Seedsower Music:: Praying For The Wrong Reason

Just why did Jesus promote praying in seclusion, with the door closed? Our tendency to pray horizontally and not vertically must be avoided at all costs. We naturally posture and pose, and suddenly what is beautiful turns ugly, both to man and to God.

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Praying For The Wrong Reason

January 5, 2009

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 men. Matthew 6:5

So was Jesus saying that we should never pray in public? Hardly. In Acts 1, we see that the early believers joined together constantly in prayer.

As fallen creatures, prayer can turn into posturing, and we need to be on guard of our motives at all times. Consider the words of P. T. Forsythe in THE SOUL OF PRAYER...

There are fervent prayers, which, by making people feel good, may do no more than foster the delusion that natural vigor or robust religion, when flushed enough, can do the work of the kingdom of God.

There is a certain egoist-self-confidence which is increased by the more elementary forms of religion, which upholds us in much of our contact with men, and which even secures us influence with them.

But the influence is one of impression rather than permiation, it overbears rather than converts, and it inflames rather than inspires.

C. H. Spurgeon warns against mistaking preaching for prayer when...

"....friends reputed to be 'gifted' indulge themselves in public prayer with a review of their own experience, a recapitulation of their creed, an occasional running commentary upon a chapter or a Psalm, or even a criticism upon the pastor and his sermons."

"It is all too often quite forgotten that the brother is addressing the divine Majesty, before whose glory an attempt at swelling words and pompous periods is little short of profanity; the harangue is evidentally intended for man than for God, and on some occasions does not contain a single petition from beginning to end."

"We hope that good men are leaving this unhallowed practice, and are beginning to see that sermons and doctrinal disquisitions are miserable substitutes for earnest wrestling prayers, when our place is before the mercy-seat, and our engagement is intercession with the Most High."

Father, spare us from such wrongheaded prayers. Amen.