Ever heard this one: “God is holy. If you have unconfessed sin in your life, he will not hear your prayers.”
It’s. Not. True.
If sin made God deaf, no sinner could be saved. They would pray the sinner’s prayer, but God wouldn’t hear them.
Pray all you like, but I’m not listening. Lalalala. I’ve got fingers in my ears.
Imagine if you had to confess all your sins before God would listen. Most people would die of old age before they were done! And there would be no guarantee you got them all.
Sorry, kiddo. You forgot a sin from the summer of ’82. You’re toast.
“Confess your sins so that God will hear you.” What a stupid theology. Forgive me for getting agitated, but this sort of nonsense leaves people crippled with guilt and condemnation. It causes them to hide from their Father in fear.
Imagine if Jesus had not listened to sinners.
“Sorry, woman-with-a-hemorrhage, I can’t heal you because there’s unconfessed sin in your life.”
“Sorry, woman-caught-in-the-wrong-bed, I can’t stop these men from stoning you.”
“Peter, James, John, I can’t hear a word you’re saying. What’s that, Judas? I see your lips moving but I can’t hear you.”
Jesus is the exact representation of God the Father. If the Son listened to sinners, it’s because the Father listens to sinners. He hears our prayers. Every single one.
God hears us because he loves us
But didn’t David say, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (Ps. 66:18)? Keep reading:
Hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications! Answer me in your faithfulness, in your righteousness! And do not enter into judgment with your servant, for in your sight no one living is righteous. (Ps. 143:1-2)
David, knowing that he was not righteous, asked God to hear him on account of his righteousness, and God did. Your heavenly Father hears your prayers not because you are good but because he is good and he loves you.
But what about that verse that says, “God does not hear sinners” (John 9:31)? The Jews believed that, but Jesus didn’t. He said things like “When you pray” as if we are to pray all the time, and he told stories to encourage us to pray (Matt. 6:7, Luke 18:1, 10-14).
The Bible never discourages prayer. Instead it says things like “devote yourselves to prayer” (Col. 4:2), and “pray continually” (1 Th. 5:17). Only one person is looking for excuses to get you not to pray, and it’s not the Lord.
Okay, what about John. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Keep reading:
I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for his name’s sake. (1 John 2:12)
In the new covenant you are not forgiven because you confess; you are forgiven on account of Jesus’ name.
This idea that we have to confess or cleanse ourselves before God will hear us, forgive us, or receive us comes straight out of the old covenant. See the cross. Your sins are there, every last one of them, including all the sins you confessed and all the sins you didn’t.
What really hinders prayer
Jesus said, “And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive” (Matt. 21:22).
The number one hindrance to prayer is not sin but unbelief, and notice that unbelief is not a hindrance to God hearing us but us receiving from him.
We need to pray with faith. We need to pray believing that God hears our prayers no matter who we are or what we’ve done because of who Jesus is and what he has done.
When John says confess he means “agree with God.” Agree that Jesus has dealt with all your sins once and for all. Agree that God is good and he longs to be good to you. Agree that your Father loves you and cares for you and he hears your prayers.
You may say, “But I don’t know how to pray. I’m afraid I will pray wrong.” Here’s Brennan Manning writing in The Ragamuffin Gospel:
There is no such thing as bad prayer…. A little child cannot do a bad coloring; nor can a child of God do bad prayer.
Your heavenly Father loves it when you talk to him. Whatever is on your mind, you can tell him all about it.
Talk to him about your hurts and worries, your hopes and dreams.
Tell him about your secret fears and struggles.
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from him. (1 John 5:14-15)
The key word in that passage is confidence. You can be confident of your Father’s goodness, and you can be confident when you pray.
Whatever your need today, ask your heavenly Father for help. Ask with the confidence that he hears your prayers and rides across the heavens to help you (Deu. 33:26).
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