How’s Your Prayer Life?

When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! Matthew 6:5-8 (NLT) 

Be like the humble turtle and pray quietly.

Meditate. Pray.

Jesus knew that people who had come to hear Him needed to learn about prayer. Who did they have as examples in their community? The babbling, hypocritical scribes and Pharisees?! They were looking for rewards, praise, acknowlegements, or public accolades. Their public prayers were actually acceptable at the synagogue. Private prayer was to be just that, private, but these hypocrites were doing the private prayers on busy street corners where everyone could see them. They were chanting like pagan did to their gods, and babbling on in nonsense to impress others of their piousness. Jesus was stressing that our Heavenly Father knows what we need—and I would presume, want— even before we begin to pray. Prayer is our way to communicate with God. Reading His word and discussing it with others is one of God’s way of communicating with us. Have you spent time praising Him—for His creation, life, and thanking Him for all He has done lately?

This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows all things. 1 John 3:20 

This reminds me of a parable that Jesus told later about the prayer life of two very different men. He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee was standing and praying like this about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I’m not like other people -- greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even raise his eyes to heaven but kept striking his chest and saying, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner! ’ I tell you, this one went down to his house justified rather than the other, because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”  Luke 18:9-14 (CSB)  What is Jesus teaching us from these passage? Which of the men are you like? How is your prayer life? © 2026 Text, photos, and illustrations by Mickey M. Hunacek. All rights reserved.  All scripture quoted from the New Living Translation (NLT) unless otherwise noted.  New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation.  Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scripture labeled CSB are from the Christian Standard Bible, Copyright (c)  2017, 2020. By HolmanBible Publishers. Biblical search from Blue Letter Bible - http://v3.blueletterbible.org/search.cfm.