Does God hear us when we pray?

This is a question I pondered for a long time before I decided to follow Jesus. The answer is YES! He hears you, but before you give your life to him He is only listening for the prayer that shows that you have decided to follow Him. Once you make that decision and let Him know it, He forgives you and changes your heart. Every prayer after that point is heard and answered, some sooner than others but the answer will always be His answer. It may not be the answer you were looking for, but it will be His answer for you and your life.

Our lives, according to His Word, are supposed to be living temples and sacrifices to Him. We have to subject our will to His in order to serve Him. We can’t decide to give our heart to Jesus and then keep doing what we have always done before. The life we get after He comes into our heart is His, not ours. That is the reason that it is so hard for us to give our lives to Him. It really has to be done every day. Submission of our will and our lives to Him on a daily basis is not something that we do very well. Only with the strength that He gives us can we do it successfully.

God knows this and He knows exactly how we will respond daily. Being a dedicated Christian is hard for us to do. It is actually impossible for us to do without His help and the strength that He gives us, if we will ask for it. Our lives can be so much more than what or who we are if we choose to serve Him in whatever we do. It doesn’t matter if we are pastors, deacons, missionaries, Gideon's, or just nurses, store clerks, doctors, lawyers, pc technicians, gas station attendants, etc. We can serve Him doing whatever we do as long as we do it for Him and for His Glory and not our own.

Pride can be a terrible master that takes many things from us if we let it. That is what gets in the way of many people’s service to Him. We don’t like to admit that it is there but if you let Him search you and your heart and listen to Him when He speaks, you will know. Our lives, like the lives of every creature God created, should serve Him regardless of what our occupation is. God knows exactly what we are capable of but He knows that we are capable of much more if we let Him have control of our spirit and commit ourselves to Him each day.