Matthew 6:6 - But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.
In the introduction to today’s devotional, Chambers says:
The main idea in the region of religion is – Your eyes upon God, not on men. Do not have as your motive the desire to be known as a praying man. Get an inner chamber in which to pray where no one knows you are praying, shut the door and talk to God in secret. Have no other motive than to know your Father in heaven. It is impossible to conduct your life as a disciple without definite times of secret prayer.
Once again Chambers hammers home the notion that our faith is NOT a show for other men, it is a relationship with the Almighty God. If we feel it necessary to share with everyone how long we spent in prayer on any given day, then perhaps our motivation for it is the admiration of men and not the enhancement of our relationship with the Lord. What work can God do through prayer motivated by pride? When we contemplate any act of worship, we must make it all about our God. The best way to “check” our pride is to keep it between us and our Lord.
Prayer is the all-too-often underutilized tool of the believer. We pray before meals, with our children at bedtime, and certainly in times of crisis, but do we see our time of prayer as the opportunity to truly know our Father in Heaven? And do we practice it as such? I am sad to admit that I’ve been guilty of neglect in this area.
When I began dating David, I could not spend enough time with him. I wanted to be with him every single waking minute (actually, 17 years later, I still do, but the frenzy has died down a bit). We worked together and I can’t count the number of nights we sat in the parking lot after our shifts were over and talked for hours at a time. We wanted to know everything about each other and it was through those hours of conversation that eventually, we did.
We get to know our Lord in the same way – our time of prayer is our conversation with Him and it is through this conversation that we learn who He is. I’m sad to say that if I spent the same amount of time getting to know David as I spent getting to know God, I’m not sure we’d have ever gone on a second date, much less gotten married. This time of prayer is invaluable. It is not only our lifeline to our God, it allows us to know Him intimately. Chambers reminds us: Prayer is not simply getting things from God, that is a most initial form of prayer; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God. Do we really GET that? God is not a genie who comes forth with our every wish when we rub the lamp in just the right way. He desires a relationship with us and it is the time we spend with him in prayer that cultivates that relationship.
“Everyone that asketh receiveth.” We pray pious blether, our will is not in it, and then we say God does not answer; we never asked for anything. “Ye shall ask what ye will,” said Jesus. Asking means our will is in it.
One of the reasons our private times of prayer are so valuable is because is strips away all of our inclinations to pray for our audience rather than for our God. By that, I don’t mean lifting them in prayer, I mean choosing our words and our content with the opinions of the listeners in mind. If our prayers sound lovely and holy, but they lack a Christ-centered will, then they simply aren’t effective. When we pray, we don’t have to use special words or worry that we won’t sound “spiritual” enough – that is simply pious blether. God knows us and sees us as we are. There is no need (and no point) in trying to be anything other than who we are. We must simply pray, and when we ask with a will that has been submitted to Christ, we will receive.
You're singing my song, Catharine! E.M. Bounds says, "We can do nothing without prayer. All things can be done through importunate prayer. It surmounts or removes all obstacles, overcomes every resisting force, and gains its ends in the face of invincible hindrances." How very true -- but how many of us really GET that? How many of us know that prayer is our spiritual dynamite -- the mightiest weapon we have in our God-given arsenal?
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of us don't pray as we should because we pray to GET something, and when God doesn't answer (because we are not praying in accordance with His will), we callously assume prayer doesn't work, so we stop. May we draw closer to God with sincere, pure hearts, for the express purpose of getting to know HIM -- and not for what we think He can give us.