I want to talk to you about three destructive habits that weaken your prayers I believe that as you listen to these challenging words that you will see a greater demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit through your prayer life there are things that we do habits that we practice that weaken our prayer life and I know that the Lord is going to bring not only correction today but he’s going to bring a great empowerment upon your life but first tell me in the comment section if you believe in the power of prayer now before I list for

you the three different destructive habits that I’m going to be addressing in this particular message I want to at first acknowledge that there are some obvious ones that we should definitely look out for like for example unconfessed sin sin that you’ve not confessed to the Lord sin that you’ve not repented of that can hinder your prayer life take a look at Psalm chap 66 I’m going to read verses 17-9 for I cried out to him for help praising him as I spoke if I had not confessed the sin in my heart the Lord would not have listened but God did

listen he paid attention to my prayer praise God who did not ignore my prayer or withdraw his unfailing love from me now of course we take Old Testament Concepts and filter them through the cross I don’t think that the Lord ignores his children especially if you’re under grace this by no means is an encouragement that you should go on sinning but it could be said that there is still a disruption in our prayer lives when we walk in Disobedience because we lack Faith because we lack confidence because we’re filled with

shame and might even be afraid to approach God in the first place another one we should acknowledge is something like unforgiveness unforgiveness causes you to become bitter makes it very difficult for you to hear the voice of the holy spirit makes it very difficult for you to even receive the word that will soften your heart that cause you to pray in faith so things like sin things like unforgiveness these of course can hinder your prayer life in various different ways so having said that having acknowledged some of the more obvious

ones let’s now go and take a look at number one which is impure motives James chapter 4 veres 2 and 3 say this you want what you don’t have so you scheme and kill to get it you are jealous of what others have but you can’t get it so you fight and wage war to take it away from them yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it and even when you ask you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong you want only what will give you pleasure so here the scripture is talking about those who approach the Lord with the

prayer request but desire to consume that request upon their own lust in other words they’re praying with impure motives they’re praying for selfish reasons now let me clarify here there is a time of course that we make our supplication to the Lord the prayer request is valid of course you can ask the Lord to provide for your material needs of course you can ask the Lord for favor say in a job or in a promotion there’s nothing wrong with asking these things but when you take a look at the heart behind those prayer requests you

have to make sure that ultimately you want to do these things to the glory of God ultimately you want to receive these things for the purposes of the Kingdom now I understand too that the Lord sometimes does bless us with things for our enjoyment but if your whole prayer life if the whole motive that consumes you is entirely about self there’s an issue there so when we pray out of jealousy and envy that’s an issue that hinders prayer when you pray for Ministry growth because you’re competing with other Ministries that hinders your