And when thou prayest,
thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the
synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.
Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father
which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee
openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they
think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. –
Matthew 6.5-7
Prayer is
another of those things that Jesus just says we are going to be doing. Prayer
is going to be a part of our lives. There may be times when we are called on to
pray in public and from things I have seen those times may present a temptation
to use that as a chance to show how ‘spiritual’ we are.
But Jesus talks
about prayer as a matter between a child and his Father. It is not a religious
exercise or ritual. It is not a chance for a religious spectacle.
In a proper
relationship children always have access to their father. Nobody can get in the
way. Thus it is with proper prayer.
When we pray
with go to our prayer room with awe that we we get to pray to our God, but we
go with the calm confidence that we are talking to our Father. It’s not a bunch
of religious words that we spout off and repeat with some kind of vain hope.
Our God sees us and He knows us and our needs.
How to pray?
Just go talk to Him. That’s all it takes.
No comments:
Post a Comment