Why we Pray? (EQUALS) How we Pray?

Verses:  Matthew 6:5-15

My thoughts about the verses:

Why do we pray?  Do we pray because we want people to see us pray and go there is a good Christian?  Do we pray because God deserves praises for the things that happen in our life?  Do we pray because we want to ask God to help us in our time of need?  Do we pray because of the group of people we are with?  Do we pray because we feel led by our heart?  Do we pray because we feel led to because of our way of thinking?

Think about this a moment the reason we pray does affect how we pray.  We pray for so many different reasons and how we pray reflects this.  Our prayers are so different depending on the situation.  Our thoughts and mind will reflect what we are thinking about at the time of our prayer.  We need to think about this when we pray to God.

The easiest two examples to understand this phenomenon of why we pray leading to how we pray are praise and prayer request to God.  Let us start by first looking at when we pray to God to thanking God for all of our blessings.  Our prayers will be one of thankfulness.  We will pray not asking God for anything instead we will pray to God because of the joy that is in our life.  We will feel led by our Spirit to lift up our voice in prayer.  This type of prayer can be considered an opening of our heart to rejoice with God for the wholeness that we will feel at this moment.

The second thing we want to look at is prayer request.  We have times in our lives in which things seem to be overwhelming.  We do not know how to solve the problem ourselves.  We then realize that the only thing that we can do is go to God.  We ask God to help us with the situation.  We ask for God to heal our bodies, souls and minds.  We often even ask others to pray for us.  We feel humbled because we need God.  Our prayers often include praises because we feel that we need to thank God for answered prayers.  We feel led to give over all of our issues and in the process we feel a spiritual healing.

Looking at these two examples we can see that our reason for prayer explains the difference in how we pray.  Yet, even though it is easy to understand this we have to look at something that Jesus talked about and that is when to pray.  God says it is best to pray in secret.  We are encouraged to go to God not because we want to be seen, but because we want to worship God through our prayers.  Yet, how many of us are tempted to pray where others can see us.  Are there times that praying in public is the right thing to do.  We can probably say that we have all done both of these things.

Let us start with prayer when it is done in public at the right time.  Let us look at this closer have you ever been out in public and felt the need to pray for someone you are with.  In those moments, you feel this overwhelming need just to surround the person with prayer.  I believe that one of the gifts that God has given me is the gift to pray for others.  Often times I feel this overcoming need to offer prayer at that moment.  When I have that feeling I either pray for them by myself or I ask if I can pray with them.  It isn’t that I am trying to be seen it is a deep spiritual calling.  I feel that this is why some prayers are not inappropriate in the public.

Yet, there are more examples of prayer that are done in public.  Churches spend a lot of time in prayer.  When we think of these prayers we see them as the Church calling the Spirit into the presence of all those gathered.  These prayers are a time that the Church as a whole can offer praise and prayers to God.  It isn’t a time when people are just proving that they are Christians.  It is the opposite.  The prayers are a way of showing how much God loves us and provides for us daily.  It isn’t because we want people to know we are Christians it is so we can walk closer to God as a body of Christ.

Yet, there are those times that we catch ourselves praying in public to be seen.  We talk about the fact that we are Christians and want others to see it.  We then prove it by praying in public.  This is similar to what the Sadducees and Pharisees did.  They would walk out in public and pray so that people could see them.  They acted like they were pious Jews when in fact they were doing it for the attention they got.  It made people think that they were better Jews than they were.  People wanted to be like them so the display of praying had spread.  Many people had taken up prayers in public. 

Yet, what they were really missing was the fact that why they were praying was wrong.  They needed to pray to be in commune with God.  Instead they were praying for attention.  We have to remember anytime that we pray that if we are doing it for attention we are not praying when we should be praying.  We need to pray so that we are in commune with God.  Opening our lives up to the one up above instead of praying so people think we are better Christians.

Prayer:

We praise you God.  We thank you for all the prayers you answer daily in our life.  We thank you for the blessings that you give to all of us.  Help us sty focused on you.  Help us to always remember that we are to use prayer as a time to be with you instead of a time for others to see us.  Help us pray to you throughout our life.  Help us be the Christian you call us to be.  In the name of the Almighty we pray.  Amen

Questions:

Why do you pray?  How do you pray?  Are you praying for the right reasons?  Are you praying for people to see you?  Are you praying so that you can be in commune with God?

Be Humble when You Give to God

Verses:  Matthew 6:1-4

My thoughts about the verses:

God wants us to be humble when we give to God.  Many people give to God all the time and do it in a way in which people do not know that it is them.  They make sure not to give by check.  They do not fill out offering envelopes.  Instead they give their money in cash because they think no one should know what they have given.

Others give so that the Church can know who has given.  Especially in a church that asks people to pledge so much a year to help with the budget.  By keeping track with how much money that they give they are able to make sure that they will meet budget needs.  These sample people never take their donation off their taxes.  They believe that it is not something that the government needs to know about what they have given.

Then there are people who boast about what they give to God.  They make sure that people see them giving money.  They want people to know that they are giving God not only their tithe but also extra money.  They are not humble and many times they intimidate those that cannot give as much.

Giving is something that you need to do out of your devotion to God.  Instead of boasting of what you give be humble.  It is not wrong to let a church know what you are pledging.  Yet, you do not need to share that information with everyone you know.  You need to remember that there are times that some people that give the smallest amount of money are giving all they have.  Do not impede people to give that small amount by boasting what you have given.

At the same time remember that God wants you to give out of love.  If you are giving so people will know what you have given and it is a thing of boasting you are missing what God is saying.  Make sure that you give to God because you feel blessed by God.  Do not give just because you are doing it because you have to.  Give out of devotion and love.

Prayer:

We thank you for all that you have given to us.  We praise you God for the gift of everlasting life.  Help us give out of humbleness.  Help us to remember that we must not brag about our gifts to God.  Help us remember not to intimidate that cannot give the same amount that we give by being boastful.  Help us give out of love and dedication to you.  In the name of the Giver of Everlasting Life we pray.  Amen

Questions:

Do you give to God out of love?  Do you give because you want others to know how good you are?  Do you give in humbleness or pride?

You Need to Love Your Enemies

Verses:  Matthew 5:43-48

My thoughts about the verses:

It is easy to love your friends and family.  It is easy to be kind to those that are kind to you.  It is easy to show respect to those that respect us.  It is easy to want good things to those that show us love.

At the same time it is hard to love people that hurt us.  It is hard to be kind to those that stand up against us.  It is hard to respect people that do not respect us.  It is easy to wish bad things to happen to our enemies.

Yet, Jesus calls us to love our enemies.  One of the hardest things that Jesus tells us to do is be kind to those that hurt us.  It is hard to accept that God brings good to those that stand up against us.  Loving our enemies is foreign concepts to people that are not Christians.  Loving our enemies is also a hard concept for Christians to do.

We need to accept that loving our enemies is something that we must do.  People that we consider our enemies need to be forgiven by us.  We need to show all of our neighbors love.  Imagine what would have happened in our life if the person that told us about Christ didn’t love us because of who we were.  We need to remember that the only way our neighbors can love God is seeing love in us.

We need to walk through life loving our neighbors.  We need to remember that God does not want us to pick and choose who we love.  We are to love all people so that they can see Jesus in us.  We need to remember that if we are Christians many of our enemies have not accepted Jesus in their life.

Now here is where it gets touchy.  What do we do when people who are Christians become our enemies?  We have to remember that they are children of God just like we are.  We have to show them love.  We do not have to agree with them.  Yet, what we need to do is ask Jesus to intervene in the situation.  Therefor we need to realize when we show brotherly and sisterly love to those that are against us we are taking one step closer to changing the relationship.

We need to always need to remember that God’s love is for all.  Since God’s love is for all we need to show that same love.  We need to turn away from our hate to people and turn to love.  It doesn’t matter what the other person does.  What is important is what we do to others.  We need to show love and let God handle the rest.

Prayer:

We thank you for your love.  We praise you for loving us when we didn’t deserve it.  Help us accept the calling to love all people.  Help us be the people that always show Christian love no matter what.  In the name of the Peacemaker we pray.  Amen

Questions:

Do you show love to those that are your enemies?  Do you accept the calling of God to ask for blessings even for those that are against us?  Are we willing to love those that dislike us?  Are we willing to change so that we can love those that do not return love?  Can we learn to respect those that do not respect us?  Are we willing today to love others with brotherly or sisterly love no matter what the situation is?

Do Good at All Cost

Verses:  Matthew 5:38-42

My thoughts about the verses:

Have you ever been in a situation where someone is doing hurtful things to you?  It might be physical, emotional or spiritual.  Deep down inside we want to strike back.  We want them to pay for the hurt that they have done to them.  We spend a lot of our time living in anger.  We are so hurt that we take it out on people that haven’t done anything to us.

I know that I have personally have done this multiple times in my life.  I am mad because something that one person does but without meaning to I take it out on someone else.  Even worse I spend days trying to figure out how to get revenge on the person that has hurt me.  The sad part is when I do this it actually makes me feel guilty. 

Jesus wants us to not plot revenge against someone.  In reality we should be praying for them.  We need to ask God to take the hurt away from us.  We need to ask God to help the person that is hurting us to realize what they are doing.

People have taken this very literally.  They believe if someone has hurt us we should not fight back at all.  We should stand back and let them hurt us over and over again.  Yet, there are times that we have to speak out against people that have hurt us.  We have to understand that there are some kinds of hurt that need to be stopped. We need to understand that people who do things that hurt us may also do things that are hurting others.  There are times that we have to stand up and fight back by telling what we know. 

We need to work with authorities to make sure that someone does not cause harm to others or hurt us again.  Physical and emotional abuse is something that you or no one else deserves to live with.  God will not judge us if we make sure that they are stopped because we tell those in authority (police) about the abuse.  God doesn’t judge us if we take a stand in court asking for justice.  Yet, at the same time we need to forgive the person so that we can live without anger.  We need to forgive them so we can take a step toward healing.

Now, I want to turn to spiritual abuse.  Many of us face this each and every day.  Ever since the Supreme Court stated that all same sex couples have the same right to marry there has been a lot of both positive and negative points of view.  Yet, some of the people who consider themselves “Righteous” Christians are actually spiritually hurting people.  Their spiritual abuse is hurting them to the point that they do not want anything to do with God.

I have a hard time accepting the county clerk in my Grandmother’s hometown standing up and saying he isn’t going to do his job.  It hurts deep down inside because of the way some of my family respects me for who I am.  I am not sure how many of them know that I am actually a Lesbian yet they have never treated me with anything but Godly love.  Yes, Casey County Kentucky is a very rural county.  Many of the people are very religious. 

I almost went to the rally that was in support of Same Sex Marriage.  Yet, I realized that I couldn’t take the pain if any of my family was on the other side standing up for the County Clerk.  I want to think that they would never intentionally spiritually hurt me.  Yet, I know if I had seen any of them protesting against same sex marriage that I would feel rejected by my family.

Churches are also guilty of spiritual hurt.  Many Christians do not want to hurt others.  They know that they are representatives of Jesus Christ.  They accept that they are not perfect and that is only through the saving grace of God that they would not be saved from their own sins.  Yet, there are other Christians that have spiritually hurt people to the point that they want nothing to do with God.

I know how that feels.  This week has been a very emotional week.  I had to watch someone that I considered my mentor.  He was someone that I wanted to grow up and be like.  Once again state that I am a sinner.  I really wanted people to see that spiritual hurt can spread to other feelings and actions.  I know for me when I was spiritually hurt as a very young adult I was one of those young people that thought that I had no reason to live.  I felt that I was unworthy.  When someone you trust tells you that your lifestyle is a choice that you need to ask God to change was devastating.  I felt that all the things that I had done to serve God was useless.

Yet, I had one man that saved my life.  He was someone that was spiritual and also one of my professors in college.  He saw the signs of the depression and was afraid that I was on the wrong path.  He made arrangements for me to see his pastor.  This man taught me that I was a Child of God.  He taught me that my lifestyle wasn’t a choice.  He taught me that God did not create anything wrong.  Therefor I being a Lesbian was part of God’s plan.  I wish I could remember his name because I would like to tell him how much he helped heal me spiritually.

We need to make sure that we do not hurt others.  We need to make sure that we do not retaliate when people do us wrong.  We need to remember to pray for those that hurt us.  We need to accept that there are times that the only way to stop someone from hurting someone is to make sure they go away to jail.  The biggest thing to remember is that we can do the same things to other if we fall for causing people to feel bad about them.  We have to stop patterns of anger by asking God to be in our life. 

We need to make sure our churches and other Christians do not represent the way that we feel.  We need to make sure that we show the world that we are Christians that accept all.  We are called to do this and we must follow the plan of Jesus.  We need to teach and not judge.  We need to open our doors and hearts so that people can come to accept Jesus.  We need to help heal people through our love so they can heal spiritually.

Prayer:

Dear God we thank you for your love.  We thank you for helping us when others are hurting us.  We praise you for giving us the gift of salvation.  We ask that you help us keep from hurting others.  Help us let go of our anger.  Help us speak up when emotional and physical abuse our hurting ourselves or others.  Help us not hurt people spiritually.  Help us open our arms to help those that have been hurt.  In the name of the Savior we pray.  Amen

Questions:

Are you holding onto anger because the pain someone has put you through?  Are you causing pain to others?  Are you being a stumbling block for people to accept God?  Are you helping others recover from physical, emotional and spiritual hurt?  What action do you need to do today to stop violence in this world?

Say Only What You Mean and Nothing Else

Verses:  Matthew 5:33-37

My thoughts about the verses:

Let your yes be yes and your no be no.  We all know hard this is.  We want so much to please people that we agree things that we really do not want to do because of peer pressure.  We also say no to things out of peer pressure.  We do things that are against God because of peer pressure.  At other times we do not do what God calls us to do because of the same peer pressure.

Let us look at this closely.  How can we succumb to peer pressure when we have God living in our heart.  Do we not sin every day?  It is because of our own desires to fit in and desire to be within the in crowd that we do things that we know we shouldn’t do. 

Yet, this goes much deeper.  We need to live a life in which people accept our word.  We need to show people that we will not just go along with the crowd.  We have to stand up and say this is not right.  We have to stand up and say this is what we should do.  There is not one person on Earth that we should follow.  We need to put our trust solely on God.

When people see that you are doing what God has called you to do they will start believing you.  See isn’t that what an oath is?  I often think of court cases.  We have to swear that we will say the truth and nothing else.  The Judges do not know you but they feel if you are willing to believe that if you promise to say something in truth that you will.

We need to be the kind of people that do not have to say an oath for people to believe us.  We need to be the kind of person that when people see us they agree that we are living a life that reflects the truth in all that we do.  When we say that we are against something people shouldn’t suspect that we will do the same thing in private.  We also need to be able to say yes and begrudging doing something that we feel is wrong.

People watch us each and every day.  When they look at us we should desire to see us as truthful people.  If they catch us doing things that we say we are against they will start distrusting us.  If they catch us talking bad about something that we said yes to we start distrusting us.

We need to make sure that our life proves what we believe inside.  Let your yes be yes and your no be no.  Soon you will find that people will believe you and trust you.  You can become an example of someone that is trustworthy.  Pray daily that you will not fall into peer pressure.  Instead pray that God will give you the ability to say yes to things that we believe in and no to things we do not believe in.

Prayer:

Dear God we praise you for your trust.  We thank you for blessing us each and every day.  Help us be the people that you want us to be.  Help us live a life that builds trust with others.  Help us stand up to peer pressure.  Help us show to others that our yes is a yes and our no is a no.  In the name of the Almighty we pray.  Amen

Questions:

Do you live the life in which people trust you?  Do you fall into peer pressure and later on feel guilty for what you have or haven’t done?  Are you asking God for wisdom?  Are you living a life in which all people will know that your yes is a yes and your no is a no?