Reasons Why God Doesn’t Answer Prayer (James 4:3)

A mistake Bible students sometimes make is to read a passage superficially or fail to consider other relevant passages and make inappropriate applications.

Take 1 John 5:14, for example… “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us”

A superficial reading might lead one to believe that we can pray for “anything” and fail to consider that the “anything” is modified by “according to his will”

That’s why you see people praying for things like winning the lottery or that a boy or girl might “like” them or for one’s favorite sports team to win or for someone we don’t like to suffer misfortune.

This type of prayer reflects poor Bible study.

Consider James 4:3 “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures”

It is not “according to God’s will” that we pray for things that are self-serving. It is “according to his will” to pray for the necessities and not the extravagances of life.

It’s important that we become good Bible students so that we can make the proper applications of God’s word. God will not answer silly prayers and I suspect is insulted by them. Let’s make God proud of us in our prayer lives.