How holy do we have to be for God to answer our prayers? Holiness clearly implies being obedient to the Lord. But we know that we are often not obedient to Jesus. Throughout the Old and New Testaments, we see that being obedient to the Lord is a prerequisite to answered prayer. We read in (John 15:7): “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” And (Psalm 66:17-19) says: “I cried to Him with my mouth, And He was extolled with my tongue. If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear. But certainly, God has heard me; He has attended to the voice of my prayer.” Both these verses clearly imply that being obedient to the Lord is essential to having our prayers answered.
If being obedient is a prerequisite to answered prayer and we clearly are not always following in the footsteps of Jesus, then how can we expect God to answer our prayers? The key is not to confuse obedience with perfection. God knows that we are going to sin every day and yet He delights to talk with us and answer our prayers. Thus, obedience doesn’t imply perfection for if it did, we would never have our prayers answered. What I believe God is looking for is a heart that seeks forgiveness for sin, is repentant, and desires to walk in righteousness. God is looking for His children to find no contentment in sin or in spiritual mediocrity. I like how (John 9:31) puts it: “Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him.”
As a true worshiper of God, we delight to spend time with Jesus. We seek to know and do His will, and we repent when we sin. Thankfully God is not looking for sinless believers as His requirement to answer our prayers, but He is looking for serious Christians with the right heart attitude and lifestyle.
I implore you to get to know Jesus better by spending time in His presence and reading the Scriptures. I guarantee that as you get to know our Savior better you will fall more in love with Him. And the more you love Him the more you will want to obey Him. After all He always has a wonderful plan for your life. And the exciting thing that I have come to experience more and more in my own life is that as I fall more in love with Jesus, obeying His commands become easier and a great source of joy! (1 John 5:3) tells us that His commands, for those of us who love Jesus, are not so hard to follow, for we read: “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.”
Living a holy life is a prerequisite to answered prayer – but perfection is not. The devil would want us to believe that we need to be perfect, but the Scriptures never teach this. Stay close to Jesus and He will help you to be holy. And watch how God will answer your prayers!