How to Deal with Unanswered Prayers via Pastor Bil Cornelius
According to the time stamp on You Tube, this sermon was uploaded in November 2016, but I don’t recall watching it then. I did see an airing of this episode on TBN this month, just the other day (Feb. 2017).
I was going in and out of the room as this sermon aired, so I missed a few parts of it. From what I heard, however, overall, it was a decent sermon. I didn’t hear too much victim-blaming in it.
Usually, when Christians address the topic of unanswered prayer, they get into victim-blaming; they will assume the reason God has not answered your prayer is you are at fault in some way. I don’t recall hearing too much of that in this sermon.
I will say that one aspect of this sermon that gives me some pause is when the pastor says that God’s answer may be “yes” to your prayer, but not “right now” because God is supposedly waiting for you to mature before he grants you whatever you are praying about.
I recoil at that bit of reasoning, because it is often used on single adults: married Christians will tell you that God has not sent you a spouse yet because you are not holy enough, not mature enough, not “whatever” enough, and as soon as you work on your character (and become more pious, more loving, more mature, more ‘whatever’), that is when God will send your future spouse in to your life. Which is bogus.
As I have noted on this blog time and again (see (Link): this page for one example), if this teaching were true, we would not see so many news stories of married Christian men who are arrested for abusing their wives or for buying child abuse imagery (child porn).
Obviously, God does not expect anyone to become more “mature” or good or holy (or more “whatever” quality) before granting them spouses, since I see so many losers or deviants who attend church weekly who are married.
(Link (on You Tube): How to Deal with Unanswered Prayers – When God Says No | Week 2
Related Posts:
(Link): Critique of Pastor Groeschel’s “I Want to Believe But…” Sermon Series (Re: Unanswered Prayer, etc)
(Link): Joanne The Widow Lady Wants to Know Why God Didn’t Answer Her Prayer to Keep her Husband With Her
(Link): Being Bitter and Blaming Others Can Ruin Your Health by Elizabeth Cohen
(Link): On Prayer and Christ’s Comment to Grant You Anything You Ask in His Name
(Link): Are You Stuck in the “I’ll Feel Better When” Cycle? by Diana Hill, phD
(Link): When All We Hear from God is Silence by Diane Markins
(Link): Celibate Christian Woman Asks Christian Host Why God Will Not Send Her a Husband
(Link): Blaming the Christian for His or Her Own Problem or Unanswered Prayer / Christian Codependency
(Link): Depressing Testimony: “I Was A Stripper but Jesus Sent Me A Great Christian Husband”
(Link): James the Single 40-Something Guy Asks 700 Club’s Pat Robertson Why Churches Don’t Help Singles
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