God likes to hear your prayers, right? Well, maybe. Proverbs 28:9 is a verse which reveals some light on that. It reads: “He who turns away his ear from listening to the Law, even his prayer is an abomination.”

We tend to think that our prayers are good, and that God wants to hear them — and if you are a Christian who is praying in Jesus’ name, He does — except in some cases like this verse describes.  It says that if you “turn away away your ear from His Law” — in other words, if you choose to not listen to what He says to you in His word, then that “good” prayer you pray is actually an “abomination” to God.  The word “abomination” is a strong one. It is used throughout the Old Testament to describe things that are detestable to God, like idol worship, witchcraft, or sacrificing one’s own children to false gods.

So it really doesn’t matter how much you pray — you can pray every morning for an hour, and pray “spontaneous prayers” all through the day, just as the scripture teaches us — but if you are ignoring something that God is telling you in His word, then your prayer is like those detestable things to God!  This is no small thing.

Is there an area of your life in which you are purposefully violating something you know that God says in His word?  Have you stopped going to church to hear His word proclaimed? Don’t begin to imagine that this is not going to affect your prayer life.

People are fond of saying things like: “I don’t have to go to church; I can just pray to God on my own”, or “I can still worship God even though I am living this lifestyle which His word condemns.”  They need to reconsider, in light of Proverbs 28:9. This verse makes it pretty clear: if you turn your ear away from God’s Law, then He will turn His ear away from your prayer!