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When God Answers Our Prayers with One Word—Repent

How does God respond to a Christian who asks for guidance? It all depends. There's a big difference between a Christian who has "irregular, discouraging slips into disobedience that are quickly repented of" and a Christian who persists in "blatant, unrepentant refusals to obey God." Consider the following illustration:

Suppose you wanted to sit down with the owner of the small company that you work for and get some career advice. Tuesday is your appointed meeting day. When Tuesday arrives, you are late. By an hour. For no good reason. The owner is agitated that he has been waiting for you, yet in general he considers you a wonderful employee. It is safe to say that before he would share his career advice with you, you should genuinely apologize for being late. Yet being late—as long as it comes with an apology—will not cause him to withhold his advice.
If on the other hand you are not a good employee and have been recklessly embezzling money from the company—and the owner knows it—you should not expect him to share career advice with you. The only advice you should expect from him is, "Stop stealing money and make restitution!" So it is with God. If we are to receive guidance from God, we must apologize for any disobedience currently in our lives, but habitual, unrepentant sin will render God silent except for one word: repent.

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