If You're Prayers Aren't Answered Does That Mean You Aren't A Christian?

[Waggles]

I feel I pray to God, He listens but.rarely answers despite my attempts to get closer to Him.

Hello Pancakes. What you have posted is a real experience of doubt or what's it all about that most if not all other people go through.
Where to start. OK - what is the nature of your relationship with Jesus? Are you a christian because you grew up in a denomination?
Are you a christian because you have been converted by the Holy Spirit and "born again"? This is the most dynamic relationship.
To what extent is your walk in the Lord complimentary to the Gospels and Epistles? When you read the New Testament do you readily exclaim yes, that's me!!
What is your understanding of your relationship to your Father in heaven through Jesus by the Holy Spirit? If born again by water and Spirit then you are a child of your Father by adoption through the Spirit. [Romans 8] You can petition your Father by the Spirit through Jesus [your mediator and intercessor on your behalf] for good things - like healings, miracles, provision for needs, changing your circumstances for the better. You can Pray for others with confidence.

Much in answered prayer is dependent on the quality and nature of your relationship in faith to the Scriptures and to Jesus.
God is always testing and refining faith through patience and his wisdom as to what we truly need as opposed to what we want. But not to breaking point.
When reading Psalms there are wonderful little prayers scattered throughout that are beneficial to growing, and learning, and guidance...

Psalm 119:59 I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.

Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 143:10-11 Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.
Quicken [revive] me, O LORD, for thy name's sake: for thy righteousness' sake bring my soul out of trouble.

Pancakes, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Don't quit. Examine yourself and look at how you can get closer to God through the Holy Spirit.
Here is a link to a wonderful personal testimony from Ame Nyeadeh Zee from Liberia in Africa - her joy in the Lord
http://miracles.areonthe.net/TESTIM...ESTIMONY Posters/Ame Nyeadeh Zee, Liberia.pdf
Here is another personal testimony from a 81 year old lady, Bronwyn in Australia, who received the Holy Spirit and became a christian at this old age:
http://miracles.areonthe.net/TESTIM...NY Posters/Bronwyn B, Adelaide, Australia.pdf

 

[Fish Catcher Jim]

For faith to build God has to come through. When He answers prayers, provides, ect that builds your faith. But if you do your best to pray and he doesn't answer, go out on faith and do missionary work or sell your house or whatever and God doesn't back you up or provide but is completely silent...it shatters your faith...

It just makes me think He only cares for certain people.

Pancakes Hello,
Hush up and be still !! : )
Listen to me please for I am going to shed some light on you.
Yes it is a two way street. God is always there. If at any time you feel there is silence or anything not working right..........THE PROBLEM IS ALWAY ON OUR END.

Listen Pancakes I know you wrote Cturtle and I know a little about your situation. Not her fault I borrowed her tablet as I found my friends suicide pm...

Any way if you like P.M....
I do understand because I have been there....
Jim

 

[Waggles]

Are you intelligent enough to look into your own faith instead of blinding accepting it without any proof or evidence?

What rubbish you speak. It you that believes in fairytales and myths like your delusions about evolution and life coming from inorganic sources.
You are surrounded by entire planetary ecosystem that sings glory to the Creator - and a solar system with just one living planet and a universe so fantastically enormous - yet we know by the big bang it suddenly came into being, exactly as described in Genesis.
No you are the fraud, and your kind who go through life with a paper bag over your heads lest you should see or hear or experience the truth.
Ignorance is your best friend. Ignorance of biology; of geology; of paleontology; of mathematics; of astronomy; of history of nations and peoples.
Ivan Panin, from Harvard University, late 19th to early 20 centuries, discovered that every single word in the original Hebrew and Greek was subject to a mathematical pattern constituting the numbers 1 to 9 and their multiples. The Seal of God against all those weird and recently discovered gospel fragments and the Apocrypha. Every single word. Take away one word and the numeric pattern is not repeated. Place in a false verse and the numeric pattern shows it to be false. Ivan Panin called this mathematical proof of the truth and accuracy of the Word of God "Bible Numerics."
I challenge you to write a book in either Hebrew, Greek or Latin where letters of the alphabet also stand in for numeric values and see how well, you do.
Give it a try, should be easy for every single word from first to last to display a mathematical pattern of mutliples of the same number in each sentence.

Further Jesus, who loves a challenge from fools against his truth, said that these signs shall follow them that believe -
Mark 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
Mark 16:17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
Mark 16:18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
This and more is still happening today with true believers of the gospel exercising all of the above signs and experiencing much answered prayers, miracles and healings. Transformed lives for the better. Criminals to saints. People being healed miraculously from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, cancers, injuries, being cripples.... the list goes on and on.
No you are the one missing out on the marvellous works of God in the lives of believers.
Here is one small example; one small taste of what Jesus can do for a believer who prays for help:
http://miracles.areonthe.net/TESTIMONY Collection/TESTIMONY POSTERS/TESTIMONY Posters/Ann Timi, Port Moresby, PNG.pdf

 

[Fish Catcher Jim]

I'm going to talk to you on the same level you're talking to me.

"Are you man enough to deal with your son and rejection of a good God?"

Here's my question

Are you intelligent enough to look into your own faith instead of blinding accepting it without any proof or evidence?

Hello Brother I am your hucklberry....another words I can man up and I am not afraid of your views.....ROTFL....Is this the kind of reply you were looking for ? But seriously, I want a crack at this...

Oh and to answer your question of (Are you intelligent enough to look into your own faith instead of blinding accepting it without any proof or evidence?))

First of all YES.....I have evidence.....its the spirit of God within me. I know He is there and He knows that I know He is there.......The written word of God is all I need brother. YES if it says it in the bible then YES I beleive it.

Now then Brother I hope you are doing well and will return the favor and pick my brain.
I would enjoy this very much....Looking forward to discussing views....
Have a wonderful day brother and remember...
God Loves YOU !!
Much Love IN Christ Jesus
Jim

 

[autumn oddity]

Pancakes Hello,
Hush up and be still !! : )
Listen to me please for I am going to shed some light on you.
Yes it is a two way street. God is always there. If at any time you feel there is silence or anything not working right..........THE PROBLEM IS ALWAY ON OUR END.

Listen Pancakes I know you wrote Cturtle and I know a little about your situation. Not her fault I borrowed her tablet as I found my friends suicide pm...

Any way if you like P.M....

wait what.. im confused.. I get what your saying....

but im thrown off by the whole suicide pm o.o
I do understand because I have been there....
Jim

 

[Fish Catcher Jim]

LOl....Now any ways....
Sorry, I was in the middle of getting people to pray for a friend and brother in the forum had sent me a long PM.

 

[CCW95A]

I'm going to talk to you on the same level you're talking to me.

"Are you man enough to deal with your son and rejection of a good God?"

Here's my question

Are you intelligent enough to look into your own faith instead of blinding accepting it without any proof or evidence?

ANotherAtheist, you exactly right!!! It is always "unwise" to believe in something without any proof, or evidence that it exists!!
As a Christian I would never believe in a God whom I can not have "evidence" of his existence.
Faith is NOT believing in something without evidence, it believes because it does have proof and evidence!!!

Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

The evidence that we Christians use can Not be detected by any of man's five physical senses.

They are "spiritual" in nature, and the natural man who does not have the Spirit of God considers them "stupid, dumb,and foolish" just like how you are thinking we are.

1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.