Pray for God’s Sake

(Christ’s 16th-18th Command)
By Brother R. Michel Lankford

"When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may 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, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. "And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. "So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. (Matthew 6:5-8 NASB95)

 

Specific Commands in Today's Passage

#16 -"When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full
#17 - But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
#18 - And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. "So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
Prayer is one of the most significant of all spiritual disciplines. In order to understand this crucial practice more clearly, it is good to periodically remind ourselves of the object of our prayers. Think about it for a moment. With the right heart, a few phrases, and mere seconds of our time, we actually have the ear of the Almighty God who is love (1 John 4:8). In the blink of an eye we have the attention of the One whom in His awesome greatness made heaven and the earth by the word of His mouth. In a single breath we enter into communication with the Lord Almighty God who is all-powerful, omnipresent, just and merciful beyond all description. Prayer is the most important of all spiritual disciplines because it places us in direct contact and communication with the Creator. When we consider all the love, all the circumstance changing power, all of the forgiveness and healing that God offers to provide, I'm amazed that more people do not clamor to learn how to pray. At the same time, with the access to such power also comes great responsibility. We want our prayers to accomplish much and bring great results, so it is important to get it right.
The disciples in Messiah’s day caught on to the power and importance of prayer. The reason we know this is because it is the one discipline which the disciples specifically requested for the Lord to teach them (Luke 11:1). It's interesting to note that they did not say, teach us to preach. They did not say teach us to evangelize so that when we testify people will be saved and follow God. They did not ask teach us to build effective organized congregations that will have a powerful impact in the world. All of those can be wonderful things, but the Gospels do not record that they requested any of those, but they specifically requested, "Lord, teach us to pray."
I believe that the disciples did this because somewhere in their understanding they knew that all of those other good important human needs would be met by God, if they could simply learn to reach God in their prayers. After all, they had often seen Messiah's prayers have enormous life-changing impact.
The disciples had repeatedly seen that when Jesus (Yeshua) prayed, God listened and circumstances radically changed. They had seen Jesus (Yeshua) pray and God multiplied a simple lunch to feed thousands. When Jesus (Yeshua) prayed, sinners repented. When Jesus (Yeshua) prayed, demon possessed people were delivered, sinners were forgiven, the sick were healed, and the dead were raised. It was not hard for the disciples to see that Yeshua had a connection to God that there other spiritual leaders did not, because when Jesus (Yeshua) called on God the great and marvelous started becoming an everyday occurrence. Simply put, I believe that the disciples wanted to have that kind of connection with God which Jesus (Yeshua) had, and they wanted to learn how to pray so that God would answer their prayers much like God answered when Jesus (Yeshua) prayed. So it is no small wonder that they asked, "Lord teach us to pray."
Messiah begins His teaching on prayer by employing be interesting method of illustrating by contrasting opposites. Just as Christ taught us how to minister to the poor by first showing us what not to do (Matthew 6:1-2), then showing us how to do it properly (Matthew 6:3-4). Christ uses the same method of teaching by contrasting opposites when He teaches us how to pray. He starts out by teaching us the opposite of what we're trying to learn. He is going to teach us how to pray by first teaching us how not to pray.
"When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.”
The first “do not” that Jesus (Yeshua) brings to the table is addressed to the religious and the righteous. The same command that he gave concerning giving to the needy, He repeats concerning prayer. When we give we should give so that we receive God's approval not human approval. The same admonition holds true in prayer when we pray we should avoid praying with the goal of being seen noticed and approved of by other people. God is to be our only audience. Yahweh Almighty God's approval should be our only aim. If our purpose in giving to the needy is to be noticed and approved of by other people, we lose God's approval and reward. Likewise, if we pray to be noticed by other people, we lose our audience and reward from God. In such a case prayer would become useless. I say that because normally when we pray we are praying inviting Yahweh Almighty God to intervene in a situation which human beings cannot solve. If men could solve it we would not need to pray to Yahweh, so we should take care not to lose our audience with God.
"But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
One of the keys to proper prayer is to always keep in mind that God is our only audience. We are praying to strengthen our relationship, to deepen our intimacy, to increase communication and to receive assistance and instruction from Almighty God. That is why we pray. So he must be the only audience of concern to us. Keeping this in mind, that means that the majority of our praying must be private between us and the Lord. Most of the time we should be in a quiet secluded place where we are not likely to be interrupted.

 

 

Public Prayer is NOT outlawed

Was Messiah outlawing all public or community prayer? No He was not. There are times when even Jesus (Yeshua) prayed publicly. However, one must be careful and deliberate to make sure that our motives are correct, and that we are seeking God's approval not trying to impress other people with our prayers.
So, when is praying publicly acceptable? Well, once Yeshua prayed publicly to give thanks to God before feeding the multitudes (John 6:11). Another time Jesus prayed publicly to teach others how to pray (Matthew 6:9-15). Another time Jesus publicly in order to build up the faith of those listening (John 11:41-43). Another time Yeshua prayed publicly for the benefit of his disciples before he died to be raised again for our justification (John 17:1-26). Did you notice that in every instance where Messiah prayed publicly, He did so because it was of particular benefit to the person listening. He did it to provide a specific need the listeners had, to provide comfort, or to build faith which the listeners needed. It was never done for personal glorification. So unless we are praying to meet the specific needs of someone in earshot, or for public Thanksgiving, then we should certainly keep the majority of our prayers as private conversations between us and God.

 

The Importance of Listening in Prayer

True prayer at its best is meant to be a two-way communication with the Creator of the universe. There is a legitimate place for praise, for giving thanks, for petitioning, and for sharing your joys and sorrows with our Heavenly Father, but we most certainly should not be doing all of the talking. I believe that truly effective prayer has not been thoroughly accomplished until after we poured our heart we have then sat for a few moments, and given Yahweh Almighty God our Father, a genuine opportunity to speak to our hearts, while we bend our ears to listen to Him. True and effective prayer then also includes a willingness and readiness ear and act upon His Word, and the leading of the Holy Spirit. In keeping with this principle, I recently learned how overwhelmingly important for us to be open and receptive to God's Laws, Commandments, Instructions and Principles. In fact, according to Scripture, if we are not open and receptive to hearing God's Laws, then God Himself will reject our prayers as a detestable abomination to Him.

“One who turns away his ear from hearing the Law, even his prayer is an abomination.” (Proverbs 28:9, NKJV)

So a key principle in prayer is that if we desire for God to be attentive and to look favorably upon our prayers, then we must be willing and receptive to hear Yahweh's commands and instructions, both in written form through the Scriptures, and by way of the Holy Spirit who will remind us of what Scripture and Messiah says.
Yahweh Almighty God, have mercy upon us, and save us by your unfailing love, and through Yeshua. In your mercy LORD, teach us to pray. Help us to learn to pray in such a way that you will mercifully hear and favorably respond when we call upon You. Give us grace to pour our hearts sincerely but help us to be sincerely willing and eager to also hear Your Laws Commandments and Instructions, and grant us grace to obey what You say that we may be truly blessed. In Yeshua the Messiah's name, amen.
Brother R. Michel Lankford