Come Follow Me - A Journey Through Lent

Matthew 6:5-18

“A Thought on Prayer”

Major Donald Bladen

If I were to ask you a deeply personal question it might go something like this:

“Why do you do what you do?”

I am certain that there are as many answers to that question as there are stars in the night sky! And I am certain that there is one thing we share without exception in every answer. Jesus declares that we all share a “Motivation” behind everything we do. And this is most certainly true of every prayer we have ever spoken.

I recall many of my prayers as a young person being motivated out of a sense of fear, or as a last-ditch effort to get something I wasn’t sure how to get in any other way. My prayer would often go something like this:

“Dear God, If you will ________ for me then I will _________ for you!”

I’ll let you fill in the blanks as I’m certain you’ve said a similar prayer yourself!

Jesus says, “Be sincere in your prayer life and don’t be like those whose motivation is to be seen, celebrated and to be thought of highly.” Instead, let your motivation be born of a desire to know God personally and to know His perfect will for your life. The Benson Commentary says it well:

“Perform the duty without noise or show, by which it will appear that thou art influenced by a principle of true piety, by the fear or love of God, and a regard to his will and glory.”