How should we pray?
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2011 · 11 September 2011
Today is the day that we remember the events that unfolded in New York on September 11, 2001 ten years ago. Thousands of people lost their lives as the 2 fully loaded planes destroyed the Twin Towers in New York and changed the attitude of many people towards their safety and towards other religions.
This event highlights the fact that we are not in control over a lot of what happens to us. But we believe that God is in control and Jesus teaches us to pray to communicate with Him. And maybe you are wondering whether prayer helps at all. So let us study the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus himself and look what God says about praying.
So open up your bibles to Matthew 6:5-8, “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 6But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. 7And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.”
Now as we are about to study prayer I know that there are differing opinions even among Christians about how prayer functions since God is sovereign. Let me give you the two differing Christian opinions and then we can decide after hearing Jesus’ sermon whether our own opinion is correct or not.
First of all we need to accept that there are many things that God does that we as people cannot begin to understand fully. Even regarding salvation there are many Christians that cannot reconcile the fact that God predestines (Rom 8:29) and chooses before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4) and that God also says that men chooses because everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved (Rom. 10:13).
Now related to prayer there is one opinion that says that because God is sovereign and in control of everything, He is going to do whatever He wills whether or not we pray. Prayer in that view is not really essential related to God’s actions but it is essential in helping us align ourselves with God’s purposes. Generally that is the Calvinistic viewpoint.
Now the Armenian view is that God only does things based on people’s prayers. So some people are really praying to God for Him to do things that He would otherwise not do. And it is difficult to deal with that because in the bible we have seen examples of how God seems to change His mind or His direction that apparently He wouldn’t have done otherwise.
However there are also other times when God says I’m going to do what I’m going to do since you have not listened to my many warnings. And yet at the same time we know that God also changes His mind about judging us when we truly repent and ask for forgiveness.
Even the greatest Christians that are used by God mightily in the past could not comprehend some of these mysteries that only God knows and among those mysteries is certainly the issue of how human prayer influences a sovereign God.
But we must pray as Jesus is teaching us and we must be committed to the principles of prayer as Jesus tells us. God is teaching us to be obedient in prayer whether we understand how this mystery works or not. Being obedient in our prayer life is a basic principle that all Christians need to learn.
Jesus is again showing us what is really important in our spiritual life and contrasts that with what the Pharisees and Scribes were teaching at that time. In Matthew 5 Jesus has told us that God’s standards are much higher than those of the Pharisees and here He gives us as an example our prayer life.
Now prayer was an important issue for the Jews, everyone was involved. In fact the rabbis taught the Jews that prayer was even more important than good works. They wrote that they regretted the fact that they could not pray all day long. So they really prioritized prayer. And they had to do it in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening.
But they prayed hypocritically. They prayed to be heard by men instead of praying to communicate with God. They prayed so that others might think of them as being very spiritual instead of pouring out their hearts to God. They prayed the Shimah, basically Deuteronomy 6, "Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord."
And they went from Deuteronomy 6:4-9 over to Deuteronomy 11:13-21 over to Numbers 15:37-41. They took all those verses together and they made this long prayer out of it and the Jew had to pray it again and again. And by the way, if the Shimah was a little long for you, they had adapted a summary that you could pray if you were in a hurry.
Now, wherever they were, they had to pray this at the right time. If you were walking along the road, if you were in the field, if you were in your house, if you were at the synagogue, when the time came, you needed to do this so people would be praying at different places all through these times during the day.
Now prayer can take many forms. It could be a true loving communion with God even though this was a prescribed prayer if you heart is right for God. You could really think it through when you prayed, but most Jews were not in that category. The Pharisees only wanted to show off how religious they were and then there are those who only go through the motions of prayer to get it over with.
The Jews also developed special prayers for different occasions. And they had prayers for everything, prayers for lightning, prayers for the new moon, prayers for rain, prayers for the sea, prayers for good news and prayers for bad news, prayers for new furniture and prayers going out of town. And the thing they did is to memorize these specific prayers and recite them for whatever occasion they were involved in.
This reminds me of how people from other religions pray ritually without any effect on their hearts, especially when they have to pray in Arabic without understanding what is being said or when the Buddhist monks need to twirl the prayer beads to keep track of how many times a mantra is recited while meditating or the prayer wheel with written prayers that they just twirl from the Tibetan Buddhist.
And now Jesus tells us to pray differently in Matthew 6:6, by “going into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” Jesus is teaching us 4 things about prayer, first that we should not pray ritualistically but personally to our Father in heaven.
We nowadays also are used to pray the same prayers over and over again without thinking, as if we have nothing new to say. Even reciting the Lord’s Prayer without thinking or feeling is not beneficial. To pray personally means to acknowledge our personal shortcomings and to thank Him for all the blessings He has given you recently and ask Him what you specifically spiritually want Him to do more of.
The main point of prayer is not where you pray but what attitude you have when you pray. It is not that you have to go to a secret place to pray but that you are sincere when you pray. A true worshipper is not interested in a public display but in a place that is secluded and appropriate for his prayer. There is where he can pray alone with God.
Jesus also says something about the length of prayers in Matthew 6:7, “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.” Jesus teaches us secondly to pray sincerely. It is not how long you pray but how honest and sincere you are in your prayer.
The Pharisees also loved to pray for a long time; the longer they prayed the more people could see them and praise them for their spirituality. The Lord said in Mark 12:40, "For pretense, they make long prayers." There is nothing wrong with a long prayer if it's a real prayer. But if you're trying to impress everybody with your verbosity and your theology than it is not a prayer to God but it is to get praise from men.
The rabbis used to say whenever a prayer is long, that prayer will surely be heard. And the implication is that you've got to spend the first few minutes just getting God's attention. Jesus is saying that “vain repetitions” is a pagan practice, “as the heathens do.” The pagan approach to prayer is you keep repeating yourself until their god gets so weary of hearing you that He does what you want.
Do you remember the encounter between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, where he really gave them a bad time? You know, he kept egging them on. Maybe He's on a vacation. Maybe he can't hear you, better yell a little louder, he might be asleep. You know, that they prayed all day long and they kept saying oh Baal hear us. Oh Baal hear us. Hour after hour after hour, they repeated that same phrase, trying to wake up their god.
And Jesus also says in Matthew 6:5 that these rabbis “loved to pray” meaning love to pray long. Why? Was it because they loved God so much? No, Jesus saw their heart and their intentions and He said, “For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men.”
And the Jews liked long prayers and they have found some old Jewish prayers where they put 16 adjectives before the name of God, as many as they could think of. They were more concerned about what they were saying and how it sounded than they were about what they were saying to the God to whom they pretended to speak.
Jews in Israel today stand in one spot in their black suits and their black hats and they genuflect for hours repeating the same prayer over and over. They take that prayer, stick it in the cracks of the wailing wall and as long as it stays in the crack, it's being offered to God, as if God needed information, as if God had to pressured into responding.
Many of the prayers recorded in Scripture are brief and simple, such as that of: Moses (Exod. 32:31, 32) or Solomon (for an understanding heart, 1 Kings 3:6–9), Elijah (1 Kings 18:36, 37) and Jabez (1 Chron. 4:10). And in the New Testament we see the publican (Luke 18:13), the dying thief (Luke 23:42), Stephen (Acts 7:60) and Paul (for the Ephesians, Eph. 3:14–19).
Christ’s high priestly or intercessory prayer Himself, too, can hardly be called lengthy (John 17), and the Lord’s Prayer, which he taught his disciples to pray, is certainly marked by brevity (Matt. 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4).
Jesus thirdly teaches us to pray confidently. In Matthew 6:8 He says, ““Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.” Prayer is not a tool to get from the Lord the blessings that He has withheld from us. No, prayer is a means to receive what God already wants to give us.
Unlike an earthly father who guesses what his children need, God as our heavenly father knows exactly what we need. Some might say, “Then, why pray at all?” They, however, miss the point. Jesus was not condemning the outpouring of the heart to God, not even when all facts are already known to the Lord.
In fact, it is just because an earthly father or mother understands a child so thoroughly and knows its needs better than any stranger does, that the child will go with his needs to him and/or to her, which is exactly what loving parents want him to do. And that is what God wants us to do as well.
Jesus does not want us to be fearful and unbelieving, like pagans who repeat their requests over and over because their gods need to be informed and placated with gifts and sacrifices in order for them to act favorably.
And lastly Jesus teaches us to pray purposefully. Matthew 6:9–13 says, “9Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread, 12and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
It is ironic that this prayer is often used by many people to be repeated without thinking and understanding. Some Christians even believe that the more you repeat this prayer the more spiritual you will become. But Jesus is giving his disciples a model of how to pray, not as a model of what always to pray.
The comprehensive nature of this prayer appears from the fact that they bear reference not only to God’s glory (first three petitions), but also to our needs (last three); not only to our physical needs (fourth petition), but also to our spiritual (fifth and sixth); not only to our present need (fourth petition), but also to our need with reference to the past (fifth), and even to our future need (sixth).
Finally, in this Lord’s Prayer the worshiper carries to the throne of grace the burdens that are not only his own but also his brothers’ (“our,” “us”). All of this is included in the six brief requests. This is indeed the perfect pattern for our prayers! Prayer is coming to God knowing that He is almighty and loving and asking Him to show us His glory.
A good guide for prayer is putting it in your own words by beginning with acknowledging God’s position (vs. 9), and then align yourself with God’s plan (vs. 10), and then ask for God’s provisions (vs. 11-13), which include physical sustenance, forgiveness of sin and protection from the devil.
John MacArthur believes that praying is like breathing, we need this to live, and we need to do it all the time not just three times a day, otherwise we will also die spiritually. My hope is that we all will grow in our prayer life so that you will bless God and the many people you come in contact with as well, Amen?