Prayer
Matthew 6:5-13
Prayer is the way we communicate with God, our means of communing with Him. Our opportunity of expressing our adoration, confession, gratitude and our petitions.
Prayer is letting Him hear our heart speaks.
Prayer can be personal – you and the Lord. Sometimes referred as private prayer.
Prayer can be corporate – can be made with small group or before the congregation.
In the following Verse, Jesus has given us a pattern, a guideline on how we should pray;
Our Heart …
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 others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.
Check our Heart …talks about our motivation
As we pray individually as personal or as a group corporately, still
Jesus warns us that we do not fall on the same mentality as with the hypocrites.
He wants us to understand that as we pray, we have to be conscious that we are not to enjoy getting attention from people around us, to protect the person from the tendency of having the pleasure of getting attention and to protect the surrounding people as well of making comparison and wrong judgment.
Jesus wants us to be humble when we pray, and not seeking for the spotlight.
Our Action …
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.
Check our Action …talks about how we pray
In our personal individual prayers, Jesus wants us to pray secretly.
Though God listen to our prayer everywhere, He prefers us to be with Him in a solitude place. Jesus wants us to develop a habit of meeting God in a more private place…just between Him and our self. Though He can hear us wherever we are, he want us to set a special place for Him.
It’s like the idea of having a personal romantic date with God.
His Intention is to move us out from the busy-ness of life, from the chaotic environment and have us in the calm and peacefulness of His care.
He is our refuge, He encourage us to pray secretly so that we can expose ourselves to him in details whole heartedly without even letting others know.
Our Words …
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.
Check our Words …talks about the words we use in our prayer
He wants to listen to our inner most details as we expressed our thoughts to Him, but at the same time He wants us to be careful, to not use too much jargon and unnecessary words. To be concise and mindful of the things we have to say. Making understand that our having too much words does not make one more spiritual than others but what the sincerity of our heart does.
9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
Our Contextual Pattern …
“‘Our Father in heaven, Our Relationship
hallowed be your name, Our Reverence
10 your kingdom come, Our Expectation
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven. Our Point of Reference
11 Give us today our daily bread. Our Consistency
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors. Our Behavior
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’ Our Strength and Protection
The contextual pattern give us the pointers that our prayer should start with our relationship with God, knowing who He is and understanding His position in our life.
We come to His throne of Grace with Full expectation through our faith, knowing that His kingdom, His kingship in heaven is our standard and not on earth.
That our prayer should be a daily consistent avenue of God’s blessings and provisions as we go to Him with rightful attitude and behavior and lastly acknowledging that Him and Him alone is our source of Strength and protection …
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
Blessings,
Bro. Adel
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