Matthew 6:5-8

http://biblehub.com/parallelgospels/The_Sermon_on_the_Mount.htm

Prayer is talking with God.  Since we are talking with Him it only makes sense that we follow His instructions as to how we should go about doing that.  People tend to pray in the way that they want to pray instead of praying the way He wants us to pray.  Jesus gave very clear instructions as to where we should pray, where we shouldn’t pray and how we should and should not pray.  Today we will look at the where and the how not to pray and tomorrow we will look at how we should pray.  Once again Jesus makes it very clear that there are eternal rewards at stake.  I believer correct praying has a double reward.  The first reward is the answers to our prayers here on earth and the second reward is stored up for us in heaven.  Our motives are key to determining both types of reward.

PRAYING ON THE ROAD: Jesus said that hypocrites like to go out and pray in the synagogue or on the roadside in a loud voice so everyone can see and hear them.  In reality, they are not praying to God.  They are simply praying to impress people.  Jesus makes it clear that this type of praying will have no reward from Him.  The full reward is based solely on the opinions others have about them.  It is a good exercise for us to compare how we pray in public with how we pray when we are by ourselves.  Our public prayers tend to be eloquent, well thought out and delivered with passion.  Our private prayers tend to be disjointed, full of distractions and lacking in coherent content.  Unfortunately, many of us are a lot more like the hypocrites than we would care to admit.  There is nothing wrong with praying in public as long as we are not being motivated by the praise of men and striving to impress men with the way we pray. 

PRAYING IN THE ROOM: Instead of praying on the street or in the synagogue for others to see and hear our prayers; Jesus instructs His disciples to pray in an inner room with the door shut so we are hidden away from others.  This not only keeps us from being distracted but it also keeps us from being motivated by what others think.  The issue is not the room in and of itself; the issue is more about not praying is such a way as to attract the attention of others.  There are no secret places or secret words when it comes to our prayers.  He is able to hear our prayers from anywhere on the globe.  He delights in answering our prayers when we pray in a quiet and isolated place.  When He sees pure motives in our hearts; He not only grants our petition but He also will reward our prayers in heaven.  When we consider prayer, we are often tempted to compare ourselves with the little we know about the prayers of others and then seek to out due them in our prayers.  This displeases God.  We simply need to reverence God’s presence and talk to Him.

PRAYING WITH REPETITION: Another tendency we all have in prayers is to repeat words or entire prayers without really recognizing that we are talking to God.  We pray at meal times and on other occasions with basically the same words over and over again.  God wants our hearts and minds to be engaged as we pray and for us to simply worship Him as opposed to trying to get others to worship us.  There is no need to wax eloquent or to ask for the same things time and time again.  The Gentile unbelievers pray to their gods in this way.  They look at prayer as a ritual and think that by repeating themselves God will be obligated to fix whatever they think is wrong.  God just wants us to speak to Him from a humble perspective with sincere hearts.  God knows what we ask before we do but He still takes delight in hearing us petition Him.  We don’t need to try to manipulate God through our prayers.  We pray because we need to maintain fellowship with Him so we can live in a way that pleases Him.  Prayer is for our benefit not God’s


APPLICATION: Don’t make a show of our prayers no matter where we are.  We need to be especially careful when we are in public that our focus does not turn from God to Man.  We should have a place in our homes where we can go and spend time with God without having to answer to or be seen by men.  Our prayers should come from our hearts and not be long and repetitive with big impressive words.

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