How to Open the Heavens, When the Heavens are Brass

Are  you tired of praying and praying and seeming to get no where?  Are you tired of things just going along day to day and nothing seems to change?   Prayer changes things, but why is it that so many times days, months and years go by and prayers go unanswered?  Jesus wanted us to receive the things we desired of God in prayer, he gave us several parables on prayer.  Jesus is the Son of God, if he give us a parable, it is truth that will set us free.  These parables that Jesus gave on prayer were not just good stories that would be a good 'idea' of what we should do.  Jesus was trying to teach us how to unlock the heavens, so that God would move on our behalf.  We do not get God to respond to our ideas and our ways and our thoughts.  We are the ones that have to CHANGE to God's ways, God's thoughts and God's ideas.  You are not going to change God, so, if you want your prayers answered, we must change to address our prayers the way that Jesus taught us.  Two of his parables on prayer had to do with being persistent and aggressive. 

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray he gave them a parable about being persistent.  He showed us in the parable that we should be so persistent in prayer that our continual coming could be viewed by some as annoying.     When the Pharisees asked Jesus about the coming of the Kingdom of God, Jesus concluded his teaching with two parables.  The first one was also about persistence in prayer, telling about the widow who wore the wicked judge down with her continual coming.  Our prayer life cannot be 'hit and miss' or we stand the possibility of falling short of receiving those things that we have requested of God in prayer.  

Jesus followed the parable of the little widow with another parable on prayer.  This parable talks about humility and repentance of sin.   When we are self righteous, and fill of vices it hinders our prayers.  We pray for sick people a lot, and often people are healed right when we pray.  We have noticed that sometimes when there is someone that have been a Christian for a long time, and they are more about religion and tradition then they are about loving Jesus that sometimes that hinders their healing.   When we have been in 'the way' for so long that we think we are better than others, and we don't think we need to pray, or read our bibles, or go to church we are just self righteous and deceive ourselves.  This parable is talking about people who served God, but they put their religion and their tradition above love, mercy, and God's grace.  No matter who you are or how long you have been saved or how good you think you are, you are no better than the worse sinner on the street.  For we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God.   Sin in our lives will hinder our prayers, and sins where we think we are better than other people is the very thing that will cause your prayers to go unheard and unanswered.  Luke 18

10Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a tax collector.

11The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.

12I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

13And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.

14I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for everyone that exalts himself shall be abased; and he that humbles himself shall be exalted.

 

When you go to prayer and you are offended that God doesn't respond to you immediately because of all the things you have done and how you have 'served him'  you are the Pharisee.  No  matter how much we 'do' for God, we do not deserve the love and mercy of God.  You cannot do enough good works to 'deserve' to have your prayers answered.    When you come before God in prayer no matter how many years you have served him you are to come repentant and humble.  Knowing that his grace will be the reason your prayers are answered.   As Jesus taught us to pray,  Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.   You must come to God knowing that you need him to have mercy on you.  I know people that have been taught to come into prayer declaring to God and everyone else 'who they are in Christ'  Maybe a 'good teacher' you watch on TV taught you to pray this way but it is not the way that Jesus taught us to pray.   Come into your prayer time, acknowledging your sin, "Lord have mercy on me a sinner."  

 

Do you want the heavens opened up above You?  Do you want to be able to pray and see heaven respond?  It is only through repentance on a continual basis that we find the heavens above us opened up. Why did the Pharisee miss it?  He missed it because he had been saved for so long that he felt he no longer had a need to repent.  Jesus is showing us in this parable this is simply not true.  No matter how long you have served God, or how long you have worked for Him, or how much you have done, we must stay in an attitude of repentance.    Repentance opens the heavens.