Prayer and our hearts


1 John 3:21-23 (CSB) says "Dear friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive whatever we ask from him because we keep his commands and do what is pleasing in his sight. 23 Now this is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he commanded us. 

Sometimes, either consciously or subconsciously, our hearts can condemn us and that affects our prayer life. It could be condemnation from something we've done that is displeasing to God / lies we believe from the enemy (Satan) / lies we believe about ourselves / lies spoken to us or over us either knowingly or unknowingly by others. 

No matter what we've done, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin and removes every sense of condemnation in our lives. This makes us righteous before our Holy God and gives us total confidence to come before Him in prayer.
Confession and asking Jesus to cleanse us of our sin is something we can do at anytime. It's not a once off event. I do this regularly in my prayer time because I know I fail God many times. 

If our hearts are wrongfully condemning because of lies we've believed, God knows our heart and will help us (ref: verse 20). 

John goes on to say that as we come before God in confidence and live in faith towards God and love towards each other, we receive what we pray for! Wow! 

Simple yet challenging to do at times. It's a journey and I'm on that journey for sure! My prayer is that we all have confidence before God by letting Him help us get over any trace of condemnation we may feel and walk in faith towards Him and love each other. Our prayer lives will continue to grow and excel each day.

Photo: from Ben White (unsplash) - thank you!

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