THREE POSTURES OF PRAYER

03/13/2023

"And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward." (Matthew 6:5)

Prayer, no matter the type, is interaction with God. And since the interaction is with God, there are postures you must observe to be in alignment with Him. If you interact with an earthly king or president, there are certain postures you must observe for the interaction to be productive for you. 

Today's theme scripture starts with, "And when you pray..." implying that you should have a designated time to pray and during that time, you must shirk doing it in public. Now, this might raise questions about Christians praying in public spaces or praying in church. 

To this, I would say Christians can pray in public spaces or in church. However, the praying that Jesus talks about in Matthew 6:5 refers to being intimate with God in the capacity of a disciple and this kind of prayer is not for public consumption. If you are asked to pray at work, your prayer should be in the context of work and hinged on the intimacy you shared with the Lord in private. On the other one, praying in church, the church is your family and when you pray in church you are praying with your family. Many times in scripture, people prayed in church from the response of the early church to threats in Acts 4:31 to the response of the church to Peter's arrest in Acts 12:5.

So, in the capacity of a disciple, your posture about interacting intimately with God is that you do it in secret. 

Next, the Bible says that when you pray, forgive. Mark 11:25 says, "And whenever you stand praying if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses." Forgiving others keeps you in a state of grace to be received by the Lord when you pray. In essence, the posture of your heart must be offence-free otherwise you risk being offensive in your interaction with God. 

Lastly, and very importantly, we maintain a posture of lifting our hands to God when we pray. Paul writes in 1 Timothy 2:5-6,8: "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time...I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting." In other words, because there is one God and the Man Christ Jesus, we are to lift our hands when we pray. 

Now, while the explanation of the Man Christ Jesus refers to our Lord Jesus and the Church, the lifting up of our hands is a posture to indicate that you are the elect of God. Psalm 141:2 says, "Let my prayer be set before You as incense, The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice." So the next time you pray, do so with lifted hands because it is the mark of your priesthood to God for humanity.

Be blessed.

Faith-Filled Confession

I am a priest unto God on the behalf of humanity. I forgive every time I am in prayer and I observe the posture of secrecy as Jesus' intimate disciple. For this reason, I am full of results in my prayer life, every time. In Jesus' name. Amen

ONE YEAR READING PLAN: Deuteronomy 17-19; Mark 14:1-25