When You Pray

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

WHEN YOU PRAY

Matt 6:5-8

5 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

NIV

Although these words of Jesus are but the introduction of those words we consider to be “The Lord’s Prayer”, we should consider what he said be before he instructs them, or gives them an example of how to pray. The first impression that we see here is that God is not impressed with how many words we use in our prayer. The second thing we notice is that we should be praying in our secret place. However, this would preclude any corporate prayer, which we are often engaged in. It would seem that every time the church comes together, we feel we must spend time in prayer. However, here is where we might get into a little conflict with Jesus. He instructs us that when we pray, we should no keep in babbling like the pagans, thinking that God will hear us if we use a lot of words. We know some believers who feel the need to use a whole lot of words, carefully crafted words which again cannot be for the purpose of impressing God, which leads us to believe they feel the need to impress men. The whole point Jesus is making here is that God already knows all our needs and all He is asking that we just simple ask. We know there are some who believe that we should pray the scriptures, in which we are reminding God of what he said, or that we can be assured we are praying in his will. First, God needs no reminding, for he knows our need before we ask. Second, we do not think that He gave us His word so we can quote it back to Him, He knows what He said. Yes, we will get to “The Lord’s Prayer”, and yes, it is a pattern as to how we might pray in our secret place, when we are just having conversation with him about our times and troubles. But, again, are we just to recite His words back to Him, or are we to use His words as a pattern for prayer? This is not discarding those times as a congregation when we recite His prayer in unison. There may be some benefit in that, bringing us together, being of one mind, at least for a moment. But then we should also take those words to heart as we say them, rather than just rattling them off, keeping up with the lead prayer. Prayer does not have to be a long dissertation, but only needs to be speaking the request. If someone asks us to pray for them, we merely must pray for them, and not for all the unsaved in the world, or for our leaders, or the missionaries around the whole. When we are asked to prayer for someone, pray for them and them alone, for that is their need. It also does not need to be long and drawn out, it merely needs to be a prayer for their need. This “Lord’s Prayer” does not fit into those times of prayer, but it fits for us to use as an example of how to pray when we are in our secret place. For now, we simply need to ask for the need, the one God already knows we have, and we also know that he desires to bless us, to answer us. We do not serve a god of stone, or metal, crafted by human hands, that cannot speak. We serve a living God who speaks into our hearts, who knows us, knows our need, and wants us to just ask, and He will answer, but we must listen.