I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah. Psa 32:5
For I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin. Psa 38:18

What is the key that opens the doors of Heaven, to receive answers to our prayers? What hinders us from receiving answers to our prayers? This subject is not as difficult or mysterious as many Bible teachers would like to make it. But, is an uncomfortable one. The greatest obstacle to receiving answers to our prayers, and receiving the things we may be asking for-is unconfessed sin. Ouch...
Is there scripture to back this up? Yes, let's take a look.

​Pro 15:8  The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight. 
Pro 15:29  The LORD is far from the wicked: but he heareth the prayer of the righteous. 
​Isa 59:2  But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. 
Isa 59:3  For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. 
​Jer 5:25  Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you. 

You can do a cross references of what God's word says about sins that block our prayers, and it would open your eyes to see His holiness, and how much sin costs us. It would change your way of seeing yourself before Him, and you'd learn to desire to be rid of sin in your life, and seek the things of God, and desire righteousness. When our hearts desire to follow Him, and want to be clean before Him, then, we begin to understand what it means to have an audience with the King, and know He is hearing our prayers. If your not receiving answers to any of your prayers-there's no point in going any further, until you allow God to deal with you in this area.
References: See Confess: Gen_41:9-10; 2Sa_19:19; Mat_3:6, Mat_18:15-17; Luk_7:3-4; Act_19:18 Heb_13:18

James gives us some further instruction on this:
Jas 5:16  Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. 
John Wesley gives some insight into this:
"Confess your faults - Whether ye are sick or in health. To one another - He does not say, to the elders: this may, or may not, be done; for it is nowhere commanded. We may confess them to any who can pray in faith: he will then know how to pray for us, and be more stirred up so to do. And pray one for another, that ye may be healed - Of all your spiritual diseases."

David said in Psalm 51 it's against God, and God alone that we must confess our sins, and it's only God who can forgive them. Jesus Christ is our only Mediator between us and God.

We don't have to go to a bishop, a pope, or a minister to confess our sins,  to be forgiven. A humble confession to a friend, or family member who understands us, or a member we trust is what is being described here. If it is done in a church, we may do it as a part of a testimony of how God has worked in our lives. This kind of confession in public services brings humility, and gives honor to the Lord, and the Holy Spirit in how He is dealing with us, how He brought us to the point of self-examination, and repentance, and how He restores and heals us within our spirits, and at times, how it's brought about physical healing. Many times unconfessed sin is the cause of both spiritual and physical sickness, and is linked in receiving answers to prayer for the healing of the body.

Jas 5:14  Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: 
Jas 5:15  And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. 
Jas 5:16  Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. 
​
The Apostle John adds further into this:
1Jn 1:9  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 
1Jn 1:10  If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 
References: ​Pro_28:13; Dan_9:4-20

For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Psa 51:3-4

Treasury of David
​Charles Haddon Spurgeon

“For I acknowledge my transgressions.” Here he sees the plurality and immense number of his sins, and makes open declaration of them. He seems to say, I make a full confession of them. It is a clear evidence that I need mercy, and am utterly unable to look to any other quarter for help. My pleading guilty has barred me from any appeal against the sentence of justice: O Lord, I must cast myself on thy mercy, refuse me not, I pray thee. Thou hast made me willing to confess. O follow up this work of grace with a full and free remission! “And my sin is ever before me.” My sin as a whole is never out of my mind; it continually oppresses my spirit. I lay it before thee because it is ever before me: Lord, put it away both from thee and me. To an awakened conscience, pain on account of sin is not transient and occasional, but intense and permanent, and this is no sign of divine wrath, but rather a sure preface of abounding favour."

In Psalm 51 we see the example of David, who recognized his sin, and cries out to the Lord alone, and pours out his heart to God, and confesses his sins, and seeks the forgiveness, that only God can give. This is our example-the cries of a repentant contrite sinner, will always be heard by God, and His mercies are new every morning. We can go to Him at any time of day or night, and simply be honest with Him about our sins, and He will forgive, and cleanse us anew. Then as David, we will be washed clean, and renewed in the spirit, walking in righteousness again.

Final Summary:
In Jeremiah chapter 5, we are given a picture of what happens when a nation sinks into unconfessed sin, and the blindness, and deception that develops. It became so bad in his day, that the false prophets were telling the people there was nothing to worry about, that nothing bad was going to happen to them, I recommend reading the entire chapter, but I'll post just a few:
Jer 5:12  They have belied the LORD, and said, It is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine: 
Jer 5:13  And the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them: thus shall it be done unto them. 

They didn't believe Jeremiah's warnings and proclamations of doom, they wouldn't hear it. There was no remorse, no prayer of repentance. So, God tells them they'll be sent an invasion from afar:

Jer 5:15  Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say. 
Jer 5:16  Their quiver is as an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men. 
Jer 5:17  And they shall eat up thine harvest, and thy bread, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat: they shall eat up thy flocks and thine herds: they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees: they shall impoverish thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustedst, with the sword. 
​
I'll leave with this- Are we not seeing this now, on our southern borders, and beginning to come from our northern borders of this country also?
​....Think about it.
Lorna Couillard

Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will yet for this be enquired of by the house
​of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them
​with men like a flock. Eze 36:37

​Prayer is founded on knowledge. Before we can speak to God we must know God. "How shall they call," the Apostle asks, "on Him in whom they have not believed?" Even the prayer of the heathen, so far as it is prayer, rests upon knowledge.
(1) Let the man who would pray aright begin by studying his Bible. Let him first acquaint himself with God, and then speak to Him. The Word of God tells us in a thousand manners what He is in Himself, and what He is in His doings towards the children of men.
(2) He who would ask of God must first know God, and he must carry that knowledge into the asking. He must never ask of God anything which it would contradict the character of God to grant. The prayer which presupposes knowledge must also be a prayer which recognizes and remembers it.
​(3) In Christ, God is revealed; and upon the knowledge of Christ, therefore, is prayer to God founded. The words with which Christian supplication is always winged and speeded—through Jesus Christ our Lord—are a perpetual memento of that first condition of prayer, that it be founded on the true knowledge of God, and carry that knowledge with it to the mercy-seat of God’s Presence.
II. Prayer founded on knowledge is prompted by desire. The man who asks of God must desire too.
III. Prayer, founded on knowledge and prompted by desire, must be bounded by promise. The promise of which we speak is no single, separate utterance; no number, no multitude, of bare, literal engagements, which must be found somewhere in the bond, and then rehearsed by page and clause, as the justification of the particular demand. The promise of God, like the revelation of God, like the counsel of God, like the character of God, is at once ample to magnificence and simple even to unity. There is no limit to prayer but promise, and no limit to promise but the soul’s good.
(C. J. Vaughan, Voices of the Prophets, p. 158.)

"In answer to the question, “Who shall have such blessings?” we say, they that pray, that seek earnestly, that strive to enter in at the strait gate. “Thus saith the Lord, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel.” Neither Jew nor Gentile shall be thus saved who do not earnestly pray to God; and for this thing; for this complete salvation; this setting up of the kingdom of Christ upon earth, and particularly in their own souls."
(Adam Clarke)

Charles Haddon Spurgeon
"Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them." — Eze_36:37

​"Prayer is the forerunner of mercy. Turn to sacred history, and you will find that scarcely ever did a great mercy come to this world unheralded by supplication. You have found this true in your own personal experience. God has given you many an unsolicited favour, but still great prayer has always been the prelude of great mercy with you. When you first found peace through the blood of the cross, you had been praying much, and earnestly interceding with God that he would remove your doubts, and deliver you from your distresses. Your assurance was the result of prayer. When at any time you have had high and rapturous joys, you have been obliged to look upon them as answers to your prayers. When you have had great deliverances out of sore troubles, and mighty helps in great dangers, you have been able to say, "I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears." Prayer is always the preface to blessing. It goes before the blessing as the blessing's shadow. When the sunlight of God's mercies rises upon our necessities, it casts the shadow of prayer far down upon the plain. Or, to use another illustration, when God piles up a hill of mercies, he himself shines behind them, and he casts on our spirits the shadow of prayer, so that we may rest certain, if we are much in prayer, our pleadings are the shadows of mercy. Prayer is thus connected with the blessing to show us the value of it. If we had the blessings without asking for them, we should think them common things; but prayer makes our mercies more precious than diamonds. The things we ask for are precious, but we do not realize their preciousness until we have sought for them earnestly."

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession
​for the saints according to the will of God. Rom 8:26-27
The Aid of the Holy Spirit

I. The help which the Holy Ghost gives. If in time of trouble a man can pray, his burden loses its weight. But sometimes we are in such confusion of mind that we know not what we should pray for as we ought. We see the disease, but the name of the medicine is not known to us. When we know the matter of prayer, we yet fail to pray in a right manner. Coming to our aid in our bewilderment--
1. He instructs us. “He shall teach you all things.” He instructs us as to our need, and as to the promises of God which refer to that need.
2. He often directs the mind to the special subject of prayer. We sometimes find our minds carried as by a strong under-current into a particular line of prayer for some one definite object. It is not merely that our judgment leads us in that direction, though usually the Spirit of God acts upon us by enlightening our judgment, but we often feel an unaccountable and irresistible desire rising again and again within our heart.
3. He Himself “maketh intercession for us”; not that He ever groans or personally prays, but He excites intense desire and unutterable groanings in us, and these are ascribed to Him; even as Solomon built the temple because he superintended and ordained all.
4. He strengthens the faith of believers. That faith is at first of His creating, and afterwards it is of His sustaining and increasing.
5. In this whole matter the Spirit acts--
(1) As a prompter to a reciter.
(2) As an advocate to one in peril at law.
(3) As a father aiding his boy.
II. The prayer which the Holy Spirit inspires. The prayers which are indited in us by the Spirit of God are--
1. Those which arise from our inmost soul. A man’s heart is moved when he groans.
2. Such prayers will rise within us when the mind is far too troubled to let us speak. We know not what we should pray for as we ought, and then it is that we groan. Hezekiah said, “Like a crane or a swallow did I chatter.” The Psalmist said, “I am so troubled that I cannot speak.”
3. They sometimes concern such great things that they cannot be spoken. If it were some little thing, my narrow capacity could comprehend and describe it, but I need all covenant blessings. But it may be that we groan because we are conscious of the littleness of our desire and the narrowness of our faith. The trial, too, may seem too mean to pray about.
4. They are prayers of knowledge. Notice, our difficulty is that we know not what we should pray for; but the Holy Spirit does know, and therefore He helps us by enabling us to pray intelligently, knowing what we are asking for. The text speaks of the “mind of the Spirit.” What a mind that must be! And it is seen in our intercessions when under His sacred influence we order our case before the Lord, and plead with holy wisdom for things convenient and necessary.
5. They are prayers offered in a proper manner. The Spirit works in us humility, earnestness, intensity, importunity, faith, and resignation, and all else that is acceptable to God in our supplications. We know not how to mingle these sacred spices in the incense of prayer. If left to ourselves, we get too much of one ingredient or another and spoil the sacred compound, but the Holy Spirit’s intercessions have in them such a blessed blending of all that is good that they come up as a sweet perfume before the Lord.
6. They are only in the saints.
III. The sure success of all such prayers.
1. There is a meaning in them which God reads and approves. When the Spirit of God writes a prayer upon a man’s heart, the man himself may be in such a state of mind that he does not altogether know what it is. His interpretation of it is a groan, and that is all. Yet our heavenly Father, who looks immediately upon the heart, reads what the Spirit of God has indited there. “He knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit.” Did not Jesus say, “Your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of these things before you ask them”?
2. They are “the mind of the Spirit.” God is one, and therefore it cannot be conceived without profanity, that anything could be the mind of the Holy Spirit and not be the mind of the Father and of the Son. If, therefore, the Holy Spirit move you to any desire, then His mind is in your prayer, and it is not possible that the eternal Father should reject your petitions.
3. They are according to the will or mind of God, for He never maketh intercession in us other than is consistent with the Divine will.
​(C. H. Spurgeon.)

True prayer is not pestering the throne with passionate entreaties that a certain method of deliverance which seems best to us should be forthwith effected; but is a calm utterance of need, and a patient, submissive expectance of fitting help, of which we dare not define the manner or the time. They are wisest, most trustful, and reverent who do not seek to impose their notions or wills on the clearer wisdom and deeper love to which they betake themselves, but are satisfied with leaving all to His arbitrament. True prayer is the bending of our own wills to the divine, not the urging of ours on it. When Hezekiah received the insolent letter from the invader, he took it and “spread it before the Lord,” asking God to read it, leaving all else to Him to determine, as if he had said, Behold, Lord, this boastful page. I bring it to Thee’ and now it is Thine affair more than mine. The burden which we roll on God lies lightly on our own shoulders; and if we do roll it thither, we need not trouble ourselves with the question of how He will deal with it.—(Maclaren)

The Spirit helps in our groaning.—The Holy Spirit, by means of the gospel which explains the meaning of the death of Christ, makes us conscious of God’s love; and thus gives us the confidence of children, and elicits the cry, My Father God. Since this cry is the result of the Spirit’s presence in our heart, it is the cry both of our own spirit and of the Spirit of God. It is uttered amid weariness and sorrow. Our present circumstances are utterly at variance with our true dignity as revealed by the Spirit. The contrast makes the present life a burden, and compels us to look forward eagerly to the day when we shall take our proper place as the sons of God. Our dissatisfaction with present surroundings, and our yearning for something better, give rise to inward groanings which words cannot express. Since these are a result of the filial confidence with which the Spirit by His own presence fills our hearts, they are the groans both of our own spirit and of the Spirit of God. Whatever is at variance with our dignity as sons is at variance with His purpose touching us. Whatever hinders the full development of our sonship hinders His work in us. Hence our yearning is the expression of His mind concerning us. Therefore by moving us to yearn He groans and yearns within us. By so doing He helps us in a way in which we specially need help. Left to ourselves, we should desire and long for that which is not good. But now we are sure that our longings are according to God’s will, for they are wrought in us by His Spirit. Again, since our longings express the purpose of the Spirit, they plead with God for their own fulfilment. To gratify our yearnings is to accomplish the purpose of His own Spirit—i.e., of Himself. Therefore by filling our hearts with His own desires and purposes concerning us the Spirit within us cries to the Father above us. This cry the Father cannot refuse to answer. That the voice is inaudible does not lessen its efficacy; for God hears the silent wish of the heart. He knows the purpose for which the Spirit has come to dwell within us—knows it to be in accordance with His own will, and to be a purpose of blessing for men whom God has made specially His own. In short, our own yearnings, resulting as they do from the presence of the Spirit, are themselves a pledge of their own realization.—(Beet)

He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the
​true riches? Luk 16:10-11

​If you are not faithful in the small matters pertaining to this world, if you do not use aright your property and influence, you cannot expect that God will commit to you the true riches of his grace. Men who are dishonest and worldly, and who do not employ the deceitful mammon as they ought, cannot expect to grow in grace. God does not confer grace upon them, and their being unfaithful in earthly matters is evidence that they “would be” also in much greater affairs, and would likewise “misimprove” the true riches.
​
True riches - The graces of the gospel; the influences of the Spirit; eternal life, or religion. The riches of this world are false, deceitful, not to be trusted Luk_16:9; the treasures of heaven are “true,” faithful, never-failing, Mat_6:19-20.  (Albert Barnes)
​
Luk 16:9  And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. 
​Mat 6:19  Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 
Mat 6:20  But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 
Mat 6:21  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 

When Christ said these words, were there young people standing by? If so, they must have sounded very strange in their ears. For youth does not realize that life on earth grows pale, nor in the midst of its treasures dreams that the day will come when they shall fail. But on the ears of older men and women His words fell with a profound meaning. They struck home to that which is bitterest in human life; more sharply felt, because more constant, than even the special sorrows which, breaking in from time to time on life, still leave us intervals of peace. It is the sense of the passing away of all things, the knowledge that day by day and hour by hour the moth and rust are at work; that time, as it slips by, steals with it our treasures, and with them our heart out of our bosom.
​
What are those true treasures which can never be exhausted? It is time we should seek and find these things, if they may be found. Do they exist? Oh, yes! There are things immortal, ever young. No moth corrupts the garment of a pure spirit; no rust consumes the armor of God—the shield of faith, the sandals of the Gospel of peace, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, the breastplate of truth. No thief can rob us of the love of God, the knowledge of His will, the peace of Christ and His joy, which the world cannot give or take.

The first of these treasures is Truth, and its correlative, Constancy; for that which is true endures all shocks. Give half the intensity to it you give to money or fame or human love, and it is yours—nay, give to its pursuit one week of the same consuming thought you give to anything you set your heart on, and it is yours for ever.

And righteousness, treasure of treasures, lord of all other treasures, protector and securer of all we care for upon earth, win it at all costs. For it is sin that is the rust and the moth that devour the joys and welfare of our lives.

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." The desire of earth will be towards heaven, because there will be full enjoyment there of these perfect things. We want fulfilment; we must have perfection, fulness of love and truth and purity, to be filled with all the fulness of God. Nothing less than that will satisfy the boundless thirst of the human soul. It is like the gulf in the Forum—till the most precious treasure is cast into it, it will not close. Therefore we cannot rest; therefore all the whole earth cannot give peace to one of us. Where our treasure is, not only our heart’s desire, but our very selves shall be at last.
(S. A. Brooke, The Fight of Faith, p. 307)
See also- Mat_19:21; Isa_33:6; Luk_12:33, Luk_18:22; 1Ti_6:17; Heb_10:34, Heb_11:26; Jas_2:5; 1Pe_1:4, 1Pe_5:4; Rev_2:9

Conclusion:
This devotion is being put here in the Prayer Closet, because this subject is of the most important in our walk in this world, and how we apply it in our daily lives-and live it out. When it comes to the mana of this world-how should we pray about our own personal needs? Paul gives good advice:

Php 4:6  Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. 

Breaking this down for understanding:
​Be careful for nothing. See Revision. The meaning is, "Have no distressing anxiety about anything. "Care-full" used to mean "full of care." Compare Mat_6:25.
But in everything, etc. Instead of anxiety, just lay the case before God, and trust him to do all things well. Three elements enter into the appeal to God: Prayer, the outpouring of the soul; supplication, stating our wants; thanksgiving; we must always come to God, not in a complaining spirit, but with thankfulness for present mercies.
And the peace of God. The peace that comes by putting all in the hands of the one who is able and willing to deliver. Whenever we fully trust the Lord there comes a peace that is past the understanding of those who have never experienced it.
Shall keep your hearts. That peace will be a guard which will keep the heart and thoughts holy and pure.

And, a corresponding verse that applies to this:
Php 4:19  But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. 
​
See also: supply: Gen_48:15; Deu_8:3-4; Neh_9:15; Psa_23:1-5, Psa_41:1-3, Psa_84:11, Psa_112:5-9; Pro_3:9-10, Pro_11:24-25; Mal_3:10; Luk_12:30-33; 2Co_9:8-11
according: Psa_36:8, Psa_104:24, Psa_130:7; Rom_9:23, Rom_11:33; Eph_1:7, Eph_1:18, Eph_2:7, Eph_3:8, Eph_3:16; Col_1:27, Col_3:16; 1Ti_6:17
glory: Rom_8:18; 2Co_4:17; 1Th_2:12; 1Pe_5:1, 1Pe_5:10
​
According to his riches - His fullness is infinite; and through Christ, whose followers we are, he will dispense every requisite blessing of providence, grace, and glory, to you. (Albert Barnes)

In walking with the Lord for over 45 yrs., and applying these verses to my prayer life, I've never seen God fail to meet the need-whether it be financial, or any other need. Now, the emphasis is on "our needs", not all our wants. There have been times when I've asked for, and moved in the direction to achieve something and found the door closed, and the answer seemed to be "No". I've learned over the years that when this happens, it is God's protection over my life-there's a good reason He's saying no, it's for my own good. Either there is something wrong with the situation, and He's blocking me from getting into trouble, or showing me I don't really need the thing I'm trying to attain. It's important to stop, and pray when things don't seem to be going the way you think it should. God always has our good in mind. It's best to use wisdom, and don't try to force the door open. Let it go, and let your prayer be "Your will be done".

There's a great deal of manipulating and merchandizing among ministries, that boils down to gluttony and greed; but they will not admit it to themselves. I know there are some large ministries that are honest, and work with integrity, but, sadly there's also a lot of them that don't.

Living a surrendered life brings the benefits Jesus talks about regarding the true riches of the Kingdom. The most important of them to me is-my personal walk with Jesus, and peace of mind. If you seek them, and come to the place that you've gotten a glimpse of what Jesus means-you won't want to be deceived, and will be quick to discern when your getting off course. Staying in His word, and in prayer on these issues will keep your feet on the path of righteousness.
May this be true, for you
Lorna Couillard