Pray with Spurgeon: When God doesn’t answer our prayers

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DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)

God of Israel, God of Jesus Christ, our God forever and ever; help us now by the sacred Spirit, to approach you rightly, with deepest reverence, but not with servile fear; with holiest boldness, but not with presumption. Oh teach us as children to speak to the Father, and yet, as creatures to bow before our Maker.

Our Father, we would first ask you whether you have anything against us as your children. Have we been asking something of you wrongly, and have you given us that which we have sought? We are not conscious of it, but it may be so; and now we are brought, as an answer to our presumptuous prayers, into a more difficult position than the one we occupied before.

Amen.

VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)

“You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” (James 4:2–3)

With all your efforts you do not succeed, because you omit to pray to God. Prayer would have brought you every blessing that you need; but, instead of going to God, and asking at his hands, you rush upon your neighbor, and seek to take what you desire as spoil from him.

Perhaps some say, “But we do ask.” “Well, then,” says the apostle, “you ask wrongly.” The lusts of the flesh come in, and put us upon the wrong track; or if we take the right road, yet, if the lusts are there, God will not bless us, because, in doing so, he would be helping us to gratify our lusts.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE

Christmas Gift for a Non-Believer

Christmas is a great opportunity to start conversations with non-believing friends, family members, neighbors, and co-workers about Christ. People are already thinking about Christ’s birth and might be more open to talking about it.

One way to start those conversations is with a Christ-centered Christmas gift. And a great place to start is the book Jesus or Nothing by Dan DeWitt. This book shows how Christianity alone offers a reasonable explanation for our lives and the world around in. Without the gospel, nothing makes sense — life and death, right and wrong, none of it makes any sense if Christ is still in the grave.

Jesus or Nothing is a friendly, approachable book that offers solid arguments for Christianity. But it also offers arguments that are attractive, beautiful, and persuasive (because Christ himself is attractive, beautiful, and persuasive!)

Buying a few copies of Jesus or Nothing for non-Christians you know is a great way to honor Christ this Christmas. I hope you’ll buy a few copies and share them with the people you know and love.

Buy Jesus or Nothing: