Week 3 of 4
Pray where no one is scoring you. Then pray where the house can hear a real man.
But you, when you pray, enter into your inner room, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret.
Matthew 6:6
Jesus tells you not to pray in order to be seen. Go into the inner room, shut the door, and speak to the Father who sees in secret. Daniel knelt three times a day with the windows open, a habit older than the crisis. Paul says continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. A husband needs both rooms. The secret place, so his spirituality is not a performance for his wife. And a heard prayer at the table, so the house knows he actually talks to God. Secret prayer without the table becomes private religion. Table prayer without the secret room becomes theater.
Formal study reading, written for this series
Formal study reading, written for this series
When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. They love to stand and pray so that they may be seen by others. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
The Father who sees in secret is the audience. The room does not need a witness.
He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.
The habit was already there before the threat.
Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.
Steadfast, watchful, and thankful. Not impressive.
NASB, the Amplified, and the ESV open on Bible Hub. The Legacy Standard Bible opens on its own reader. Close, Expanded, and Easy on this page are original study readings. WEB is the World English Bible, public domain.
Matthew 6 kills the performance. A husband who prays eloquent prayers at the table and none behind a door is using God to be seen. The tameion is an inner room, a place of stores. Shut the door. Use plain words. The reward is the Father’s, not her admiration. If you have no such room, you do not yet have a prayer life. You have a role.
Daniel and Colossians keep the other danger from winning. Secret prayer is not a bunker against the church or the family. Steadfastness is a schedule you keep when you do not feel it. Watchfulness means you are praying about real wolves, not floating. Thanksgiving keeps you from treating God as a manager of threats. Then, when you pray one honest minute where they can hear, it will sound like the same man who shut the door. That is leadership. The speech that only exists in public is not.
Set a time and a door. Ten minutes, knees if you can, names on a card. Do not announce the system. Miss it and return without a speech about how hard the week was.
Once this week, pray one minute in their hearing that sounds like the inner room: short, specific, thankful, no sermon. If that is awkward, the awkwardness is the years the door stayed open for show or stayed shut for absence.
Stays on this device. No account.
Father, you see in secret. I have prayed to be seen, and I have also hidden so I would not have to be a man who prays. Forgive both. Meet me behind a shut door. Teach me to stay at it, to watch, and to give thanks. Then let the house hear a prayer that matches the one you already heard. Amen.
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