Matthew 6:5-15
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.
9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Matthew 6:5-15
ReplyDeleteI probably should have broken this up in two separate sections.
Vs 5 continues the previous sections thought about our tendency to show off our own righteousness, so I probably won't delve into that anymore.
Other questions:
- Does this speak against prayer meetings and group prayer?
- How do we babble today?
- If God knows what we need, why even ask? This is something that has troubled me forever.
- Obviously (to me), Jesus isn't telling us the exact words to pray, but telling us what kinds of things to pray. Is there more to this that I'm missing?
- Is our heavenly Father forgiving us our sins - does this mean salvation or not salvation? If we are angry with someone and die that night, are we not saved?
http://www.gotquestions.org/praying-out-loud.html says:
ReplyDelete"They were clearly praying together and out loud. So, the sin was not in the public nature of the prayer or the fact that people could hear it. . . the tax collector also prayed aloud, but his prayer was from a humble heart
"Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers.
Jesus is not condemning the fact that people prayed aloud, but that they were putting on a public display for their own benefit. Their motive—to be seen of men—was the problem.
To use public prayer as a means of showing off or impressing others is wrong. But sincere prayer from a humble heart is always welcomed by God and can be an encouragement to those who hear it
http://dustn.tv/stop-praying-like-a-pagan/ says:
ReplyDelete"God’s not impressed by lots of fancy words. Especially when you don’t even know what they mean. . . From “the Lord’s Prayer”, “Hail Mary” and doxologies to simple repeated phrases like “in the name of Jesus” or the like. The question is, why?
The next time you pray, let your words be simple. Speak to your Father in Heaven as you would speak to a dear friend. After all, you wouldn’t babble on and on repetitiously with meaningless phrases if Jesus was standing right in front of you, would you?"
My 2 cents: Notice that he used the Lord's Prayer as an example of pagan prayer. This is very interesting - and I agree with him. Jesus example of how we should pray was never meant to be a mantra - but was meant to be a format of what to pray for. Question: Are all mantras bad? I think if we are using mantras to focus our mind on something (for example), they are fine - but they aren't prayers. I agree with the author of this, our prayers need to be conscience discussion with God. We need to know what we are saying and mean it.
http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/matthew-6--part-2--why-pray-if-god-already-knows-my-needs-ross-cochrane-sermon-on-disciplines-general-143644.asp says:
ReplyDelete"God already knows my needs, but He wants me to pray anyway. So prayer is not so much for God’s benefit, but for mine. I verbalise in prayer the things I need. God chooses to answer me not because I have needs, but because I bring those needs to Him rather than try to meet them in my own strength. And He is not all that keen on repetition.
I guess when God hears the Lord’s Prayer yet another time he by-passes the words and looks for the heart. I already knew this, Lord. I can just imagine You sitting in heaven saying, “Oh no! Here he goes again with the Lord’s prayer thing. Can’t he just talk to Me? What’s with the “pray like a robot” response everytime he wants to come into My presence?” If God got bored, it would be with that prayer, I’m sure.
1 John 5:14-15 (NLT) says, “And we are confident that He hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases Him. And since we know He hears us when we make our requests, we also know that He will give us what we ask for.”
My 2 cents on why ask God when He already knows our needs:
ReplyDeleteIt was difficult finding articles on this. Is it because the answer is so obvious or is it because no one knows?
Anyway, our biggest need is our connection to God. We usually aren't aware of that, but are aware of much more petty needs. When we bring our needs before God, we are meeting the much bigger need of connecting with God. If God were to just silently provide everything we needed, we would ignore Him all the more. When we have something that concerns us, and we go to God for it, we learn to depend on Him and on that connection with Him.
So, our primary need is our connection with Him. Secondary wants and needs drive us to Him. When we ask Him and He provides, it gives us faith, and we learn to go to Him more.
http://www.gotquestions.org/Lords-prayer.html says about the Lord's prayer:
ReplyDelete"The Lord’s Prayer should be understood as an example, a pattern, of how to pray. It gives us the “ingredients” that should go into prayer. Here is how it breaks down. “Our Father in heaven” is teaching us whom to address our prayers to—the Father. “Hallowed be your name” is telling us to worship God, and to praise Him for who He is. The phrase “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is a reminder to us that we are to pray for God’s plan in our lives and the world, not our own plan. We are to pray for God’s will to be done, not for our desires. We are encouraged to ask God for the things we need in “give us today our daily bread.” “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” reminds us to confess our sins to God and to turn from them, and also to forgive others as God has forgiven us. The conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” is a plea for help in achieving victory over sin and a request for protection from the attacks of the devil."
http://www.answers2prayer.org/bible_questions/Answers/forgiveness/saved.html says about salvation and forgiveness:
ReplyDeleteNothing you do will help you earn heaven, not your offerings, nor your good deeds, nor your forgiveness! Only though grace, only through what God did for you through Jesus Christ, will you be saved if you accept His offer.
The whole essence of the gospel message is forgiveness. If Jesus was willing to die for us so that our enormous debt of sin would be paid off and forgiveness of our sins was made possible, how could we not but forgive the sins of others?
Only when you have been touched by Jesus’ forgiveness is this possible. Humanly it is impossible to forgive someone who has hurt us, unless we have some love for that person. However, in Christ nothing is impossible (Phil 4:13)!
(Several verses about God not forgiving us if we don't forgive others)
Wow! Is this in contradiction to what we said earlier? Not really. Those who can’t forgive have not understood and accepted Jesus’ forgiveness fully and are thus not saved, not because they won’t forgive, but because they have not accepted Jesus fully into their life.
Do you have you trouble forgiving someone? May I encourage you to come to Jesus and hand Him over that burden. He will give you rest and help you experience victory over unforgiveness. Finally you will be freed from that burden.
http://theshovel.net/qa/forgiveness/forgiven-as-we-forgive says:
ReplyDelete"For the old, corrupt, unforgiving nature of man is NOT forgiven ... IT HAD TO BE PUT TO DEATH SO THAT SIN COULD BE DONE AWAY WITH. Through what He did He has separated me from my sin and He does not hold it against me ... for He cannot. The fact is that WE, who have been separated from our sin CANNOT hold it against each other.
What He meant was just as simple: if they DID forgive men their trespasses, their Father WOULD forgive theirs. For if they DID forgive each other, that means they would have had the life of God within them. But they didn't have it ... and they didn't forgive ... and they weren't forgiven. Everything Jesus did and said, agreed with the Law. But He never suggested that they just try harder, for there is no salvation in the Law. The things He said spun their heads around in circles forcing them to ask in desperation, "Who then can be saved?" The answer?
With men, it's IMPOSSIBLE, but WITH GOD ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE. Matthew 10:27
If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away, behold ALL THINGS HAVE BECOME NEW! 2 Corinthians 5:17"
I agree with the above explanations except there's a hole. What if we get angry at someone and then die before we get a chance to forgive them.
ReplyDeleteTwo answers could be that God knows our hearts and/or part of Judgement Day will have actions on our parts - one action being whether we forgive everyone then.