Matthew 6:7 – USE NOT VAIN REPETITIONS
Matthew 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Have you ever seen a three year old in the store who keeps asking his mother for a candy bar? The child screams at the top of his lungs that he wants a candy bar. The child does not reason with his mother as to why the candy bar would be good for him and the child clearly is only thinking about what he wants and is simply going to repeat what he wants until his mother gives it to him.
How often are we like that little child in the store? How often do we come to the Lord in prayer and think that if we ask loud enough and long enough, God will give us what we think is best for us. How often do we fail to take the time to understand what the will of God is for our lives? How often do we fail to take the time to develop a relationship with God?
In this passage, Christ is revealing to us a little bit about God and what HE desires to hear from us when it comes to our prayers. We must understand that Christ is not commanding us to not be persistent in our prayers. In Luke 18, we are told the story of the widow who was persistent in asking the judge for the justice that she deserved and eventually the judge gave her the request. Christ tells us that God is looking for those who have great faith to be persistent in their prayers.
However, you must realize that there is a difference between persistent prayers and vain repetition. Vain repetition can easily occur when your family sits down to pray for dinner and you fall into a pattern of saying the exact same thing every time you pray for the meal. Furthermore, many people recite the Lord’s prayer and it does not mean anything special to them other than they are vainly reciting scriptures hoping it will make a difference in their lives.
Could you imagine going to a doctor and when he asks you what is wrong with you, you went off and say 100 times “Oh great doctor who spent many years earning a degree to help people with aliments like me, be thou my guide in my recovery from my present ailment.” The doctor would think you were a nutcase and would probably try to get you out of the office as soon as possible so that he could actually treat someone who wanted to be treated.
It is important that we treat God as God. In the same way that we do not want a beggar to come up to us and follow us around the city constantly putting their stinky hat in our face saying I want a dollar, so likewise, God is not a robot that is considering how many times you earnestly ask HIM the exact same thing before HE decides that you have asked enough and He gives it to you.
Prayer should be a relationship with God. Prayer is a time when you talk with God and praise HIM for HIS answered prayers. Prayer is a time when you pray for strength to overcome temptation. Prayer is a time when you ask God for forgiveness for your sins. Prayer is the time when you ask God to provide for your needs.
You must be careful that you do not allow your prayer life to turn into vain repetition. You are talking to a living God and just as you hate people saying the exact same thing to you time after time after time, so likewise God does not like us to come to HIM in prayer and vainly repeat yesterday’s prayer. Be diligent to add temperance to your life so that you do not allow the things of this world to distract you from talking to God. It is when you allow the world to distract you that you start treating God as an inanimate object that might actually hear what you are saying.