THOUGHTS FROM MATTHEW
February 11
Text: Matthew 6:5, 6
"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.
But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when
you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret,
and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.”
(NASB)
The
prayer practices of the first century Jewish individual and most
21st century Christians are quite different.
Some of those differences are evident in Matthew 6:5-7.
Most Christians of today do not think that personal
prayers are made more effective by praying them publicly, or
that prayer becomes more effective through thoughtless repetition
merely to increase the number of words.
Prayer
is meaningful communication offered by a human individual to a
divine individual.
Prayer is not a ritual that the human just “does” in order to
satisfy some desire of the divine individual.
Thus the human yields to this “mysterious practice”
because the divine individual wants it.
In this ritual practice, prayer has nothing to do with
human understanding and everything to do with divine desire.
The
first understanding that produces meaningful prayer is that God
sees in secret.
Human witnesses are unnecessary for God (1) to know that prayer
occurred or (2) to be informed about what is said.
Prayer is
meaningful communication between the human and God.
This communication exists because of the confident
dependence of the human and the compassionate caring of God.
Prayer’s foundation is not about the human declaring
his/her shopping list of desires to God, but about the human
individual praising God as the human acknowledges confident
dependence. Prayer
is not about informing God of human needs—God knows the needs
before the praying begins.
This is
Jesus’ second illustration of this fact: motives matter.
If one prayed to gain people’s praise, the human
attention sought is 100% of the prayer’s reward.
Prayer
is about your relationship with God, not about your desires for
an improved lifestyle.
Suggestion for reflection: When does prayer become selfish
rather than dependent?
(Read Acts 6: 3, 4.)
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