Q: Why isn't my prayer being answered? Am I doing it wrong when asking? What I am asking for is.... I am praying every night for God to come into my heart. For him to show me the way I need to go. It says knock on the door and it will be opened but so far nothing. I pray the Lords Prayer first, then I ask forgiveness and then ask for him to come into my life, my heart. I need God in my life but I feel as if I'm not worthy so he is not coming into my heart. Thank you for your time. I hope you will be able to help me understand and maybe show me the way to ask him to come into my life.
A: Thank you for your question. Let me begin by saying that my heart goes out to you in your struggle to find peace with the Lord and your salvation. The first thing I want you to know is that the Lord came into your heart the first time you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior. There is no need to continually ask Him into your heart. The Bible says, “That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9).” Therefore, since you have already confessed with your mouth what you believe in your heart about Jesus Christ, you are saved. When I first got saved I struggled like you with wondering if Jesus had truly entered my life. You know why I struggled? I didn’t know the truth about the Gospel and how God sees me. I was the victim of poor evangelism and discipleship; a large problem within modern Christianity.
When I was first saved, I was not taught about my identity in Christ, but rather I was told what I needed to do in order to stay pleasing to God so He would grant me the blessings of my flesh. My Christian life was all about what I was doing for Him, in the energy of my own flesh, instead of what He has already done for me in Christ Jesus. The byproduct was endless amounts of what I like to call bouncing prayers off the ceiling in search of God’s love and acceptance of me. The problem was that I was expecting God’s love for me to be revealed in how the circumstances of my life were working out and how I “performed” for Him. All I felt was that God must be disgusted with me because I could not live the life I was told was necessary to live. The Bible says we have peace with God (Romans 5:1), but I never felt it because of my own failed attempts at trying to live an impossible life. I could be wrong, but it sounds like you are in the same position that I was in not so long ago.
Let me tell you what I wish someone had told me all those years ago about my faith in Jesus Christ. The moment you accepted Jesus Christ, you were given an inheritance. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3).” The moment you accepted Jesus Christ, you were given every spiritual blessing. The deepest desires of your heart for unconditional love, total acceptance, meaning and purpose to life have been fulfilled in Him. God gave you Himself. Unfortunately, too many Christians are taught that the blessings God wants to give us are in the flesh; health, money, long lives, great relationships, a good job and so on. No, the blessings we have are spiritual in nature; forgiveness, holiness, unconditional love, eternal life and so on. Stop asking God to come into your heart. He is there and will never leave (Hebrews 13:5). Stop repeating the “Lord’s Prayer” endlessly. You don’t need your daily bread, Christ is the bread of life (John 6:48) and He indwells you. Stop asking God to forgive you. In Christ you are already forgiven of all your past, present and future sins (Hebrews 10:17-18).
Another aspect of the inheritance you have in Christ is that “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3).” Not only do you have every spiritual blessing in Christ, you have been given everything you need for life and godliness. If you don’t believe you have everything it is probably because you are expecting something from God He did not promise to give to you and missing out on the things He has already given to you through faith in Jesus Christ. God created you with needs. However, He is the only one that can fulfill those needs for the unconditional love, total acceptance, meaning and purpose to life spoken of earlier. Therefore, when you don’t believe you are receiving those things through your relationship with God, you will be forced to search for them from the world through sin. And you will only end up feeling farther away from God then when you were first saved. If you take anything away from this conversation, let it be the knowledge that you are saved and loved by your God because of your faith in Jesus Christ. Do not let bad teaching, the circumstances of life or your own misunderstanding rob you of that truth. I pray that this in some way has taken the heavy burden from your spirit. Grace and Peace.
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