Prayer is one of the greatest acts of the christian believer. Prayer is a conversation between the believer and God. Having a conversation with God is a big thing. Prayer puts us in the presence of God. Being in the presence with God is indescribable. We get to talk to God. And not only that but God is always available to you. Biblical prayer is an act of faith, an expression of dependance on God. Prayer is at the heart of what it means to believe. To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing. When you pray you are telling God you need him and you cant do it by yourself. If prayer don’t matter to you then God don’t matter to you.

  One of the best scriptures on prayer in found in Matthew 6:5-8. This begins the Lord’s prayer section in the sermon on the mount. We call this the lord prayer not because it was a prayer that Jesus himself prayed but because it was the prayer he provided for his followers. The Lord’s prayer is for disciples to pray. But before Jesus officially starts the Lords prayer. He gives and introduction Jesus is teaching us that the appropriate attitude is the be applied on any occasion someone prays. To put it another way we are to have the right motive for prayer, a person can pray for the wrong reasons. The lesson that Jesus want us know in this text is the wrong motive for prayer is to be seen by others and the right motive to for prayer is to be heard by God. When we pray we need to approach God correctly.  There is a right way to pray and there is a wrong way to pray. In my last blog post Praying The Right Way Part 1. We saw the first right way to pray we must not pray like the hypocrites, we must pray with sincerity and God will reward us. Here is the second right way to pray.

2. Don’t Pray Like The Gentiles  

The Second Right way to pray is don’t pray like the gentiles. We see this lesson in verse 7 and 8. Jesus says when you  pray don’t pray like the gentiles. During this time the gentles were unbelievers in God, they prayed to and followed false gods. So Jesus is teaching us don’t pray like people who don’t believe in God. Don’t be like people who don’t know God. 

  • Pray With Simplicity  

These verses also teaches us to not pray like the gentiles we need to pray with simplicity. Verse 7 says do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. These none believers repeated the names of their god or the same words over and over without thinking or they would pray these long prayers. Jesus here is prohibiting mindless mechanical repetition. Prayer is not to be recited like an easter speech. Repeating the same words over and over again does not mean that God will hear and answer your prayers. God is not impressed with the quantity of words. You can’t trick God with your prayers to get what you want or get an answer faster. In prayer we cannot force God to act or to bend his will to our will by saying the prayer over and over again. We shouldn’t try to manipulate God thru meaningless verbiage. Your prayers don’t have to be long but they should be thoughtful. Genuine and effective prayers don’t have a time limit. Your prayers should be simple. There is nothing wrong with short prayers but this not an excuse to not take prayer seriously. Jesus doesn’t really care about how long your prayers are but with the attitude of the heart. Prayer is not the matter of words and length but of the heart. People think the longer they pray the more God will listen to them, God doesn’t hear a persons prayer because it is long. People think long prayers convince God or they feel they need to explain the situation to God. We don’t need to inform or convince the Lord, we won’t surprise God with anything. We won’t remind God of something he forgot, God doesn’t have a memory problem, God won‘t be shocked by what we tell him. Prayer is not the purpose of informing God. Prayer is not telling God Something that he does not already know. Nor is praying seeking to get God to change his mind. This is why God don’t need long prayers because he knows everything God doesn’t learn anything new. We just need to connect with the Lord. It is not the length of prayer but the strength of prayer that prevails with God.

  • Pray With Confidence  

To pray the right way is to not pray like the gentiles but to pray with simplicity and to pray with confidence. We see this lesson in verse 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. You can put your confidence in your mind and it will disappoint you. You can put your confidence in your body but one day it will fail you. You can put your confidence in people but one day they will leave you. You can put your confidence in money and it not last. But if you put your confidence in God he will never leave or forsake you. When you pray to God the right way you are putting you confidence in him to fix your problems you are saying God I trust you. Jesus told his followers not to be like non believers but to have confidence and come to God as their father. It says your father know whats you need before you ask. A father knows the need of his family. To a child their father is strong, in their eyes their father is superman, he could do anything. They have total confidence and dependance in their father. This is about how much better our lives would be if we had total confidence and dependance in our spiritual father.