Joyce Meyer - Why Aren't My Prayers Working? (08/24/2019)
Joyce Meyer teaches from James 1:5-8 that God gives wisdom generously and without any blame when we ask in faith, even when our troubles come from our own poor choices. Doubt creates double-minded instability like waves tossed by wind, preventing answers, but persistent heart-level faith, speaking the Word, and trusting God's timing bring breakthrough.
God's Generous Response to Our Need for Wisdom
Why aren't my prayers working? James chapter 1, verses 5 through 8. If any of you is deficient in wisdom, which I think is probably most of us, let him ask of the giving God, who gives to everyone—that includes you. Liberally, that means way more than enough. And ungrudgingly, He doesn't resent helping us, He likes to do it, without reproach and fault finding.
Well, I could sit and just look at this Scripture for a long time. So when I come to God, even though maybe some of the messes in my life are of my own making—they came through my own lack of wisdom, I got myself in trouble, I didn't listen to God to start with, I didn't follow peace—I can still, even in the midst of that, go to God and ask Him to help me, and He won't even reproach me, which means shame or blame, and He doesn't find fault with me, He just helps me.
Now that doesn't mean He doesn't teach me and train me and correct me, but one of the examples that I've used many times is, if you have a child that has not done all their chores this week, but they're outside playing and the neighborhood bully gets after them, and you hear them screaming for help, you're not gonna go check their list of chores to see if they got all their check marks. Otherwise, it's too bad for them. I mean, if the door's not open, you may go through it to get outside to help your kid. Are you hearing me? Amen?
And that doesn't mean that you won't correct them later about their chores, that doesn't mean that you might not even, you know, tell them they can't go outside for a day or something, but you will not refuse to help your children because they are not perfect and don't do everything exactly the way you want them to. So stop letting the devil steal from you by thinking that you dare not ask God to help you because you have not done everything that you should do. Just own it. Amen?
The Danger of Wavering and Double-Mindedness
Only it must be in faith that he ask with no wavering, no hesitating, no doubting. For the one who wavers, hesitates, and doubts is like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind. For truly let not such a person imagine that he will receive anything he asks for from the Lord.
For being as he is, a man of two minds, hesitating, dubious, irresolute, he is unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything he thinks, feels, and decides. Now, doubt leaves us midway between believing and not believing. And this says we're not to become people of two minds.
And so the Bible talks about the mind of the Spirit and the mind of the flesh. And I think we have to learn how to live by the mind of the Spirit, and that's really like what you sense down in here. So there are times when I can believe something with my heart, but the enemy is going to use my mind to try to steal my faith. Now, are you with me?
Real-Life Battles with Doubt
So I am not going to stand here and tell you that I have some nifty message that I can give you a little three-point sermon on how you can never have doubt again. Because to be honest with you, doubt comes to all of us. And I've thought about this quite a bit. Because I just really don't like to give people answers that I don't think will work.
And so I've thought about this because there's times when I have doubts. Sometimes when I'm up here preaching and maybe, you know, I'm not getting the right reaction I think I should, I'll hear the enemy say, this is not the right message. And while I'm preaching to you, I have to tell him to shut up. And I have to go back to my own heart of, yes, this is right. I prayed about this. I sought God about this. And I'm not going to stand up here and be double-minded.
I mean, this is just kind of a cute little way to say it. I don't know if in reality it works like this. But I said, basically, here's what happens with double-mindedness. Like you pray and you ask God for something. He hears the prayer. He sends an angel with the answer. But before the angel gets here, we begin to doubt. Then he has to go back. They gave up, Lord. Then we pray again. Try again. We give up. Like I said, I don't really know that I can back that up spiritually.
But it is important that we believe all the way through to the manifestation. And I can pretty much promise you that doubt is going to come against your mind. But that's when you need to go back to the mind of the Spirit. And very often, go back to Scripture. What does the Word say?
You see, it doesn't matter how I feel. It doesn't matter what I think. It doesn't matter what people say. It doesn't really matter even what my circumstances are. The only thing that really matters is what does the Word say? This is what it means to walk by the Word.
Standing Firm When Breakthrough Seems Delayed
So, what I want to strongly recommend is when you're standing in faith for something, or you've asked God for something, and it's just not happening. I mean, let's just say you're believing God for one of your children's salvation. And the more you pray, the worse they act.
Well, you know, that's not really uncommon because what happens when you pray, and this may be something you've never thought of, when we pray for somebody else, God begins to deal with them. And I don't know about you, but I don't always act real pretty when God's dealing with me.
And so, it is very possible that when you start praying for somebody, they can act worse than they did. And then what the devil wants you to think is, well, that sure isn't working. But what you need to say, and I'm saying say, because we need to use our mouth for right stuff.
In a time like that, what you need to say, you can just take your doubts and head back to hell where you came from because it is God's will that all should be saved. I have prayed and I believe that God is working in my behalf right now.
And not only will that help the answer come through, but here's a really good benefit. You stay happy and excited in the meantime. Everybody's excited when they're expecting a breakthrough at any moment. That's what it means to live with hope. A positive expectation that something good is about to happen any moment.
Instead of waking up and saying, I dread today, I dread today. We need to wake up and think, I can't hardly wait to see what God does today. Amen.
Believing Before You See It
Mark 11, verses 23 and 24 says, Truly I tell you, whoever says to this mountain, be lifted up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt at all in his heart—doesn't even really say that doubt won't come to your mind, but does not doubt at all in his heart—but believes that what he says will take place, it will be done for him.
For this reason, I'm telling you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe, trust and be confident, that it is granted to you and you will get it. Now, we talked about this last night. I need to believe I've got it before I see it. Did you hear me? We need to believe we've got it before we see it.
And boy, is that hard for people who are not accustomed to living like this. Now, how can you believe what you don't see? Well, because we have two lives. We've got a spiritual life and we've got a natural fleshly life. And the spiritual part of us cannot be seen. It operates in an unseen realm, where there are unseen yet wonderful, amazing things happening.
And when God suddenly does something in your life, that doesn't mean that that was when he started working on it. God is already working in your behalf.
2 Corinthians 4:13. Yet we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, I have believed and therefore have I spoken. We too believe and therefore we speak.
So what I'm saying is when doubt comes, open up your mouth and confess what you're believing, not the lie the devil is telling you. Just because a crook knocks on your door, that doesn't mean you have to let him in. Amen?
Overcoming Personal Doubt About God's Willingness
And then here's another facet to doubt. If we know very much about God at all, to be honest, we rarely ever doubt that God can do something. But we doubt that he will do it for us. It's easier sometimes to tell somebody else what God's gonna do for them, and believe it for them, than it is to believe it for ourselves.
And that's because we look at all of our mistakes. And I'm not saying that we live sloppy lives and don't care about how we live, and that, you know, God just brushes over everything. I'm not saying that at all. God is merciful, but I'm talking about somebody whose heart is right toward God.
And, you know, I make mistakes. Matter of fact, I doubt that there's a day that goes by that I don't make mistakes. But I'll tell you the truth, and I'm sorry if this upsets you, but I am not focused on what's wrong with me. You know why? Because I wasted too many years of my life focused on what was wrong with me, and just taking an inventory of every little thing that was wrong with me. And I gave that up.
Because whatever I am, I am in Christ, and whatever I'm not, I'm still in Christ. And if I do anything good, it's because He enabled me, and if I do anything bad, then He's the only one that can forgive me. And I want God's conviction. I want to know when I'm doing wrong things. I mean, I thank God when He shows me. Now, Joyce, you had a bad attitude in that situation. Oh, thank you, God. I do, I thank Him.
Because I lived in darkness and ignorance for too many years going around mistreating people and not even knowing I was doing it. But see, the only way you can thank God for showing you what's wrong with you is if you're not condemned by it. I said the only way you can thank God for showing you what's wrong with you is if you're not condemned by it.
Praying in Alignment with God's Will
The next thing I want to talk to you about is Your prayers won't get answered if you're praying out of God's will. We all start out in a relationship with God. Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. We think we found a secret power in our life now. A way to get everything that we want.
But there does come a transition time in our walk with God, and it's probably different for different people. It may take 10 years, it may take 4 years, it might take 15 years. But sooner or later, you're going to begin to sense from God. Now, instead of telling me what you want every morning, how about just asking me what I want?
I was anointed to do something. God spoke to me, and I didn't have a little vision. I had a big vision. And so when you have a big vision, it's very hard to get happy with little. But see, what I needed to do was hang on to my dream and vision, but also know each step of the way that I was right where God wanted me to be at that time for a purpose that maybe I didn't understand, but still, God is always good, and He would never be late. And what He wanted to do would be done right on time.