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17th October 2024
ThursdayReflection
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'John Piper shares'
'Founder & Teacher, Desiring God.com'
Do My Sins Hinder My Prayers?
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Today we address a really great listener email. Here it is.
"The Bible says dishonouring a wife will hinder a husband's prayers. We see this in 1 Peter 3:7.
Is this a particular dynamic for marriage only?
Or is this part of a larger principle of sin?
Do all of our sins hinder the effectiveness of our prayers?"
The answer to the first question is no
The answer to the second question is this: not necessarily.
If God correlated the answers to our prayers precisely to our sins, we wouldn't get any answers to prayer.
So, we should never think that an answer to prayer signifies sinlessness.
But we should not conclude from this that there's no correlation between our sinning and our answers to prayer.
Here's what the verse 1 Peter 3:7 says:
In the same way you husbands must live with your wives with the proper understanding that they are more delicate than you.
Treat them with respect, because they also will receive, together with you, God's gift of life.
Do this so that nothing will interfere with your prayers.
If a husband fails to be kind and gentle and cherishing toward his wife as the weaker vessel, and if he fails to be respectful and esteeming and admiring of her as a fellow heir of the grace of life, these hindrances are going to happen.
The relationship is going to be undermined, and therefore the partnership in prayer will be threatened.
His own heart will begin to grow cold, and his own prayer life will dry up.
The answers to his prayers may be withheld because he's not showing mercy to his wife.
I am going beyond 1 Peter now to show why they are true in reality.
When Jesus says,
"If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven,"
he's pointing to a principle.
A breakdown in horizontal fellowship, where two or three can't agree anymore, will result in a breakdown of vertical blessing from God.
So, if a husband and a wife become so spiritually distant from each other, they won't have the harmony together that calls down God's blessing.
When John writes,
"He who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen,"
John is implying that failures of love at the horizontal level signal a breakdown of love toward God at the vertical level.
In other words, the failure to love our wives, or other Christians for that matter, signals that we are losing our ability to go to God in love.
We are not able to pray because we don't really love God.
If we go on sinning against our wives, or against other Christians, we are shutting the door on the flow of grace toward us in answered prayer.
James says, for example,
"And when you ask, you do not receive it, because your motives are bad; you ask for things to use for your own pleasures."
In other words, God sometimes withholds answers to prayer because we have sinful aims in our heart.
Our prayer is not for the healing of a broken relationship; our prayer is for some worldly advantage.
Jesus put it most starkly in the Lord's Prayer when he said,
"Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors"
In other words, if you hold a grudge against your wife or treat other people unmercifully and then cry out to God for mercy, you're simply making a mockery out of God.
And God will not be mocked.
"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy".
But the main reason I think this is probably what Peter has in mind is because in the next paragraph, the very next verse, he begins by explaining that the same principle is in play with regard to all Christians in all our relationships.
He says,
Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.
To conclude:
you must all have the same attitude and the same feelings; love one another, and be kind and humble with one another.
Do not pay back evil with evil or cursing with cursing; instead, pay back with a blessing, because a blessing is what God promised to give you when he called you.
Husbands, and all of us, have just heard in verse 7 that husbands' prayers are going to be hindered if they don't treat their wives with care and respect.
And now, five verses later, Peter tells all of us,
"The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer."
The righteous - he's open to the righteous in their prayer.
"But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."
That's probably the same principle from marriage applied to all of us.
My conclusion, is that the word to husbands is a word to everybody in principle.
If in the relationships that God has given us, whether marriage, or parenting, or friendship, or neighbourliness, or collegiality, if in any of those relationships we begin to act unlovingly, disrespectfully, unmercifully, unkindly, we may expect that God will, in mercy, withhold blessings when we pray.
This will be a loving discipline for his children.
And we should take it to heart and repent and walk worthily of his calling.
><(((°>
This is an edited version.
The full article and Bible references are avaiable on request
'John Piper'
is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary.
For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy.
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