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. 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. 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.” (Matthew 6:5 – 8, New International Version, emphasis added)
Theme: Discipleship
Context:
Over the next two weeks, we will turn our attention to the relationship between disciples of Jesus and the discipline of Prayer. There are many avenues we can go down where this topic is concerned but we will focus on fanning the flames of passion for prayer, because disciples should be passionate about conversations with God. Consistent with this focus, we will perform high-level reviews of prayer in the Old and New Testaments with our antennas tuned to lessons that strengthen our love for communicating with God.
Today, we pause to reflect on our passion for prayer. Unfortunately, passion for prayer is often lacking in Christians for a variety of reasons. An extensive Pew Research Center survey conducted about a decade ago found that approximately 30 percent of Christians do not pray daily. I suspect that the result hasn’t changed materially since then. If loving to pray was a crime and we were charged, I wonder if we would be found guilty.
Bible Passage:
Matthew chapter 6 contains the model prayer for Jesus’ disciples, which we will get to later in the week. For now though, we will focus on a few verses earlier in the chapter that highlight the fact that Jesus assumes His disciples pray. We can proceed with confidence that Jesus’ disciples are expected to pray. In today’s passage, we also note that those who were chastised (the hypocrites and the pagans) appear passionate, but their passion is for themselves and their speech, not for God.
Please prayerfully read the Scripture passages above and consider the question below.
Question:
As we explore the discipline of prayer, think about how Jesus related to prayer during His earthly ministry. What evidence would you provide from the Bible in support of the fact that Jesus loved praying?
Sharing your thoughts could be a big help to someone else. Please leave a comment on the blog.