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Should I keep praying the same prayer over and over again?
Read Matthew 6:7-8 and Luke 18:1-8
It is ironic that the warning against meaningless repetition of prayer in Matthew 6:7-8 comes immediately before the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer is without a doubt the most often repeated without meaning passage of the Bible. A similar pattern was in place in the pagan first-century Greek and Romans, where it was a common belief that repetitive prayer was a way to get their god’s attention. The repetition was also to make sure their gods heard correctly and to convince the gods that the prayers’ request was worth granting.
As Christians, prayer is not for the purpose of informing God. Rather our prayers express to him (and ourselves) our inability to meet our own needs. Biblical prayer is an act of faith and an expression of our dependence upon God. Meaningless repetition signifies dependence on oneself to manipulate or badger God into compliance with what we want.
In Luke 18:1-8 we see that when we come before God with patient persistence and not meaningless repetition that he will hear our pleas. Through our persistence we build our relationship with God and open ourselves to seeing things as God sees them. With persistence we come to the place where we can truly pray “Not my will thine be done.”
Holy Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be in relationship with you. We thank you for allowing us to be open and honest with you in our prayers. We pray that our desires are your desires so that your will may be done here on earth as it is in heaven. Lord let us be a people of your will. AMEN
Related Tags: Prayer, Prayer devotional, 40 days of prayer, Matthew 6:7-8, Luke 18:1-8, Church, Gospels, Jesus, Christ, God, Holy Spirit, Christian
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