UNSCRIPTURAL PRAYING MODEL

I want to address a pattern of prayer that is not only unscriptural but also selfish and not right!

When we pray, the rational motive shouldn't be to use the disadvantages in other people's life as the basis for our prayer or thanksgiving to God.

God does not appreciate that!

When you pray, don't say words like, "Many slept last night but didn't wake up; we thank you because we are alive to see this day."

To pray that way is not only inconsistent with scriptures, it is selfish!

In Luke 18:10-13, two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this way, "God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector."

At the end of his prayers, he was not heard because he was self-righteous.

In the context of the teachings of the New Testament, the prayers of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector are unscriptural.

A Christian shouldn't pray to God the way the both of them did. Comparison was the Pharisee's rational motive for prayer.

The Tax Collector called himself a sinner desirous of mercy! A Christian is not a sinner; hence, should not call himself one while talking with God.

So both models, by the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, are unscriptural ways to pray to God.

In Paul's epistles to the church, we read of the Pauline prayer for the church.

Each time I pray the Pauline prayers, the anointing get stirred in me because of the spiritual connection.

Read and pray: Ephesians 1:16-23, Ephesians 3:14-21, Colossians 1:9-13.