Friday, September 30, 2016

October 1, 2016

"When you pray, don’t talk on and on as people do who don’t know God. They think God likes to hear long prayers. Don’t be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask." Matthew 6:7-8

As we have been examining this teaching of Jesus on prayer we have learned two truths from Him thus far:

1) Pray sincerely
2) Pray secretly

Today we will examine a third - pray securely. Come to God in a secure knowledge He is leaning toward you welcoming your prayer. You don't have prattle on with long and pretentious prayers. God doesn't have to be leveraged, cajoled or nagged.

Force?

These two verses from Jesus' teaching on prayer beg the question, "Is it the force of your prayer OR is it the focus of your prayer?"

It seems that, based on how the religious leaders prayed, they thought they could "soften God up" or "wear Him down" or "win Him over" by the sheer force and volume of their prayers. 

Have you been tempted to think that way?


 "When you pray, don’t talk on and on as people do who don’t know God. They think God likes to hear long prayers." Matthew 6:7
  
  "Can worry make you live longer? Why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow. They don’t work hard to make their clothes. But I tell you that Solomon with all his wealth wasn’t as well clothed as one of them. God gives such beauty to everything that grows in the fields, even though it is here today and thrown into a fire tomorrow.He will surely do even more for you! Why do you have such little faith?
Don’t worry and ask yourselves,“Will we have anything to eat? Will we have anything to drink? Will we have any clothes to wear?” Only people who don’t know God are always worrying about such things. Your Father in heaven knows that you need all of these." Matthew 6:27-32
  
·  Focus?


When you pray, come to God with the secure knowledge of Who He is and who you are in Him.



  "Don’t be like them. Your Father knows what you    need before you ask." Matthew 6:8

"I tell you not to worry about your life. Don’t worry about having something to eat, drink, or wear. Isn’t life more than food or clothing? Look at the birds in the sky! They don’t plant or harvest. They don’t even store grain in barns. Yet your Father in heaven takes care of them. Aren’t you worth more than birds?" Matthew 6:25-26

"But more than anything else, put God’s work first and do what he wants. Then the other things will be yours as well." Matthew 6:33

THROUGHOUT THIS CHAPTER JESUS REFERS TO GOD AS “FATHER” AND INSTRUCTS US TO DO THE SAME! HE TELLS US TO FOCUS ON THAT WHEN WE GO TO PRAYER AND BE SURE KNOWING:

·       He hears you!
·       He listens to you!
·       He loves you!
·       He knows what you need!
·       He cares about your needs!
·       He will provide what you need!


I don’t know about you, but I get excited about the thought of a God I don’t have to try to leverage, or coerce, or force to get what I pray for. It gives me a great deal of security to go in a room and close the door and pray to a God who loves me and longs to spend time with me and knows what I need and who is willing and able to provide it!