January 26, 2009
Lengthy Prayers
During the festivities of the inauguration many public prayers were offered up for President Obama and for the country. Some of these speakers brought to mind a warning from Jesus, “Watch out for the teachers of the law… for a show [they] make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.” (Mark 12:38-40b NIV) Now I really did try to be objective, but when someone is praying aloud and the crowd starts applauding rather than saying ‘amen’, you’ve just got question whether the intended audience is God or man.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----Recently there was several weeks of competitive prayer at our church. I don’t know who started it, but the closing prayers got longer and more detailed. Soon I began to wonder if they were going to start praying for Sally’s dog and Debbie’ kitten. On and on and on these guys would go, each apparently trying to better the one who prayed the week before. I timed one at just under fifteen minutes.
-----God is direct and to the point. I think He likes us to be the same with our prayers. And if we give just a little thought to Whom we are praying we quickly realize what a wasted effort it is to try to impress Him with a big, fluffy prayer.
-----Somebody at church must have gave a little thought, too, because I’ve noticed for the last two Sundays, the closing prayers have been a bit more temporally modest. I suppose either the preacher tired of missing football, or God fixed the whole world so much in answer to all these guy’s prayers there wasn’t anything left to pray.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Post a Comment