Ep 143 – Matthew 6:5-8

Today, in Matthew six, verses 5-8, Jesus is going to take on the topic of prayer. I've entitled this episode, "Prayer for Praise" because Jesus is going to deal with another outward act that had been intended to reflect righteousness, but had become a twisted form of self-promotion. Prayer, intended to be a private conversation between God and His child, had taken on a distorted purpose, where the audience was no longer God, but other men. In other words, prayer had become an outward display of your righteousness designed to gain the recognition of men. And it seems that it had become common practice to pray long, wordy and sometimes repetitious prayers in order to impress others with the level of your godliness. But like everything else Jesus has said so far in His message, He is going to take his audience to task on their warped view on prayer. Prayer was not meant to gain the praise of men, but to offer praise and petitions to God.