Ping!
James 5:16 KJV 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.
Organized religion ... “how” you pray is more important than anything else ... for instance content and sincerity?
What if you’re in the throes of sin and you pray to God for help?
Calvin presupposes that you have to be perfect or near perfect for God to hear you. Is that a correct understanding?
Yet God never abandons us. He’s always looking for us. He’s always with us, even if we’re eating out of a pig trough.
The Death, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, believed in, gives us “boldness and access” to the Father. That’s the believers firm foundation. We can grow and mature in this, but there is NO separation any more due to sin. We “are accepted in the Beloved”.
I got the above from Paul, not Calvin:
“In Him and through faith in Him we may enter God’s presence with boldness and confidence.”—Ephesians 3:12
“...the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”—Ephesians 1:6
In Him. By Him.
That’s my point ... but we need “rules” for this?
I hope you’ll tolerate a question from a Catholic.
It might help to define what Calvin means when he says that God closes his ears to the prayers of the wicked. Who is “wicked?” If faith is the instrument of our salvation (even Catholics believe that much), isn’t the mere act of praying (presuming, of course, that it is sincere) a sign of faith? If by “wicked” one means “one behaves wickedly,” and “prayer” shall be understood as prayer in deference to God’s will, wouldn’t the true prayer of the wicked be deliverance from wickedness and therefore it would be heard?
Or does Calvin precisely mean that God does not hear the insincere nor self-seeking prayer?
Today I count, "God please help me", as one of my most heartfelt and effective prayers - He knows what I need versus what I would like and I trust Him to do as He will.