Hindrances to Prayer

Prayer is one of the Christian’s most powerful spiritual assets, yet some are missing out on its effectiveness. No, I am not merely speaking of some clever tactic of the devil that prevents our prayers from reaching God. There is a prayer killer on the loose, and we are the ones primarily responsible. Some of the things that we ourselves do—or fail to do—can make our prayers ineffective.

In studying how Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:5–13, we have seen that our prayers should include:

• First, a holy reverence as we approach a perfect God;
• Second, an appeal for God to extend His Kingdom in our lives as well as in the lives of others, and for His will to overrule our requests if they are out of line with His purposes;
• Third, a request for His daily provision in our lives;
• Fourth, a request for forgiveness of the sins we have committed, as well as the recognition of our obligation to forgive those who wrong us.

Now Jesus brings us to some potential hindrances to prayer in the final petitions of this model prayer in Matthew.