What Prayer is Not

Matthew 6:7 (New Living Translation)

When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again.

Repeating the same words over and over like a magic incantation is no way to ensure that God will hear your prayer. It’s not wrong to come to Him many times with the same requests—Jesus encourages persistent prayer.

But He condemns the superficial repetition of words that are not offered with a sincere heart. We can never pray too much if our prayers are honest and sincere.

Before you start to pray, make sure you mean what you say. Prayer is not a repeated presentation to God. It is not words we mouth thoughtlessly to Him.

Prayer is not chanting ‘Jesus’ over and over. Responsive reading can be a type of worshipful prayer, but it does not replace prayer in our lives.

Vain repetitions are words that are habitually repeated without thought. Vain repetition is also repeating spiritual words or phrases as though there were some type of mystical power in the words themselves.

Vain repetition is not repeating a sincere prayer. Many people misunderstand the words of Jesus to mean that you cannot make a request more than once.

This is not what Jesus is saying. In fact, Jesus teaches just the opposite.

Luke 18:1-8 (New Living Translation)

One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. There was a judge in a certain city, he said, who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying; Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy. The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, I don’t fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!

Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth that have faith?”

To persist in prayer and not give up does not mean endless repetition or painfully long prayer sessions.

Constant prayer means keeping our requests continually before God as we live for Him day by day, believing He will answer.

When we live by faith, we are not to give up. The Lord may delay answering, but his delays always have good reasons. As we persist in prayer, we grow in character, faith, and hope.

The point of this parable is to show us that if an unrighteous judge will answer and grant the persistent petitions of a widow he cares nothing about, how much more will the Lord answer His people that He cares intimately for?

Jesus used a persistent widow to teach us the benefit of persistent prayer. When Elijah prayed for rain, he prayed three times before he saw God answer.

There is a difference between repeating a phrase and calling it prayer and taking a heart-felt need before God until you get results.

Some people pray for years to see a loved one saved. This is biblical.