FOR WHAT ARE WE TO PRAY?
Matthew 6:5-8

Friends, as we begin our study today, may I ask you a question?  For what are you praying?  What does your prayer list look like?  If you are like me, your list encompasses a lot of names of people to whom you are near:  family, friends, missionaries, work associates.  Am I right?  Probably so.  But, are we seeing answers to our prayers?  I believe verses 7 and 8 of Matthew 6 strike at the heart of that question.

In verse 7 Jesus states that our prayers can become so routine that they actually become worthless.  The Jews, in Jesus’ day, had this mistaken notion that the real value of prayer lay in quantity and not necessarily in quality.  This resulted in the practice of long prayers.  Maybe they modeled this after the long prayers the prophets of Baal made there on the summit of Mount Carmel.  We read in 1 Kings 18:26-29 that they prayed from nine o’clock in morning to six o’clock in the evening, with no avail. 

Are we careful that our praying is not thoughtless, just a matter of routine?  Do we offer prayers only with our mouths, but our minds and hearts are not in an attitude of prayer?  I don’t know about you, but I have been guilty of this more often then I would like to imagine.  You are at a meeting and all of a sudden the leader in charge asks you to pray.  You comply, but often it is merely words flowing from your mouth and not from your heart because your heart is not in a state of prayer.  How we need to have the right heart attitude as we approach God in prayer. 

Jesus then affirms, in verse 8, that our heavenly Father knows what we need even before we ask Him.  So, why should we pray anyway?  I think John Calvin answers that question as well as any one.  Listen to his words:  Believers do not pray with the view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of exciting him to do his duty, or of urging him as though he were reluctant.  On the contrary, they pray in order that they may arouse themselves to seek him, that they may exercise their faith in meditating on his promises, that they may relieve themselves from their anxieties by pouring them into his bosom; in a word, that they may declare that from him alone they hope and expect, both for themselves and for others, all good things.  Friends, do you hear what Calvin is saying about prayer?  It is not for God, but for us.  Prayer prepares our hearts to enter into the presence of God, emptied of self in order to be filled with Him.  Prayer prepares us to be molded by the will of God.

Is prayer important?  Absolutely!  Are times of corporate prayer important?  Most assuredly, but those times take on more meaning as we all rediscover the joys of secret, private prayer.

Father, Give us a proper attitude as we pray.  Remove the selfishness that often flows from our lips.  Help us to pray those thoughts which flow from Your heart.  You have told us that You would grant us the desires of our heart.  Father, may those desires be Your desires.  This we pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

 

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