Proverbs 28:9. If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.
What do you pray for? This is one of the most important questions a Christian can answer. But maybe even more important is your answer to this question – are your prayers an abomination to the Lord? It doesn’t really matter what you pray for if God isn’t listening, right?
There’s a simple truth here and then a much more complex truth here. The simple truth is that God is not a blank check, a vending machine waiting to dispense whatever we ask for. If you reject what God says (the law), he will reject what you say (your prayer). This is not God being vindictive, it is God being holy, loving, and just. Why would a good God give us whatever we ask, especially if we have no desire to ask according to his perfect will?
What about the more complex truth?
The word law is used here not just for the Mosaic Law Code or the Ten Commandments. Here it means the whole of scripture. God’s law is everything he’s said to his people that has been written down. In the Old Testament, God spoke to his people in two “words” – law and gospel. Now we are using the word law to mean the covenant commands of God that produced blessing when obeyed and cursing when disobeyed. In contrast, when God spoke in “gospel” he spoke in terms of grace, favor, promise, and unconditional love.
Law: what we must do to please God.
Gospel: what God has done for us in spite of what we do.
Even in the Mosaic Law there was both law and gospel. Laws like thou shalt not steal could be forgiven through the gospel word of a blood sacrifice on the altar. The law’s curses could be avoided through the gospel’s grace – yes, even in the Old Testament.
This entire word of God, law and gospel, is what we must turn our ear toward if we want our prayers to be answered. Prayers that fail to see our own failure to keep the law, to love as God has loved us, these will not be answered. Haughty prayers, like those of the Pharisees, these are an abomination to God. Prayers that do not fully rely on God’s grace through Christ, these prayers fall on deaf ears in Heaven.
James describes unanswered prayers this way:
James 4:2-4. 2You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
Worse than never asking God is using God for our own personal gain, especially gain at another’s expense. Now you are treating God like an enemy. God’s love will not allow him to hear such prayers.
The good news is that when we are united to Christ, his law is written on our hearts. The love of God is being poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We love God and we love what God loves, even our enemies. This means that the Christian’s prayers can always be full of gospel grace and always heard by God. Can they also be full of selfishness and pride at times? Yes, they can. And you can be sure that God won’t answer those prayers, and that’s a good thing.
You: What do you pray for? Are your prayers heard by God or an abomination to him?
You in Christ: Do you know the difference between praying from law and praying from gospel?
Christ in you: We have God’s law written in our hearts. How can this change what we pray for?
Pray: Father, I come to you from grace and for grace. Do all you want through Christ in me. Amen.
To Live is Christ 