How do we know God answers our prayers?

Dr Charles Stanley, Intouch Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia, states on his website about his weekly Christian TV broadcast, “Faith often begins to wane when adversity strikes or when prayers seem to go unanswered. But the thrilling thing about knowing the Lord Jesus Christ is that our heavenly Father hears us when we pray. Trusting God means looking beyond what we can see to what God sees.”

During the message he asked, “Why do you believe that God answers prayer?” and then Dr Stanley answers that we should believe God answers prayer because He (God) is faithful.  Then Dr. Stanley reads several Scriptures of how faithful God is and how great God’s promises are!  These Scriptures would be good to try to encourage  someone to start praying and seeking God, but anyone who has been a Christian for even a week should know that God answers prayer.  Becoming a Christian is the result of an answer to prayer.  When we see ourselves in our hearts as sinners and cry out or pray to God for forgiveness, when He forgives us, cleanses our hearts and adopts us into His family, whatever the hurt, sin or filth that was in our heart that we asked him to forgive and remove, we should recognize that it has been removed because He then puts His Spirit of love in our hearts in its place as an answer to our prayer. 

Knowing God’s faithfulness and His great promises are not the reasons to believe that God answers prayers, you should know God answers prayer because He is answering your prayers!  If you are not getting personal answers to prayer and just have to quote some Bible verses that say that God answers prayers, you really do not have a very personal or good relationship with God. As a Christian you should be seeing family and friends being healed, people being “saved”, finances being supplied.  This is not just an intellectual game of finding the right answers to test questions in the Scriptures. 

Jesus says that we all can get personal answers to prayer in John 15:7, “If ye abide in me, and my Words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” And 1 John 3:22 states similarly, “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.”

Isaiah 59:1-2 tells why we do not get answers to our prayers, “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear: (2) But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.”  None of us are perfect, but we must seek to keep the sins of jealousy, greed, unforgiveness, respect of persons, anger from our hearts.  In fact, 1 Peter 3:7 states that the way men treat their wives may be blocking their prayers, “Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them (wives) according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.”

So if the only reason you can say that God answers prayers is because the Bible says He does, then start seeking God and reading His Word to find out what we must do to get answers.  He requires us to respond to Him in certain ways and none of us get a free pass, we must each come to Him on His terms, not ours. 

To get an idea of some of the different ways God speaks to us, watch my videos, “Hearing God Speak,” “Prayer Changes Things (1 and 2),” and “Deliverance Prayer,” in the list on the right of this page.

This message or subject reminds me of the song some of us were taught as children which goes like this, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so…” If the only reason you, me or anyone else believes Jesus loves us is because the Bible says so, we better work on our personal relationship with Him.  After walking with and seeking Him for 30+ years, I know He loves me and answers my prayers because He makes His presence known to me every day.  When we become a Christian He forgives us, adopts us into His family as joint-heirs with Jesus to all of His promises and fellowships with us daily.

God Bless You and have a good day!