LEARNING TO PRAY, Pt. 1…4/18/08
by SteveJesus made three strong statements about prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, and every one of them were negative. The first one was this: Don’t be hypocritical. Listen to these words from Matt. 6:
Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. And when you pray, you are not to be as the hypocrites for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners, in order to be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
Jesus reserved some of his strongest words for hypocrisy. He despised it. He repeats three times in this sermon that those who do their thing in order to be seen get all the reward they will ever get now. And he makes it abundantly clear that nothing will be gained later on. Rather than making a cheap show of it, Jesus says: But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matt. 6:6)
Now listen very carefully to this. Prayer is never something we do to be seen. It loses its whole purpose when it becomes a platform to impress others. It is a private act of devotion, not a public demonstration of piety. According to Jesus, the world’s greatest authority on prayer, it belongs in the closet of our lives, an act to be done in secret.
You know, I guess this is the reason the whole public debate about school prayer disturbs me so. Politicians are getting a lot of mileage out of it, people on both sides get all stirred up and even angry with those who disagree with them. What does this passage say? Do your praying in private. No one has ever passed a law that prohibits that! There is not now and never has been a law that prohibits praying the way Jesus said it ought to be done. Don’t just go into your closet, Jesus said go into your closet and shut the door! Prayer is between you and God. It’s not a public demonstration, a big show at the flag pole! It’s in your room, in secret, alone with God. And if some politician tries to get you stirred up about school prayer, I hope you’ll remember that.
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I so appreciate this entry!! My relationship with God…well is just that. A relationship, and in all relationships we have things that are private, which is what makes them special. I have always prayed to God in private and can remember being made to feel guilty for being this way. There were times when in my former church and even among family, I have sat with sweaty palms, racing heart and heat flashes knowing I was going to be made to pray in front of everyone! The other alternative was for a person to say pass and then eyes darted your way questioning why you had the audacity not to say so much as a few words to praise our Lord. My not praying in public has never meant that I was ashamed or that my faith was not as strong as the one who prayed aloud. It is just simply that I prefer to pray alone.
Thank you for this message.
I too always felt that praying is an internal, quiet time.
Now Steve, I have always had a problem with ‘praying at the rail’. When you ask folks to lay their problems on the rail and pray, I cannot conceive of the desire to do so. God can hear me right there in the pew, or in my car, or at work, wherever I am; how do folks benefit from praying at the rail?
Zoe…it just makes me feel good to see them come, and it also gives me an opportunity to pray with them. For some, the coming forward publicly is special, mostly, I guess, depending upon the tradition they have grown up in. For others, it’s just like you said, and one is not necessarily better than the other.
PRAYING IS A QUITE TIME WITH GOD.I HAD THIS CONVERSATION WITH DEAN THIS AFTERNOON. WE WERE ON OUR WAY TO STONE MTN., I TOLD HIM THAT I COULD GET IN MY CAR AND DRIVE AND DRIVE AND I COULD CARRY ON A CONVERSATION WITH GOD, BUT THERE IS ALSO A TIME WHEN I LIKE TO BE IN MY BEDROOM AND TALK WITH HIM ALSO. IN THE MORNINGS I TURN MY RADIO DOWN AND HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH HIM BEFORE WORK.