‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesars and to God what is Gods’ Matthew 22:21

I’m often asked by skeptical friends why God doesn’t answer prayers after all Jesus is very clear ‘ ask and ye shall receive’. I believe it is because we muddle the temporal with the divine. When you read the gospels Jesus by his words and actions shows that material possessions have no role in the kingdom of God and yet many churches go out of their way to preach a doctrine where financial reward is linked directly to prayer resulting inevitably in a loss of faith for many in their congregation. Jesus is clear ‘ it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of God’. Why ? because the most important  things in life belief,faith,love the only things that endure forever cannot be bought. The ways of God are not the ways of man. God is entirely good therefore by necessity his realm must belong to those things that are one hundred percent pure . Think for a minute true love, true faith in the words and actions of Jesus as we read in the gospels cannot be corrupted .Truth by its very nature is indivisible.  God I believe would prefer that our prayers are focused on his kingdom not the world of man because he only wants the best for us not the inevitable decay and disappointment of the material world. It is interesting that in the ‘ Lords prayer’ the only thing that Jesus tells us to ask for that comes from the physical is our ‘daily bread’ without which we can’t live. But even there is he not perhaps also referring to the ‘ bread of life’ the food of the spirit without which there can be no everlasting happiness and peace. Introduce  me to a man obsessed by possession and I will show you a man heading for a like of empty disillusion. How then can God possibly answer prayers that result in inevitable sadness and loss?    If you are a Christian you believe that God is a loving father therefore as Christ instructs ‘ like the birds of the air ‘ we must have the faith to let God provide for our earthly needs whilst we seek in our prayers for a closer relationship with our creator which brings with it  everlasting permanence and reward.