MONDAY 30th
Matthew 6:6-18.
We continue the theme today of the believers walk with God and the second point, drawing from Whitefield is: ‘Believers walk with God by secret prayer.’
I know that we are aware of the importance of prayer. This includes corporate prayer when we come together as God’s family, and I trust we are missing that hour on a Monday evening when we gather together for prayer, but, there is also the important need for secret prayer, that is our personal prayer life.
Jesus expected that believers would pray for in Luke 11:1 Jesus used the words ‘WHEN you pray’ not ‘IF you pray.’ In another passage of Scripture Jesus talks about the secret place of prayer, Matthew 6:5-6 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.’
When we pray together it joins us in unity of prayer and strengthens us as a body of people. When we pray in secret prayer, in our private prayer and devotion it strengthens us as individuals. It helps us to develop our personal walk with God and our personal intimacy with him.
In Matthew 6 and Luke 11 Jesus inviting us to the place of prayer allows us to call God our Father. ‘Pray then like this; ‘Our Father in heaven . . .’ (Matthew 6) or ‘When you pray say, ‘Father hallowed be your name.’’ (Luke 11)
Those of us who are fathers know that there are times when we speak with our children collectively but there are other times when we have a ‘one on one’ conversation with just one of the children, these moments are more intimate, and Our Heavenly Father loves it when we are together as his children talking with him, but he also loves those moments and so should we when we have what we would call ‘a one on one’ conversation with him.
Individual prayer is just as powerful as corporate prayer. We should never think that God is only going to listen or act when there are ‘two or three’ gathered in His name! He is as present with us in the secret place as he is when we are together.
There are many ways in which secret prayer can happen, it can be in the quietness of our study or bedroom or any other space we might set aside in the home, it may be a place where we can go to away from every other distraction, it may even be while we are walking, what matters is that we make time to develop our personal times of prayer with God. Talking to him as a friend would a friend, finding those moments to pour out those things that may be weighing us down, to speak with him about our concerns, longings or desires, interceding for others, standing in the gap for those who may be too weak to pray themselves and of course not forgetting to pray for the needs of family and friends. But walking with God in prayer is not about us doing all the talking – prayer is a two way conversation and we need to make time in our secret prayer to listen to God, hear what he wants to say, listen to those things that he also wants to share into our lives personally. Psalm 46:10 says ’Be still, and know that I am God’ we need to learn to ‘be still’ in our prayer life, again in Isaiah we are encouraged ‘to wait’ for the Lord and as we do, we will have our strength renewed, we shall mount up with wings and we will run and not be weary, walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)
Again it is so easy for what is meant to be a daily devotion to become a sermon as each of these points are worth exploring further, but I trust that what I have shared is suffice to encourage us in our prayer lives and maybe as a result we may grow deeper in our walk and relationship with God.
Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
uttered or unexpressed;
the motion of a hidden fire
that trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the simplest form of speech
that infant lips can try,
prayer the sublimest strains that reach
the Majesty on high.
Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath,
the Christian’s native air,
his watchword at the gates of death:
he enters heaven with prayer.
Prayer is the contrite sinner’s voice,
returning from his ways;
while angels in their songs rejoice,
and cry, ‘Behold, he prays!
The saints in prayer appear as one,
in word and deed and mind;
while with the Father and the Son
sweet fellowship they find.
Nor prayer is made on earth alone:
the Holy Spirit pleads,
and Jesus on the eternal throne
for sinners intercedes.
O Thou by whom we come to God,
the Life, the Truth, the Way,
the path of prayer thyself hast trod:
Lord, teach us how to pray!
Jas Montgomery CCLI 788682