing to him-to know him and the power of his resurrection that lifts me out from among the dead while I’m in the body. Amen.
Now, like I said, I’m not in any way saying that there’s anything wrong with praying for things you need or even things that you want. But we do need to make sure that we’re caring more for our spiritual life, more for our spiritual strength than we are even building muscles on the outside. I really want to challenge you to write down these prayers of Paul and make them your own prayers. Out of God’s timing means out of his will. You know, a lot of times when God puts something in our heart, we think it’s going to happen right away, but it might be something for 10 years down the road.
I remember when I tried to go on television when it was my idea, and there was a cable station here in St. Louis that you could rent the room and teach or do whatever you wanted to do in there. So I decided I was going to have a talk show, and I took two or three- I think three of the women that worked for me, and I was going to ask them questions and let them answer. Well, that didn’t work because I asked the question and gave the answer. In other words, I’m not anointed for a talk show; I’m anointed to talk.
Actually, when I was doing interviews here, more or less in the beginning of our television ministry, we would have somebody from outside come in, and I would interview them. We had people writing in and saying, «Well, Joyce, please let her guest answer.» So we figured out pretty quickly that that’s just not what I’m anointed for. What would happen is, if I asked a question and they didn’t give what I thought was the right answer, or if I didn’t feel like they were being clear, I was really good at sneaking in and taking over.
Now, God had put that desire in me to be on television, but I was about four years ahead of God. Anybody ever been there and done that? When you have things in your heart and they’re not happening right away, that doesn’t mean that they’re not ever going to happen. A lot of things I say, «Put it on the shelf and wait until God says to take it down.» That’s good. Amen, amen. Just keep believing God. I believe you’re working at the right time. This is going to happen. One of the things you don’t want to do is give up. Always pray, «Lord, your will be done, not mine.» I would pray that every day if I were you.
The Lord’s Prayer does pretty much take in everything: «Our Father who is in heaven, holy is your name. Your kingdom come; your will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.» Pretty much most of the prayers that we pray should fit into one of those categories.
Paul was called into ministry 13 years before he was separated unto the ministry that God called him to. Now, he was ministering all that time in other places, but he did not present himself to the apostles and get separated unto the ministry that God had called him to. I think that’s interesting. Some of you may be doing some things now that are considered ministry, but you may have an itch in you that you know there’s something else -there’s something more.
Don’t give up on that, but just be patient because what’s happening right now is you’re learning. I taught home Bible studies for five years. Never got paid for it, and I had quit my full-time job to prepare for ministry. We needed money, and I learned what it was like to do something unto God and not because of what I could get for it. I think people today in ministry have to be careful because, you know, now we’ve got contracts and people charging, and I understand; I get it. Some people take advantage of your gift, but it’s just an area that we need to be cautious in.
I came up in a time when people volunteered to do things, and it’s kind of hard to get that now. Everybody wants to know what they’re going to get out of it, and it’s just a product of our society today. Paul waited 13 years until he was separated unto the ministry that God had called him to. So just be careful when you’re praying for natural things more than spiritual things.
Ask God for things like Paul did: «Reveal your love to me. Let me know it practically. If you’re showing your love to me in a special way today, God, help me not to miss it.» I don’t want to have Jesus walking beside me on the road like the disciples did and not even know it was him. I want to know when he’s been there. Sometimes we don’t get what we ask for because we pray amiss-just not praying for the right thing.
That’s why I have no fear of asking God for anything, because I know if it’s not right, he just won’t give it to me. If he doesn’t give it to me, I don’t want it. If you have that attitude, it totally sets you free. You don’t have to be upset if you don’t get it. You don’t have to be bothered if you don’t get it because if it’s what God wants, nothing can stop him from making it happen.
Well, that’s just the devil. He’s stealing my blessing. Well, not if you keep your faith in God. God knows how to handle the devil. Or you pray with wrong, evil, selfish motives. That’s James 4:3. Maybe you ask God for what you want and you fail to get it because you ask with wrong purpose and evil, selfish motive. Your intention is that when you get what you desire, you’ll spend it on sensual pleasures.
Our motive could be to impress men by sounding eloquent like the scribes tried to do. They were not really praying for the people; they were praying to impress the people. Have you ever caught yourself, if you’re asked to pray in a group? I mean, you aren’t talking to God at all. You’re just trying to make sure that you sound knowledgeable and eloquent. You’re listening to yourself, and you’re concerned more about how you sound to people.
I have to be careful of that because I pray a lot in our meetings. I really have to focus on keeping my mind on God. How many of you realize that focus has become a real issue in our lives? Even in reading, there’s a book that I really like, and I’ve committed to read 10 pages a day because I wanted to reread it, but I’ve got other things I have to do too. I noticed yesterday I read a whole page and I don’t know what I read.
When I’m reading the Bible, if I read this much and my mind was on what I was going to have for lunch, I don’t just go on. I go back. I read it again. I don’t care if I have to go back four times. I’m not going to go past it without understanding what it said. It’s kind of like a fight with the enemy. If he can just keep causing you to lose your purpose and then you just go beyond it, and you don’t ever get anything out of it, you’re much better off if you stick with one verse and read it until you get it than if you read the whole Bible in one day and didn’t understand any of it.
When the scribes and the Pharisees prayed, they weren’t really praying to God for the people. They were praying before people for people (Mark 12:38– 44). In the course of his teaching, he said, «Beware of the scribes who like to go around in long robes and get greetings in the marketplaces and the public forums and have the front seats in the synagogues and the chief couches, places of honor at feasts- who devour widows' houses and to cover it up make long prayers. They will receive the heavier sentence of condemnation.»
A Pharisee who prayed before and with himself (Luke 18:10–11)-this is almost funny -two men went up to the temple enclosure to pray: one a Pharisee, and the other one a tax collector. So, the tax collectors were hated, and Pharisees thought they were the most religious, so they judged everybody. The Pharisee took his stand ostentatiously, I guess that’s what you would look like, and began to pray thus before and with himself.
«I love that! Oh thou most lovingest goddess.» You don’t have to take on a different voice when you pray. I know this woman, bless her heart, she’s not with us anymore, but when that woman started to pray, she became a different human being. God’s purification of motives is a process. So even like when you’re praying, «Am I really praying to God, or am I just trying to impress God, or impress myself, or impress somebody else?»
The Bible says when you pray, don’t repeat the same prayers over and over. You’re not heard for your much speaking. The Lord challenged me one time: «I want you to ask me for what you want and need in as few words as possible.» That’s challenging. Let’s just say that you’ve sinned and done something wrong. Just simply say, «Father, I admit this sin and I ask for and receive your forgiveness now in Jesus' name.» That’s all. But now we usually have to go on and on. «God, I promise I’ll never do it again.» Yes, you will. Yes, you will. So don’t even make promises like that.
Don’t you love that? The Pharisee took his stand ostentatiously. You should all practice and see what that would be like. We need to know ourselves better. Facing the truth about yourself is probably the most challenging thing to do.