AVOID VAIN REPETITIONS IN PRAYERS: Holiness Revival Movement Worldwide.

BY PASTOR PAUL RIKA
(Int'l Director Holiness Revival Movement Worldwide)

DATE:
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 23, 2019

TEXT: MATTHEW 6: 5-8

Key  verse: Matthew 6:7 “But when  ye  pray, use not vain repetitions, as the  heathen do: for they think that they  shall be heard for their much  speaking.”

In this passage,  Jesus is telling people who do not  receive answers to their prayers the  reason why their prayers were not  answered – they make vain repetitions. May be you are in the Church but  your  mind is not with God; when prayer is  going on you start saying the same  thing over and over again. Sometimes,  you are like something hooked up and is just standing still in one place.

You may be repeating a particular word or phrase in the name of speaking in tongues, even when the  person leading the prayer has  changed the prayer point several  times (like a scratch CD plate that  keeps repeating the last sound). For instance,the person leading the  prayer may announce, “Let us pray  that God should make the rain to  fall.”  You will be praying, supposedly in  tongues, saying “la la la la, ku ku ku  ku.”  

Then the leader changed the topic  and said, “Let us now pray that there  shall be no rainfall on Sunday” and  you still keep repeating the same  words absent-mindedly, vain repetitions! Your heart is not in that business; you are  not serious-minded. How would God  hear you?

You are not making progress in  prayer  because your thought is not there - it  has strayed off. Such people do not  receive anything from God because  they are into vain repetitions. They are  praying like a machine (a tape  recorder) that is just repeating words;  they are not praying lively prayers.

A particular young man wrote his prayer on the wall and anytime he is to sleep  he would say to God, “Just as written  on the wall there, amen,” and go to sleep. That is like the prayer books they  give  to people to read – dead prayers! Your  heart is not the one producing the  prayer points. 

Is it the type of prayer  that would receive answer from God?  No! Be conscious of your prayers.  Pray with consciousness. Pray, talk  sensibly because you are talking to a  person, the supreme God. Although He knows what is in your  heart as the Father of the prodigal son perceived what brought the son  home; nevertheless, speak out to your  Father and ask for forgiveness  verbally, like the prodigal son did. Say  it out!

Thought for the  day:
Be conscious of  your prayers. Pray with  consciousness

Song for the day:
Prayer is the key (2x), prayer is the master key......

Bible reading for the day:
Ezekiel 29-31; James 5.