“Blessed be God, Who has not turned away my prayer” (Psalms 66:20)

Your prayers reveal your heart. The Apostle John told saints, “you ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” (James 4:3-4).

If a saint persist in pursuing things that are displeasing to God, He may finally let them have what they ask for, and “they shall eat the fruit of their own way, And be filled to the full with their own fancies” (Proverbs 1:31). This is part of the sanctification process, whereby saints, “who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (Hebrews 5:14).

There’s three ways God teaches saints a lesson: 1) He tells them, “don’t touch that fire, and they obey Him. 2) He tells them, “don’t touch that fire, and when they disobey Him, they get burned. 3) If they persist in disobeying Him, He lets them be burned to the point they carry a scar as a reminder to obey Him.

“Before I was afflicted I went astray, But now I keep Your Word” (Psalms 119:67). “If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? … Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:7-11).