When Will Jesus Hear Us?

April 25, 2011

“Let my prayer come before You; incline Your ear to my cry.” (Psalm 88:2)

In this Psalm David is crying out to God to be heard. We all, saint or sinner, cry out to the only God Who can hear us and Who can answer. The Heavens sometimes seem like brass and we wonder, “Does God hear me?” When do we know that God does hear us?

In II Chronicles 7:14, God is speaking to His people (that includes us if we are His adopted child), telling us “If we will humble ourselves, pray, seek His face and repent of our wicked ways, then He will hear us and heal our land.” These are very hard words for us to receive, that is why God starts off His list of requirements for Him to hear our prayers with “humble yourself.” Our pride and self righteousness and self-sufficiency are very offensive and grievous to God. When we will not acknowledge these sins and “regard (perceive) them in our heart,” and then confess them, He will not hear us (Ps.66:18). We must bow our hearts and come under subjection to His holiness and righteousness, then acknowledge and confess our sinfulness – this is humility.

Next, God says to “pray.” In Hebrew the word “pray” means to make supplication (to ask specifically, earnestly and humbly). I am afraid a lot of our prayers are those general, dutiful, and sometimes even flippant and selfish requests we quickly shoot up to God to appease our “need to pray.” I acknowledge that those quick prayers sent up when in trouble, throughout the day or night, are received if they come from an earnest and humble heart and prayed with specificity. God sees and knows our hearts and motives for asking.

The next requirement for God to hear our prayer in this II Chronicles scripture, is to “seek My face (crave and require of necessity (Amp.).” The Hebrew for “seek” in this passage is “to search out by any method in worship or prayer.” (See:Jer.29:13). In this Jeremiah passage God is saying, “You will find me when you search me with all your heart.” This “seeking” is not a haphazard, off the cuff or ‘when I get the time’ searching. It is an intense searching out God “by any method in worship or prayer.” How long has it been since we have sought the “face of God” for answers regarding any situation in our lives? It is this kind of “seeking” that gets the ‘ear of God.’ Remember, He sees and knows our hearts.

The last requirement for God to hear us that is mentioned in II Chronicles 7:14 is that we must “turn from our wicked ways.” The first line of this verse says, “If My people who are called by My name (that includes all believers) will…..” God is not talking to the entire world but only to those who name the name of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, so when He says we must “turn from our wicked way” He is talking to us. We don’t like to think of ourselves as ‘wicked’ but the Hebrew meaning of the word, “wicked,” in this passage means we are acting in a way that is (“bad” (as in physically, socially or morally)?
Are we acting badly physically toward anyone? Are we being abusive by neglectful or overt actions? Love does not knowingly hurt. When we have it in our hand (our resources) to help our neighbor – do we? Until we act in love physically toward others God will not hear us (I Cor.13:6-7; Matt.7:12).

Are we acting badly socially toward anyone? Do we do whatever it takes to get ahead to our desired goal, even if it takes ‘stepping on’ someone else to get there? Love never takes advantage or ‘uses’ another. Love prefers one another (Rom.12:10). Until we act in love socially toward others God will not hear us (I Cor.13:4-7).

Are we acting morally ‘bad’ toward anyone? Are we dishonest, with even a penny - with the cashier, with the neighbors belongings (even his wife or husband), with our income tax, etc? Are we murderers? Do we kill another’s influence or reputation with our tongue? Do we hold a grudge toward anyone? Do we hate anyone? God called “anyone who hated his brother a murderer and the love of God was not in him.” (I Jn.3:15). God is love and anyone who is in Christ can and must walk in love. Love is a choice! Acting in any other way, except in love, toward others is ‘immoral’. Until we act in love morally toward others God will not hear us (I Cor.13:5).

So until we come to God asking for help: 1) humbly, 2) with specific prayers, 3) seeking with our whole heart and, 4) repenting of our wicked ways, only “then will He hear us, forgive us and heal our land (us and all with which we are concerned”). Any failure to hear us and answer us is certainly not on His part – (guess whose--?). We must remember that after coming to Him with “clean hands and a pure heart” that God always answers our prayers – but His answer isn’t always “Yes” or “No,” it could be “Wait.”

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has planted eternity in men’s heats and minds (a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy), yet so that men cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Eccl.3:11 - Amp.).