HERE are some further considerations concerning prayer which these verses present to us. There are things which we must avoid as well as things we must seek to follow in prayer. Jesus presents both to us in these verses.

Jesus speaks against two evils with regard to prayer. One was a common failure of the Jewish religious leaders, and the other was common to pagans. Each have something to say to us today, even though the specific circumstances are different.

The first thing which we need to notice is that in both these examples of wrong prayer we see how easy it is for sin to enter in, even when we are engaged in such a holy and spiritual activity. This may surprise us at first, but when we stop to think we shall soon realise that this is something we should expect and so guard against. Prayer is really the highest expression of spiritual and holy living, because of this we should not be surprised if Satan seeks to upset the practice of prayer. Satan knows that prayer is a great weapon against his kingdom and his activity, and that by prayer the power and grace of God is poured out in this world. For this reason we should expect Satan will be violent in his attacks to destroy and hinder prayer.

All of us know how wandering thoughts, and inappropriate thoughts, even sinful thoughts, find their way into our minds when praying. Satan will use the troubling of our minds to prevent our engaging in prayer to God. He will distract us. He will seek to use every avenue to bring into our minds thoughts which will break our concentration, and fill our minds with wrong or impure thoughts, and he does this to keep us from prayer, or destroy our praying.

When this happens we should not despair but rather confess our sin and weakness, and seek the grace of God to strengthen us and enable us to have the victory.

The next thing to realise is that prayer is offered to God, and not to men or before men. This was the evil in the praying of the religious leaders amongst the Jews. They stopped at street corners on their way to the synagogue, and made it plain they were praying, and by this sought the praise of others, who would commend their eagerness to pray, and the apparent holiness of their lives. When they arrived at the synagogue they paraded their praying, and Jesus tells us why. They were seeking to gain kudos and praise. They were not praying to God, but praying before others. They were not concerned about God or really seeking God; nor were they interested in the will of God. Their concern was to gain a great reputation for piety before the rest of the community, and by this enhance their standing in the community. Jesus said that they got their reward, the reward they sought, but they did not get it from God.

We may say that this is something we do not do, and so it does not really relate to our own spiritual lives. A moments thought will tell us that there is a relevance even for us today. In public worship, or even prayer meetings, we can easily fall into the trap of seeking to express our prayers so that people will think how wonderful our praying is. In this way we are thinking of the praise of men rather than God. Then we can sin in a related way, because it is so easy to engage in prayer simply so that we may feel that we have become more holy and spiritual by the fact that we pray a great deal. In this we are concerned with ourselves and spiritual pride, and we are concerned to bribe God with our supposed spirituality. These are just some of the ways we can fall into the same trap as the Pharisees.

This shows the great difficulty of prayer. Prayer in public is part of worship. Prayer meetings are wonderful things, and are a source of great blessing from God, but it so difficult to pray out loud and at the same time so shut ourselves away with God, so that those present do not enter our thoughts, but only God. We need to be humble before God all the time.

This leads us on to the other evil Jesus speaks about in these verses. This was an evil which pagans suffered from. They felt that by praying the prayer over and over again they were more likely to gain a hearing and a positive answer to their prayers. In a sense this is seeking metaphorically to twist the arm of God to get him to give us what we want. It also has the idea of gaining merit before God, and so be more likely to gain God�s favour. Put like this we can see that there is nothing Christian or godly about such praying, but we still fall into this same trap in different ways.

When we pray we can plead before God that we have prayed so hard and so often that God has to answer us. Because we are told to prayer without ceasing, we may find ourselves believing that the more we ask God for something the more likely we are to gain the answer that we desire. This is not praying in the Spirit.

We can not pray too much or too often, but the length of our prayers, nor the number of our prayers, has any effect on the mind and will of God. We pray because God calls us to come to him in prayer, but we come as little children, humbling seeking the love and blessing of our heavenly Father. In the doing of this we are trusting God and believing that he will do all that a heavenly Father would do, and resting in this glorious assurance.

Having said all this, even though we realise more and more how difficult it is to pray as we ought, nonetheless we should not cease to pray, but come to our heavenly Father knowing that he is full of love and mercy for us in our failings, and believe the Spirit knows that we can�t pray as we ought, and so prays for us with groanings that can not be uttered. Further we come before God, not in our own merits, but in and through the merits of Christ, and his blood cleanses us from all sin.