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“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me” (Psalm 66:18).
There is one time in our lives when it is not right to pray. If I have sinned, and the Lord has brought it to my attention, then He wants me to confess it and be restored in my soul. If I think I can simply ignore the sin, and continue to go to the Lord in prayer, I will find out that the Lord will not hear me, as we read in this verse. It is not that the Lord does not know I am praying, for He knows everything, and hears everything. But He will not answer, and we will not have the sense in our souls that we are praying according to His will, for we are deliberately going on with unjudged sin in our lives.
Perhaps we can explain it this way: If I have spoken disrespectfully to my father, will I feel comfortable asking him some time later if he will help me fix a problem with my bike? No, my father will expect me to say I am sorry and make it right with him for speaking disrespectfully to him, before asking him for something. It is the same with the Lord; He wants to enjoy our company, and loves us too much to allow us to go on in sin.
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