Featured

ADDICTION AND SIN

How Can I Overcome Addiction And Sin In My Life?

Every Christian that is not in heaven still struggles with sin. Many struggle with addictions. Addictions to marijuana, to alcohol, to pornography, to gambling, to overeating, to shopping, and so many other sins. Is there any hope in breaking the chains of addictions? Since many Christians struggle with the sins of addiction they begin to doubt their own salvation. What can a believer do to escape…to overcome their sin?

The Apostle Paul Struggles with Sin

If anyone could overcome sin, surely it was the great apostle Paul. He wrote more books in the New Testament and founded more churches than any other apostle. Even though this great man of faith was a spiritual giant, he struggled with sin too. Don’t let anyone tell you that you will not struggle with overcoming sin in this life after you are saved.

Romans 7:15-24:

15 “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” And all of God’s people said, “Amen!” What Christian has not battled with the flesh? We end up doing just what we don’t want to do…but we do it anyway. You are not alone. You are in good company – with Paul.

16 “And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.” Paul is saying that I agree with the Law of God…that it is good. The Ten Commandments say we should not bear false witness, but Christians are still not fully sanctified…..it is a lifelong work of sanctification and we are still prone to lie.

17 “As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.” What Paul is saying is that it’s not really him anymore, but the old man or woman rearing its ugly head. Even though we are new creatures in Christ (2 Cor 5:17), we are still not without sin (1 John 1:8).

18 “For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” It’s like Paul said that he knows better, yet he falls into sin. The only thing is that he doesn’t stay there. He acknowledges it and gets back up. He has the desire to do the right thing but guess what: He still can not carry it out…in his own strength that is. This takes the very power of God: God the Holy Spirit (Rom 12:2).

19 “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” That is me in a nutshell. A train wreck, a sinner, a wretch but the good news is that Paul realizes that the good he wants to do is what he is not doing…and he keeps on doing it! The good news here is the fact that he understands that it’s wrong. This is strong evidence that the Holy Spirit is working in him, convicting him of his sin. A person who is not born-again has no true desire to do what is right nor are they convicted when they do evil things.

20 “Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” Paul is cutting himself some slack. He understands that he is battling the old nature. The pre-conversion person. The Saul is still in there but Paul is not settling for it now, neither is he allowing to let is slide.

21 “So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.” This “although I want to do good” is because God has given him His Spirit to show him his sin and even though evil is there with him…he recognizes that he wants “to do good.” That is hopeful because he understands that the law is at work. The Law is a mirror, showing us our sins and he recognizes the evil being there with him (James 1:23). He wants to do good and that is a sentence full of hope, not despair.

22-23 “For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.” There is a battle for the mind…the battle is ultimately through Jesus Christ but it is a war nonetheless. We might lose battles but the war has truly been won already. The law was made clear to Paul by his conscience (Rom 2:15).

24 “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” Paul finally admits defeat in his own frail, feeble, human strength. He needs rescuing. He is subject to eternal death without a rescuer. What can this wretched man do?! What can we do!?

25 “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” Paul falls on his face, being a wretched man and admits defeat (Rom 7:24) and gives thanks to God Almighty, our Mighty Savior, Who delivered him and Who will also deliver us.

I prayed hard, “Lord, please help me, I am weak.” You know what? It worked.

Victory in Defeat

You can not overcome sin on your own…you can not conquer your marijuana addiction on your own…you can’t overcome the addiction to pornography by your own strength…you can’t defeat the enemy of alcohol, gambling, overeating, depression…just name it: You just can’t do it…..but God can! He wants to help you overcome the powerful sins of your life and your strong addictions, the mighty fortress where we have no chance at all. God desires to help us and He is more than able and He is absolutely willing to. Imagine the God of the universe. He created the entire universe, all the stars, the galaxies, the sun…everything! He knows the 100 trillion times 100 trillion number of stars all by name. Now is anything really to hard for God?! No! We have no power in ourselves but the Holy Spirit is God and the very power of God working in you. The first thing you need to do is to acknowledge to God that you can not overcome this by your own power. That is exactly what He has been waiting to hear. Victory will only come in defeat. You are in over your head but God is over all things. When we tell God “I just can’t beat this thing God”, He must say, “Finally…now, maybe I can send my power to help them.“ He will be your strong tower.

Pray day and night for the help you need. God can deliver you…He did me! But it took time. Don’t lose heart. You will slip and fall but get back up, pray for forgiveness and ask God to cut off all the sources of your drug addiction, if you are addicted to pornography, get rid of the Internet. Jesus said, speaking in hyperbole, “If your hand offends you, cut it off“(Matt 5:30). What He is saying is to cut off the source of your addiction or sin. If you can’t get rid of the Internet, then have a friend put a password protected filter on it. If you are addicted to drugs, turn in the illegal drug dealers. Drastic yes, but this is what it must take. God can do all things…He created the universe and He can help deliver you and He desires to help you overcome this addiction but you may have to make some painful decisions. We can do nothing on our own…but we “can do all things through Christ who strengthens us” (Phil 4:13). The converse of that is that we can do nothing in our own strength.

Victory in Christ

Please don’t lose heart if you are battling an addiction or some deeply entrenched sin. Sometimes these demons are mighty strongholds of the mind. The very fact that you are grieved over your addiction or sin is evidence that the Holy Spirit is not only in you but working in you, for the Spirit convicts us of sin and sanctification is a lifelong process. The very fact that you searched for this over the Internet is evidence that the Holy Spirit is working in you. Can’t you see that!? This is no coincidence. God brought you to this article today for a very specific purpose, a reason, to be a path for your feet – a light for your life. It starts with God and ends with God. I am a pastor today but let me tell you that I was in prison, hooked on drugs, stole, and was headed down the broad path of hell. It took me years and years to finally get over this, yet God never, ever gives up on me and He will not give up on you. Like the Prodigal Father, He kept looking down the road for me to come to Him. He is looking down that road today, waiting, watching, for you.

What I finally did to break the addiction was to pray that all the sources or suppliers of my drugs were removed from me or that they would move…whatever it took. I prayed hard, “Lord, please help me, I am weak.” You know what? It worked. God heard my prayer and answered it. It took me a very long time and today I am clean and sober but I am still a train wreck, a sinner and I will never overcome all sin in this life. Jesus’ blood covers past, present, and future sins of ours….so the very fact that you have a sin or addiction weighing heavy on you should not, I pray, make you lose heart. The fact that you are grieved over your sin is a great sign that the Holy Spirit is trying to show you your sin. Once a believer repents, this does not mean that they will not fall back into sin. No, we will sin again and again…but turning from our sin we will begin to loathe it all the more. Yes, we need to repent, but we sin every day and every day we can begin and end the day by falling on our face, hands, and knees before God to ask for forgiveness. You too can declare as Paul did, “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 7:25)!
Read more: https://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/how-can-i-overcome-addiction-and-sin-in-my-life/#ixzz5vwO2swn0

The Goliath in your life

…Saul said to David, “‘Go, and the LORD be with you.’ 38 Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. 39 David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. ‘I cannot go in these,’ he said to Saul, ‘because I am not used to them.’ So he took them off. 40 Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.”

David was appalled that Goliath would taunt the armies of the Living God. He volunteered to go into the Valley of Elah and fight the giant. Even though he was a youth, David was the only man to step up to the challenge. Looking at David and then looking at Goliath, Saul must have seen David like a high school wrestler entering the Octagon to fight the UFC heavyweight champion. Saul, desperate for David to succeed, came up with a plan. He reasoned that maybe if David had armor and a sword, he might have a chance at victory. Maybe Saul remembered past battles where these weapons had won him victory.

Every man faces Goliath. He taunts, He deceives, He attacks and His mission is to defeat us. Whatever Goliath you may be facing, His purpose is to destroy your life. God calls His men to be strong in the Lord, to acknowledge that the battle belongs to the Lord and to experience His resources for victory. Scripture is redundant in this truth; we fight and defeat Goliath when we face Him in the power of the Holy Spirit. 1 Samuel 17:37-40 reveals a very telling truth about David’s confidence to defeat Goliath.

Maybe Saul thought that God would be willing to use these offerings as a sacrifice for success. Saul’s armor represented the best that Saul had to offer, the best of human ingenuity, training and power. It was equivalent to saying, “When I trust in myself, this is the best I come up with.” David rejected the armor of Saul. Saul’s armor didn’t fit the man of God. David took off the armor of Saul and picked up his slingshot and his shepherd’s staff. These were the weapons that David used to fight the lion and the bear and these were the weapons that God had been pleased to use in manifesting His victory. David’s confidence was in God not in himself.

1 Samuel 17: 45-47 says, “45 David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

David rejected the flesh and put his hope in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the key for every man who would face and defeat his Goliath.

Jeremiah 17:5-8 says, This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD.6 He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.7 “But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.8 He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”

We either trust in ourselves or we trust in God. We either live in the flesh or we live in Spirit.

Galatians 5:16-18 promises: “16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.”

We can defeat Goliath when we turn from trusting in our flesh and yield ourselves to the Spirit’s control and trust in His power and provision. Several years ago I was leaving a men’s Bible Study that I was leading at a local restaurant. As all the guys were standing up to leave a young man came up to me and asked if we were Christians. I told him we were and that we met every week for breakfast and Bible Study. He asked for my help and began to tell me his story. He related some tough times in his marriage and his feeling that his life was unraveling around him.

As he spoke I noticed his whole body seemed to be tense and under tremendous stress. I asked him to hold out his hand and when he did, I put a quarter in it. He looked down at the quarter and I said, “Now make a fist and try not to let me open your hand.” Like a vice grip, he squeezed his fist together. One by one, I pulled back his fingers. Each time I pulled a finger, I could see a grimace of pain on his face. Finally, I had all of his fingers pried open and I took the quarter out of his hand. I asked him, “How did that feel?” He quickly replied, “It hurt!” I then put the quarter back into his hand and said, “Now just keep you your hand open.” He did and I picked the quarter up off of his palm. I looked him in the eye and asked him, “How did that feel, did it hurt?” Of course he said no.

I then explained that God was trying to get his attention. God wanted to draw him into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ but he needed to surrender his whole to Christ. Because he was holding on to his life, he was experiencing the pain like he felt when I pried his fingers loose to grab the quarter. I said to him, “You can hold on to your life, trust in yourself and try to solve your own problems” and I clenched my fist. “Or you can surrender your life to Christ and give him everything, the good-the bad and the ugly” and I extended my open palm. The key to living in the power of the Holy Spirit is to acknowledge we cannot do it on our own and to fully surrender to Jesus Christ.

Paul said this in Romans 7:23-8:4, “23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the flesh a slave to the law of sin. 8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

Every man struggles with Goliath because every man has an external enemy, the devil and every man has an internal enemy, the flesh. The flesh rebels against God and asserts self on the throne. The flesh can be religious or it can be pagan but either way it does not submit to God nor honor Jesus Christ. To defeat Goliath in the power of the Holy Spirit we must dethrone the flesh. We must choose to surrender to the Holy Spirit and ask Jesus to empower us and live His resurrection life through us. In the movie the Rundown, with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, the Rock continually faces situations where people have to make choices. The Rock says to them, “You have option A or option B.” Option A is the easy way and option B is the hard way.

Romans 7-8, like the Rock, say we have option A; surrender to Holy Spirit or we have option B; live in the flesh. We defeat Goliath when we live in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is a choice; a choice to surrender our lives to the Holy Spirit’s control and to ask Him to fill and empower our lives. When we are surrendered to the Holy Spirit and filled with His power, then we are living a spiritual life. Being “spiritual” is one of three types of spiritual experiences the Bible describes.

1 Corinthians 2:10-2:3 gives us a perspective on understanding how men can either receive or reject the Holy Spirit’s work. “10 but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: 16 ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.3 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?”

The Apostle Paul is describing the work of the Holy Spirit and how people respond differently to His work. He explains that the Holy Spirit reveals God to us. His job is to lead us into the knowledge of God and to manifest God’s presence in our lives. In fact, every aspect of Christian growth, discipleship and service is a fruit of the Holy Spirit’s ministry in our lives. Consider this short survey:

The Spirit regenerates us and causes us to be born again (John 3:1-8)
The Spirit leads us into a deeper knowledge of Christ (Ephesians 1:16-18)
The Spirit guides us into the truth (John 16:13-15)
The Spirit empowers us to be witnesses for Christ (Acts 1:8)
The Spirit produce His fruit in our lives (Galatians 5:22-23)
The Spirit gives us victory over the flesh (Romans 8:1-17)
The Spirit helps us pray (Romans 8:26-27)
The Spirit gives us spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12)
The Spirit set us free from being selfish (Galatians 5:13-16)
The Spirit transforms us to become more like Christ (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)
The Spirit gives us a heart of worship (Ephesians 5:18-20)
The Spirit makes us bold to speak God’s Word (Acts 4:31)
Read More from JP Jones
Facing the Goliath of Anger
Every man faces Goliath. Like David, we walk into the Valley of Elah and we come face to face with the enemy. Your Goliath may be anger. This Goliath taunts many men and leaves broken and scarred victims in its path. You may struggle with uncontrolled rage or maybe just passive-aggressive responses but either way your heart is constantly in turmoil rather than being ruled by the peace of Christ. This was the struggle of King Saul. 1 Samuel 18 records one of his outbursts with David, the giant killer.
God Is Looking for Men to Change the World
The challenge of the Great Commission is to preach the gospel to all creation. This includes the young and the old, rich and poor, male and female. The love of God is generous enough to encompass the whole world. With all of humanity in mind, God is looking for men who will lead His Church and advance His Kingdom. It has been said that the church is the hope of the world. If that is true, then men are the hope of the church. This is not a chauvinistic sentiment; in fact, my wife gave me permission to write this! The question before every church is “Where are the men?” Even a cursory reading of Scripture reveals that God is looking for men.
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Fact or Fiction?
People believe all kinds of things today. In fact, there are a lot of smart people who believe stupid things! Many subscribe to a philosophy like this, “It doesn’t matter what you believe or if it’s true, as long as you believe it’s true.” On the surface this sounds like a very open and appealing perspective; it fits with our “do your own thing” values. However, this ideology completely misses the point about truth. It places the emphasis on the sincerity of our beliefs rather than the truthfulness of the object of our beliefs. It’s like saying, “If you believe the Holocaust never happened and that works for your understanding of history, then great!” The issue isn’t what you or I believe about the truth, the issue is what is actually true.

False Prophets: Their Method, Manner and Motive

In these last days, Scripture warns that false prophets will arise and deceive many. Believers who are not well-grounded make easy targets for doctrines that may sound good but are filled with error.

Some doctrines are deadly: those that alter the Deity of Christ, redefine the Trinity — or even deny the Trinity. Sometimes a charmer will lead the susceptible off into error that results in physical death — Jonestown and Waco come to mind.

We must sharpen our awareness and be alert — not just for ourselves but for our loved ones who might otherwise be drawn to a false prophet.

Last time, we looked at five tests you can apply to any teacher’s message: the Source, Savior, Subject, Salvation, and Sanctification tests. But even if the teacher’s message passes these tests, we still should examine his method, manner, and motive.

Know them by their method.

They “…privily shall bring in damnable heresies…And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: (2 Peter 2:1-3)

Peter is describing the way they operate.

privily means “secretly, clandestinely, in a way that’s hard to spot.” Give the devil credit for being clever. His helpers lay false teaching alongside good teaching in order to confuse.
feigned words. The word feigned in the Greek is plastos, from which we get our word “plastic.” Plastic is pliable, molding itself just simply to fit and to imitate…plastic preachers with plastic words.

Know them by their manner.

And many shall follow their pernicious ways… (v. 2)

Pernicious is a word we don’t use much today. It literally means “unbridled lust.” The center, sum and substance of their message is themselves.

Have you noticed that apostasy and immorality go hand in hand? Often you’ll hear about false teachers being caught in adultery. Or, within their belief system, they advocate immorality, multiple wives, or some sort of “free sex.” We see it over and over again. We hear news reports of a cult under the spell of a leader who, it is revealed, has been engaging in shocking immorality with members of his flock. High-profile evangelists preaching easy-believe-ism or a health-and-wealth gospel have sometimes been exposed as leading double lives.

For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. Jude, verse 4

They call themselves prophets, but they’re living in sin. Note their methods, manner, and way of life. Are they above reproach?

I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none of them doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants therefore as Gomorrah. Jeremiah 23:14

Success in ministry does not necessarily mean they’re doing God’s work. Statistics are no proof that something is of God, because “many will follow” (2 Peter 2:2). Some people love the sensual rather than the spiritual. Jesus said, “Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father, which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Many people lead double lives. They are counterfeits.

Know them by their motive.

And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you…. 2 Peter 2:3

What is the false teacher’s motive? They want to use and manipulate you. Why? Because they themselves are covetous.

For their own motivation and wicked heart, Peter says, they make merchandise of the Gospel. You’ve perhaps seen some of these hucksters on TV who merchandise the Gospel of Christ. In my estimation, the hottest part of hell is reserved for these plastic preachers who, for whatever reason, merchandise God’s people. With great swelling words they exploit the ignorant. They are prophets, spelled “P-R-O-F-I-T-S.”

Lastly, in verses 4-5 Peter gets very serious. He says God will surely judge and not spare them. God is saying: Here is My solemn warning to every counterfeiter. When the angels fell, I judged them. When civilization in Noah’s day became polluted, I judged them. When Sodom and Gomorrah became perverted, I judged them. And I’m going to judge these false prophets.

Don’t get caught up in counterfeit Christianity. God will not spare sin or the sinner, for He did not spare His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus, so that you and I might have eternal life.

The world is full of counterfeits. Every counterfeit dollar is a tribute to the worth of the real — or men wouldn’t be printing counterfeits! And every counterfeit Christian is a tribute to the value of salvation. Jesus is real. Salvation is real. And you can make sure you have the real thing if you repent of your sin and trust Him.

The Prosperity Gospel Lie

Only God can call things into existence. It’s useless to place your faith in anything other than God’s word. True prosperity comes from being in God’s will.

some pastors lie about faith and that faith in anything other than God’s word is a recipe for disappointment and deception.

Faith is defined as complete trust or confidence in someone or something. The evidence or proof of what we’re “believing for” comes later (Hebrews 11).

Some preachers lie about faith when it comes to obtaining health, wealth, and prosperity. They teach that if you just believe hard enough you’ll get what you want. Faith becomes a self-generated spiritual force that leads to prosperity. If you don’t get what you wanted—it’s your fault—you didn’t believe.

The problem with this teaching is that it encourages a person to put faith in faith itself (which is ridiculous) or faith in God for something he didn’t promise you. The scripture they use to support this is Mark 11:23-24 which says:

23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believethat those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. 24Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them (Mark 11:23-24).

Another scripture they use out of context is Romans 4:17 where it says, “…Call those things which are not, as though they were” (notice this is only part of the verse).

The truth

1. Only God can call things into existence.

Reading Romans 4:17 in its entirety will show that we can’t “believe things into existence:”

As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations, before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were (Romans 4:17).

2. Worldly prayers will be rejected.

James 4:1-6 reveals that our prayer requests won’t be answered if they’re for worldly lusts:

1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. 5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? 6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble (James 4:1-6).

3. Our prayers must be in the will of God.

1 John 5:14-15 says if we ask according to his will we will receive it:

14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him (1 John 5:14-15).

So, having faith in something that’s not in God’s will will result in disappointment.

Here’s how we get our requests answered:

Know God’s will (Romans 12 says how).
Pray God’s will.
Believe and don’t doubt that you’ll receive it.
Place your faith in God’s promises. Many of God’s promises are found in the Bible.
Be patient, God will come through. Faith in God produces evidence (Heb 11:1).

A few of God’s Biblical promises

The gift of the Holy Spirit: Eph 1:13
The fullness of life: James 1:12, 2:5
The forgiveness of sins: 1 John 1:9
Food, shelter, and clothing: Matt 6:33; Phil 4:4-9