And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites......

Jesus said this in Mathew 6:5 -And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

Prayer is conversation with God. In fact Jesus went on to say, in verse 6 - But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 

Prayer is therefore an intimate relationship with the creator. There is trust, confidence and love in the process Jesus describes in verse 6.

Of course there is always the public prayer that we offer as we come together. as a church. Most of us are some times guilty of crossing the boundary and becoming very pharisaical in our prayer. Some observations and mistakes I have made:

•     Some time the best sermons are heard in the prayer, unfortunately its addressed to God and hoping the listeners get the message. Self-righteousness somehow creeps in. 

•    We talk to the devil in our prayer. Hmmm strange but that's what we do. We bind and say things to the devil when we are communicating with God. 

•        In our prayer we demand God to do certain things and we justify that by saying as sons we have the right to demand from our father. I think this is nonsense and absurdity of the lowest kind.  Till today, I never had demanded my own father. In my culture that's irreverence. Jesus never demanded of His Father. "If its is possible, let it pass from me..nevertheless not my will but thine.  What a holy difference in the prayer Jesus made and the ones we hear nowadays.

•            We try to impress God and the people with our knowledge of the scriptures in prayer. Its good to pray using the scriptures but if done with selfish motives, it crosses the boundary. 

Let our public prayer be to the point and addressed to God in faith for Him to answer not to impress, remind or rebuke the listeners.