DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)
Father, we want to feel this morning that we are in the Spirit. We are afraid that too often we sing, and it is but a form; that we pray and it is but an utterance of words. Bring every one of us into the Spirit today. Let us be over-shadowed by him, baptized in him, until there shall be no room for any thought or emotion but concerning things divine. Let us feel as we have sometimes felt: “Surely God is in this place, and I did not know it” (Genesis 28:16). Oh come now and spread the skirts of your covenant love over us, and you shall have the glory.
Amen.
VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)
“When you pray, don’t babble like the Gentiles, since they imagine they’ll be heard for their many words. Don’t be like them, because your Father knows the things you need before you ask him.” (Matthew 6:7–8)
To repeat a form of prayer a very large number of times has always seemed to the ignorantly religious to be a praiseworthy thing; but assuredly it is not so. It is a mere exercise of memory, and of the organs of noise-making. It is absurd to imagine that such a parrot exercise can be pleasing to the living God.
God does not need us to pray for his information, for he “knows the things you need;” nor to repeat the prayer over and over for his persuasion, for as our Father he is willing to bless us. Therefore let us not be superstitious and dream that there is virtue in “many words.”
RECOMMENDED RESOURCE
A book to teach kids about our prayers and God’s grace.
Today we prayed, confessing that we often pray as a heaping-up of many words, instead of truly coming to God by faith. And we saw in God’s Word the foolishness of coming to God, expecting to be heard by our “many words.”
We need to teach our kids this truth about prayer as well — God hears us, not because our prayers are good enough, but because he is so wonderfully merciful!
Any Time, Any Place, Any Prayer by Laura Wifler and illustrated by Catalina Echeverri is a great book that walks through the story of Scripture, showing how our sin separates us from God, how Jesus came to bring us back, and how we can communicate with this holy God through prayer all along the way.
The book will fill pre-school/early-elementary-aged kids with wonder as we think about the grace of God to allow us to pray.
I hope you’ll add it to your family’s library today and grab a copy for a friend as well!
Buy Any Time, Any Place, Any Prayer:
- Amazon (Hardback or Kindle editions)
- ChristianBook.com (Hardback edition)