Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
James 4:3
This is our seventh day looking at unheard prayers in the Bible. What makes God ignore your prayer requests? “That ye may consume it upon your lusts.”
What kind of prayer requests are these that people make that will not be fulfilled? From John MacArthur:
They’re not searching for God, they’re searching for all the things that God gives, like joy, peace, happiness, meaning, value, hope, fulfillment. Everyone looking for that, everybody is. But they don’t want God, they just want that, and they think that’s available through their worldly loves. And so he says you have not because you ask not. All that you really would desire to have of true joy, true satisfaction, true happiness, true hope, true meaning, true purpose is available from God if you would ask.
https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/59-23/the-danger-in-being-a-friend-of-the-world-part-2
Are you seeking the benefits, or the Source of the benefits?
If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?
Randy Alcorn quotes Samuel Rutherford, a 17th Century Scottish Presbyterian Pastor:
O my Lord Jesus Christ, if I could be in heaven without thee, it would be a hell; and if I could be in hell, and have thee still, it would be a heaven to me, for thou art all the heaven I want.
