We see prayers being practiced in most religions. Christianity was being established as a means to reach out to God. Prayer is very important in our lives as Christians. Jesus couldn't do without prayers either when He was on earth. Some miracles He performed He had to get His father involved and He did this by making prayers.
When we pray to God we prove that we love Him because whatever you love you won't fail to make out time to spend with it; this is what happens when we pray, we spend time with God. But then, there is the right manner that we are expected to pray before God. Let's see what the passage has to say about this:
Matthew 6:5 - And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
We are not to pray like hypocrites; praying so that we can be noticed by people. If our interest is in people being aware of us when we pray instead of fixing our attention to God, then our prayers are carried out in vain. We don't pray to men but to God. How people think of us when we pray doesn't make any difference.
Proverbs 15:8 - The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight
For our prayers to be acceptable to God, the state if our hearts matters a lot. Prayer is like a sacrifice and God is very selective of the kind of sacrifices He accepts, just like the way He accepted Abel's sacrifice and rejected that of Cain's. Our ways need to be in accordance with the way of the Lord because God delights in people who do so.
Other passages discussed in today's teaching are:
Ecclesiastes 5:1, Isaiah 65:24, 1 Peter 2:1, Ecclesiastes 7:27, Mark 11:25, John 4:1