The Seduction of Prayer: Prayer Without the Mind By J Mark Copeland

The seduction of prayer results in prayer without the mind. The ultimate evidence of the seduction of prayer is apparent when prayer becomes thoughtless and mechanical.

If we don’t engage our minds in our praying, then we certainly won’t engage our wills or our hearts in prayer. Jesus was concerned about mindless praying. He said, “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:7, 8).

Other translations of these verses indicate that Jesus warned against the use of “vain repetitions” (KJV), “empty phrases” (RSV) or “meaningless words” (TEV).

 

It is not so much long prayers or repetitious prayers that Jesus warned against. Jesus Himself spent long periods of time in prayer (see Mark 1:35) and once prayed the same prayer three times in succession. (See Matthew 26:36-44.) Rather, Jesus is concerned about the danger of thinking that prayer is effective because of its repetition and does not, therefore, need to engage the mind at all.

Jesus attributed mindless praying to pagans or Gentiles. (See Matthew 6:6.) In Jesus’ day, the non-Jewish world often treated prayer as a form of magical incantation in which the sheer number of repetitions of certain words or phrases produced the desired effect. Since the words themselves were believed to contain such power, it was not deemed important to think about the prayer. It was only necessary to say the prayer. This was mindless praying in its ultimate form.

How might we fall into the trap of mindless praying? We can fall into this trap by saying our prayers rather than praying our prayers. Dr. Robert Cook says, “All of us have one routine prayer in our system; and once we get rid of it, then we can really start to pray!”

 

Routine prayer can easily become mindless praying. One humorous example makes the point. On one memorable occasion, my mother said the blessing at dinner time. A minute or so later, she asked, “Who would like to say the blessing?” It took my dad, my brother and me to convince her that she had already had. Because grace is a routine prayer, it is easy to say it thoughtlessly. We must be careful not to pray without the mind.

 

The seduction of prayer may manifest itself in prayer without the heart, prayer without the will, or even prayer without the mind. Jesus warned us to guard against each of these pitfalls of prayer. Having told us how not to pray, Jesus then instructed us how to pray.

 

-After this manner, pray

The Seduction of Prayer: Prayer Without the Mind By J Mark Copeland

The Seduction of Prayer: Prayer Without the Will By J Mark Copeland

The seduction of prayer results in prayer without the will. If prayer without the heart is prayer lacking humility, then prayer without the will is prayer lacking sincerity.

 

Anytime we pray prayers that we don’t really mean, we’ve engaged in prayer without the will.

The Orthodox Jews of Jesus’ day could easily fall into the trap of praying without the will. Not only did scribal tradition require that they pray at three set times daily, but they were also required to pray much from memory. One such prayer was the Shema, which pledged whole-hearted love and devotion to God, promised continuous meditation upon His law and rehearsed the blessings for obedience and the curses for disobedience to His commands.

This prayer was to be said twice daily – once in the morning before 9:00 a.m. and once in the evening before 9:00 p.m. Orthodox Jews also prayed the Shemoneh ‘esreh, or The Eighteen, a liturgy that originally consisted of eighteen short prayers appealing to God for mercy and favor. This liturgy of prayers was to be prayed three times per day – once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once in the evening.6

You can just imagine that having to pray eighteen or more memorized prayers every day could easily become a hindrance to the vitality and sincerity of one’s prayer life.

One could become preoccupied with praying words that do not express his true sentiments. He understand what he is praying but doesn’t truly mean what he is praying. He is praying without the will.

Praying without the will is a subtle form of the seduction of prayer. Those who have disciplined themselves to set aside specific times for daily prayer and specific guidelines to follow in their prayers must especially guard against this snare. On those days when they are energetic and ready to pray, they will certainly find that their prayers are offered sincerely.

At other times when prayer requires more personal discipline, however, they may find that following the normal routine puts them in the position of praying words that do not express their true sentiments. At such times, it would be wise to be less rigid and more spontaneous in prayer. We must mean what we pray if our prayers are to be fruitful. We must avoid the trap of praying without the will.

 

-After this manner, Pray

 

The Seduction of Prayer: Prayer Without the Will By J Mark Copeland

The Seduction of Prayer: Prayer Without the Heart By J Mark Copeland

First of all, the seduction of prayer results in prayer without the heart. Prayer should always involve a bowing of the heart before God. It should always entail humbling oneself before God, casting oneself upon His mercy and receiving His grace for the meeting of one’s needs and the granting of one’s petitions. Prayer without such genuine humility is prayer without the heart.

 

Jesus warned against prayer without the heart. He said,

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full” (Matthew 6:5).

Such people as Jesus described here were not bowing their hearts before God in humility. Rather, they were exalting themselves before men in pride.

The hypocrisy of prayer without humility was easy to spot among the Jews of Jesus’ day. Orthodox Judaism specified three times per day that were to be devoted to prayer. Every believing Jew was to pray at 9:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.

Any Jewish person who wanted to flaunt his spirituality might schedule himself to be in a public place surrounded by many people at the hour of prayer. He would then stand still, raise his arms into the air, turn the palms of his hands heavenward, bow his head and begin to pray with a display of great devotion.

Although onlookers might view this public prayer as a sign of deep devotion, Jesus called it hypocrisy. Why? Because it was prayer without humility. To God, it was prayer without the heart.

We must guard against prayer without the heart. It is easy to become self-conscious about prayer. I’ve heard people say that they do not want to be called on to pray in a public place without being notified in advance so that they can prepare for it. I’ve heard others willingly pray in public but\ later apologize about the quality of their prayer.

These are just two examples of the tendency to use prayer as a means of impressing others with one’s spirituality rather than as an opportunity to humbly approach God’s throne.

Such prayer without humility is prayer without the heart.

 

-After This Manner, Pray

The Seduction of Prayer: Prayer Without the Heart By J Mark Copeland

The seduction of Prayer By J. Mark Copeland

What do we mean by the seduction of prayer? To seduce means “to allure” and so “to lead astray.” It means “to draw aside from the path of rectitude and duty.”

The seduction of prayer takes place anytime one is allured or led astray from a right understanding of prayer and from a proper practice of prayer.

 

The seduction of prayer is not a process by which one loses interest in prayer and so falls to a state of prayerlessness. It is a process by which one is led to embrace a wrong understanding of prayer, which inevitably leads to an improper practice of prayer.

How can we recognize this seduction of prayer? It is evident when our prayer lives have an appearance of communion with God but lack the substance of such communion. Rather than bringing us close to God, this wrong understanding of prayer drives us further away from God.

As the context of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew’s gospel reveals, Jesus was concerned about the seduction of prayer among both Jews and Gentiles. He warned His disciples to avoid the tendencies in both camps to wrongly understand and improperly practice prayer. From His warnings, we can decipher three characteristics of prayer that has become prey to seductive forces. The seduction of prayer results in:

1. Prayer without the heart

2. Prayer without the will

3. Prayer without the mind

 

-After This manner, Pray

The seduction of Prayer By J. Mark Copeland

The Salvation of Prayer: The Focus of Prayer by J Mark Copeland

The Focus of Prayer

If our prayers are to be salvaged from seduction, we need to be clear on the focus of prayer. And what should be the focus of our prayer? It should be the Kingdom of God. Both the context of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew’s gospel and the Lord’s Prayer itself are concerned preeminently with the Kingdom of God.

We must make the Kingdom of God the focus of our praying.

We do that when our prayers aim at bringing God’s will to do done upon the earth as it is in heaven. Robert Law says, “Prayer is a mighty instrument, not for getting man’s will done in heaven, but for getting God’s will done in earth.”

Now this is an important point to grasp in understanding the value of prayer. People often talk as though God’s perfect will is going to be done regardless of whether we pray or not, but this simply is not so.

When the Kingdom of God is the focus of our praying, the will of God established in the earth is the fruit of our praying. When God’s Kingdom is the focus of prayer, God’s will is the fruit of prayer. God wants us to pray the price for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done in our lives, our families, our churches and our communities. But, so much of our praying is ineffective because we pray with the wrong focus.

Our prayers for others may be focused upon the desire to see people live together in love and harmony and experience the blessings of productivity and prosperity. While these are admirable desires, they are not necessarily evidence of submission to God’s Kingdom rule.

Therefore, such worthwhile desires are not to be the focus of our praying. We should pray rather than those for whom we petition will say yes to God’s Kingdom rule and allow the blessings of life to issue forth from His hand as tokens of His divine favor. We must be diligent and earnest in making the Kingdom of God the focus of our praying.

– After this manner, Pray

The Salvation of Prayer: The Focus of Prayer by J Mark Copeland

The Salvation of Prayer: The Effect of Prayer By J Mark Copeland

The Effect of Prayer

If our prayers are to be salvaged from seduction, we need to understand the effect of prayer.

If the focus of prayer is the Kingdom of God, then the effect of prayer is personal submission to God’s reign in our lives.

If we are praying right, prayer will change us from being self-serving people to being true servants of God concerned with His interests.

It is easy to make ourselves – our needs and desires – the center of all our praying. But our praying is to be larger than ourselves.

We must grasp the big picture. John Wesley said, “Thy kingdom come…is a prayer for that time when God will put an end to all misery, sin, infirmity, and death.”

I would modify Wesley’s statement to say that we are not simply praying for a future time when God will bring the woes of humanity to an end. We are praying that the Kingdom of God would intervene in the lives of people now and put a stop to such works of the enemy. As we pray for God’s Kingdom to come in the big picture, we will find that it will touch our lives and meet our needs as well. At the culmination of the very chapter in Matthew in which the Lord’s Prayer is given, Jesus said, “Seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (6:33).

Our prayers will be salvaged from the danger of seduction as we learn to make God alone the object of our praying, the Kingdom of God the focus of our praying and personal submission to God’s Kingdom reign the effect of our praying. This is the salvation of prayer.

 

-After this manner, pray

The Salvation of Prayer: The Effect of Prayer By J Mark Copeland

The salvation of Prayer: The Object of Prayer By J. Mark Copeland

One definition of the word save is “to rescue . . . from danger.”

The salvation of prayer is the process by which prayer is rescued from the danger of seduction.

We decipher from Jesus’ teaching in the context of the Lord’s Prayer three manifestations of the seduction of prayer. As we will see, Jesus not only warns us of pitfalls to avoid. He also provides us with principles to embrace. This same body of teaching contains three lessons that will assure the salvation of prayer.

If we are to properly practice prayer, we must understand:

1. The object of prayer

2. The focus of prayer

3. The effect of prayer

The Object of Prayer

First of all, if our prayers are to be salvaged from seduction, we must understand the object of prayer. The object of prayer refers to the one to whom prayer is addressed. To whom do we pray? Jesus said, “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen” (Matthew 6:6).

God alone is the object of our prayers.

Everybody knows that prayer is talking to God, but people often have difficulty applying this simple insight to their prayer lives. Rather than prayer being communion with God, prayer is often offered without a proper sense of the presence of God. The result is that prayer becomes either a form of public address or of private monologue.

Prayer as public address is portrayed as the prayer offered by hypocrites who “love to pray standing in the synagogues” (Matthew 6:5). During the local synagogue services, one person would be asked to stand before the congregation and to lead in prayer. The one asked to pray might be moved by the respect given him and by the formality of the occasion to present his prayer as though it were just as much a public address as the teaching of the rabbi to follow. To this situation, Jesus offered a corrective: Pray to God only – not to the people.

We’re all familiar with the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. The Pharisee prayed self-righteously, bragging on his piety and devotion. The publican prayed in humility and repentance, appealing to God’s mercy.

The Bible tells us something interesting about the Pharisee’s prayer. We read that he prayed “about himself” (Luke 18:11). The NIV footnote indicates that this could be made to read that he prayed “to” himself. The Jerusalem Bible actually renders the passage as saying that he “prayed this prayer to himself.”

This Pharisee was not conscious of the presence of a gracious God hearing and receiving his prayer. He was conscious only of himself and his self-righteousness. Therefore, he did not really pray to God. He prayed to himself. His prayer was private monologue.

When we get up from the place of prayer, do we know that God has heard us? Do we know that He has received our prayer? Do we expect to receive His answer to our prayer? If we cannot say “yes” to these questions, then we have prayed without an awareness of the presence of God. Therefore, we have not truly prayed to God. We must learn to wait upon God in prayer until we know His presence.

Then we must pray in childlike faith to the God who is present. Only so can we pray with the right object of prayer.

 

– After this manner, pray

The salvation of Prayer: The Object of Prayer By J. Mark Copeland