SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/27/2020 10:06 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The True Audience: God”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 6:6
Message of the verse: “6 "But
you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in
secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.”
I
believe that Jesus is saying that the majority of our prayer life should be in
secret, praying privately to the Father in the name of Jesus our Lord. We can see this in the life of Our Lord as He
would go off by Himself and pray to His Father.
When He chose all of His disciples we see that He was up all night
praying before doing this task. 12 It was at this time that He went off
to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God. 13 And when
day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also
named as apostles” (Luke 6:12-13). John
MacArthur writes “Our family members or friends may know that we are praying,
but what we say is not meant for them to hear.
Chrysostom, commented that in his day (the fourth century A. D.) many
Christians prayed so loud in their rooms that everyone down the hall heard what
they said. If people sometimes happen to
overhear our private prayers, it should not be by our intention.”
When
we read “and your Father who sees in secret” does not mean He is not present
when we pray in public, or with our families or other small groups of
believers. Our Father is very much present whenever and wherever His children
call on Him, as He would not have it any other way. What Jesus’ point here has to do with the
singleness of intention. True prayer is
always intimate. Even when we pray in
public, if the heart is right and concentrated on God, will in a real and
profound way shut one up alone in the very presence of God.
MacArthur
writes “In the pattern of prayer Jesus taught His disciples, He begins with ‘Our
Father’ (Matt. 6:9), indicating that other believers may be present and that
the prayer is corporate. But even when
prayer represents the feelings and needs of others who are present, the supreme attention is to be
on God. In that sense, even the
most public prayer is ‘in secret.’ Even
if the whole world hears what we say, there is an intimacy and focus on God in
that communion that is unaffected.”
When
we see the phrase that God “sees in secret” it n the sense that He never
betrays a confidence is what is meant here.
I would have to say that many of my prayers to my heavenly Father are as
they say “for His ears only.” He is my
heavenly Father who loves me more than anyone can, and therefore I trust Him to
understand what I am praying about, especially the very personal things that I
tell Him. It certainly is my desire to
have a clean heart whenever I pray to God in order to make sure that can have
real fellowship with Him in my prayers.
MacArthur
picks up on this by writing “Furthermore, when our prayer is as it should be, ‘our
Father who sees in secret will repay’ us.
The most important ‘secret’ He ‘sees’ is not the words we say in the
privacy of our room, but the thoughts we have in the privacy of our heart. Those are the secrets about which He is supremely
concerned, and about which only He can know with certainty (cf. 1 Cor.
4:3-5). Those secrets sometimes are
hidden even from ourselves, because it is so easy to be deceived about our own
motives.
“When
God is genuinely the audience of our prayer, we will have the reward only He
can give. Jesus gives no idea in this
passage as to what God’s reward, or repayment, will be. The important truth is that God will
faithfully and unfailingly bless those who come to Him in sincerity. Without question, the Lord ‘will repay.’ Those who pray insincerely and hypocritically
will receive the world’s reward, and those who pray sincerely and humbly will
receive God’s.”
Lord
willing, we will begin the last main section, “The Content of Prayer” and then
begin to look at two sub-points under this main point in our next SD. After that we will be taking a rather long
journey through what is commonly called “The Lord’s Prayer” but in truth it is
our prayer, the disciple’s prayer.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I can remember some prayers that I have
prayed that probably never got out of the room that I was praying in, and for that
I am sorry. Having an intimate
fellowship with the God who made everything is a wonderful privilege that I
truly want to be involved in.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust that the Lord will use me to have a
wonderful affect on others as they look at the different Spiritual Diaries that
are on my blog. May God use them to
bring glory to His Son.
10/27/2020 10:42 AM
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