Praying to God in Secret

September 16th, 2014 by Dave Leave a reply »

When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place . . . —Matthew 6:6

The primary thought in the area of religion is— keep your eyes on God, not on people. Your motivation should not be the desire to be known as a praying person. Find an inner room in which to pray where no one even knows you are praying, shut the door, and talk to God in secret. Have no motivation other than to know your Father in heaven. It is impossible to carry on your life as a disciple without definite times of secret prayer.

“When you pray, do not use vain repetitions . . .” (Matthew 6:7). God does not hear us because we pray earnestly— He hears us solely on the basis of redemption. God is never impressed by our earnestness. Prayer is not simply getting things from God— that is only the most elementary kind of prayer. Prayer is coming into perfect fellowship and oneness with God. If the Son of God has been formed in us through regeneration (see Galatians 4:19), then He will continue to press on beyond our common sense and will change our attitude about the things for which we pray.

“Everyone who asks receives . . .” (Matthew 7:8). We pray religious nonsense without even involving our will, and then we say that God did not answer— but in reality we have never asked for anything. Jesus said, “. . . you will ask what you desire. . .” (John 15:7). Asking means that our will must be involved. Whenever Jesus talked about prayer, He spoke with wonderful childlike simplicity. Then we respond with our critical attitude, saying, “Yes, but even Jesus said that we must ask.” But remember that we have to ask things of God that are in keeping with the God whom Jesus Christ revealed.

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Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord,
Chambers says we must ask for the right things in order to benefit from Matthew 7:8 Everyone who asks receives. So in the many times that I’ve asked and not received, (at least not how I wanted to receive) I assume that I did not ask correctly, or that I had not connected with you and received your heart and your will on the subject before asking. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just making up excuses for you … or for me. Sometimes I just back away and dont deal with some of this stuff that I dont understand and use this as the answer. Then, there’s Isaiah 55:8-9

8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

I agree, my thoughts are nothing like your thoughts and your ways are beyond my imagination. But I try. Try to think your thoughts, See what you see, and do things as you would do …. Basically try to be like you and live like you as in John 5:19

Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.

Since it hasn’t worked out too well, I must be missing something????

Whenever you “try” to do something in your own willpower, you are doomed to less than the best results. Oh, you can get results, but if you do it my way you won’t be stressed out and the the results will be better. Actually all you should concern yourself with is staying in the process … leaving the results to me. The only thing you should strive to do is maintain connection with me. Seeing and hearing in my realm. Everything else can flow out of that.

Back to the key verse today, “go in your room and pray….” The whole purpose of that is to calibrate you, not to motivate me. It is true, that bumper sticker that you have … Prayer changes things. The main thing it changes is you. From that changed place, you have a different view of your circumstances. When you are successful at merging your heart and eyes and ears with mine you will then pray with great effect and all your prayers will be answered. That is the only thing to strive for. People will say you are  awesome. You are not. You will have just connected with an awesome God and that makes you an awesome warrior in my Army.

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