Expert: Pastor Don Carpenter - 10/22/2010

Question
To begin, thank you for your time.

In resent weeks I seem to have lost the focus for prayer which I depend on daily.  I don't understand the block placed on my limited understanding.

Could you provide direction to get me back inline with The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and why this may occur?

Answer
Hi Paul,

Thank you for this question.  I am very sorry for my late response.  There are several things that could cause this feeling of distance from God.  God the Holy Spirit can guide you to find out what it is.

1.  If you are married, and you are not making your wife a subject of your intense study, doing everything you can to get to know how best to love and lead her, your prayers will be hindered.

1 Peter 3:7
7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them 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.

The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.

2.  If you allow unconfessed sin or bitterness to stay in your heart, the Holy Spirit will be grieved and your prayers will be hindered.

Ephesians 4:26-32
26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: 27 Neither give place to the devil. 28 Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.  29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.  30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.

Psalm 66:18
18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:
The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.

3.  If you have drifted far from God by not coming to church, praying or reading the Bible, there is a strange and awkward silence between you.  You need to confess that and God will quickly return to you.

Hebrews 10:24-25
24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: 25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.

Zechariah 1:3
3 Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the LORD of hosts.
The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.

I hope that this gives you somewhere to start.  May God be with you.  I hope that this helps.

In Christ
Pastor Don