The Posture of Prayer
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Three preachers sat together discussing the best positions to pray while a telephone repairman worked nearby.
“Kneeling is definitely best,” claimed one.
“No,” another contended. “I get the best results standing with my hands outstretched to heaven.”
“You’re both wrong,” the third insisted. “The most effective prayer position is lying prostrate, face down on the floor.”
Hearing all the discussion, the repairman could not contain himself any longer.
“Hey, fellas,” he interrupted, “the best prayin’ I ever did was hangin’ upside down from a telephone pole.”
This little illustration, as funny as picturing a man praying upside down on a pole, does give us a thought to consider.
Is it best to pray standing up, sitting down, kneeling, or bowing down? Should our hands be open, closed, or lifted up to God? Or can we and should we pray upside down. What is the most effective and God-honoring? Do our eyes need to be closed when we pray? Is it better to pray in a church building or out in nature? Should we pray in the morning when we get up or at night before we go to bed? Are there certain words we need to say in our prayers? How do we begin our prayers? What is the proper way to close a prayer? These questions,as well as others, are common questions asked about prayer. What is the proper way to pray and frankly, does any of the above questions even matter?
Far too often, prayer is viewed as a “magic formula.” Some believe that if we do not say exactly the right things, or pray in the right position or posture, God will not hear and answer our prayer, our prayers are less effective. But who did we talk about last week that is most concerned with these things? If you recall, it was the pagans whom Jesus addressed that where concerned more with the externals of prayer than the internals of prayer. But does that mean, posture during prayer doesn’t matter? Is that something we should even put consideration to, and the answer is absolutely. My hope is that by the end of this day, you will firmly grasp what is the proper pray posture.
Starting with point one...
I. The Definitive of Proper Posture in Prayer
I. The Definitive of Proper Posture in Prayer
What does it mean when we say something is definitive? We mean that that something is final. That is satisfies all the criteria. It’s complete. The perfect example. Today, I am going to assert to you that yes, there is one final, one complete, one perfect posture of prayer. And that is found in Ps. 51. where we will take a look at what David by God’s direction discovered. In this Psalm, Psalm 51, we notice that this is a Psalm written about David’s prayer to God following his sin with Bathsheba. It is a penitentiary Psalm, meaning it is a Psalm of repentance and confession of sins committed.
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
David revealed for us what many other Old Testament figures failed to grasp, that the offering of sacrifices in the temple did not gain merit for the sinner. Sacrifices, of course, had a purpose and that was to point to the cross and the perfect. The penalty of sin and the redemption that comes through blood. The sacrifices of those days do not ultimately gain righteousness (of course, that’s faith and obedience to the Gospel of Christ). But David understood that to a point and that’s why he said, if God merely desired sacrifices in order to get right with God, he would give them, but that’s not what God ultimately wants. David recognized thru his life that God’s true sacrifices are a broken spirit and a contrite heart.
Merely performing acts of piety or spiritualness did not make one right with God. That is not what God desires. A man could perform all of his actions correctly in the temple but still miss the point. That God cares about something far more important than outward actions, that He cares about the heart is clearly seen throughout scriptures.
The Bible tells us that the heart is so incredibly vital to who we are.
Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life.
“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
With these verses, we could call the heart the control center of man. What we put into our hearts, comes out of us. That is Jesus wants our hearts. Our hearts govern our actions.
Furthermore, scripture is full of passages about God caring about the heart.
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
Even within the sermon on the mount, we see who God reveals himself to....
Blessed are the ....... for they they shall see God. - Matthew 5:8. (Pure in Heart)
We referenced Luke 6 already about the good tree bearing fruit. There is a similiar passage in Matthew 12.
You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
Who does Jesus call a brood of vipers? The Pharisees, who were the experts in the law, the most pious, and proper outward religious men in that day. But did any of their outward actions mean a thing to Jesus. Absolutely not!
Doesn’t that cause all of us to stop and examine what we are doing. All of us do things “for the Lord.” But for what reason. The “good” that we are supposedly doing could be called bad by God unless our heart is right. David was concerned about that in Psalm 51 verse 13.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
Good cannot come out unless good is in the heart. That means our giving, our attendance at church, our teaching, our doing something nice for someone, our joining the work project, and even our prayers cannot produce good things without a right and clean heart. A broken and contrite heart. That is what God cares about.
Now does that mean scripture doesn’t have anything to save about the physical posture of prayer. Absolutely not. It’s not just the main concern. If you get the heart thing right, the spiritual posture of prayer, you’ll get the physical posture of prayer right because the physical things flow out of the spiritual things. The heart is the control center for your actions.
So tonight, come back, because Pat is going to lead us in what the scripture has shown about how people prayed in the Bible, in what posture they petitioned, praised, and prayed to the Lord. But note, there is only one main, one important, one central posture, and that is the posture of the heart in prayer, the rest will follow.
But now the question begs us to answer, what does a proper heart look like in prayer? In other words, this is our second point of the message today, what are the Designations (things that describe a proper heart) and the Declaration (things we say) of a Proper Heart in Prayer
II. The Designations & Declarations of a Proper Heart in Prayer
II. The Designations & Declarations of a Proper Heart in Prayer
A. With Reverence (Ps.2:11; 5:7; Is. 29; Heb.5:7)
A. With Reverence (Ps.2:11; 5:7; Is. 29; Heb.5:7)
David said in Psalm 2:11
Worship the Lord with reverence
And rejoice with trembling.
But as for me, by Your abundant lovingkindness I will enter Your house,
At Your holy temple I will bow in reverence for You.
When we enter before the Lord in prayer, our hearts should be reverent to Him. We saw this last week when we spoke about the Lord’s prayer. The prayer begins with adoration as well as reverence. Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name.
One writer called reverence -honor and respect that is deeply felt but outwardly demonstrated. God is just that God. He is high above all. Higher than the heavens. Majesty supreme. All will bow and fear just at the mere mention of His name. That is said of the demons. Even creations bows in submission to His will. Fear and reverence are oftentimes viewed similarly. If these things fear and revere Him so much then so should we. Not only that, but God commands reverence. Leviticus 19 would be a great place to start. Several times in that chapter, God says you will reverence the temple, the sabbath, the holy of holies, why, Because as the verses puts it, “I Am The Lord.” We as humans beings though struggle with reverence so God literally spelled out for mankind how to reverence Him. This He did through the law and through the Israelites.
Reverence is a big deal to God.
Isaiah 29 depicts what happens when mankind fails to reverence God.
Then the Lord said,
“Because this people draw near with their words
And honor Me with their lip service,
But they remove their hearts far from Me,
And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,
Therefore behold, I will once again deal marvelously with this people, wondrously marvelous;
And the wisdom of their wise men will perish,
And the discernment of their discerning men will be concealed.”
Notice in these verses, … draw near with their words, honor me with lip service, but they removed their hearts from me. What resulted? Their reverence was just a spiritual “act” which resulted in God’s judgement. Wrong heart means wrong reverence. We can always trace wrong actions or lack of good actions back to a wrong heart.
And that effects our prayer life.
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.
The Bible tells us that God is inclined his ear to us, but He will not hear us if we ask in arrogance, if we only give lip service, if we are ignorant in our prayers, ignorant of what-ignorant of His honor. So much of our own prayers are self-centered but God says and demands that we give Him reverence even in our praise. Honor and respect. That changes how we ask God or demand things of God. That changes how we view God as a good Father, that keeps us from allowing our hearts to think thoughts that are not true of Him that would disrespect and His will and His glory and His direction. When we presume to argue with God in prayer, what we are saying is that we know better than God. Not very respectful if you ask me.
Honestly, many Christians act towards God like disrespectful kids act towards their parents. They neither listen, or learn, they never agree and always fight with their parents. They speak lip service to their parents (they praise their parents and do as their told) but only to get their way, not actually because they value the commandments of their parents or who their parents are but only to exalt their own selves. We often treat God like this. Immature. We come to the Lord with hearts of reverence, because..... I AM THE LORD!!!!
B. With Righteousness & Humility (Prov. 15:29, Ps. 66:18, Jas. 4:6, 1 Pet. 5:6-7)
B. With Righteousness & Humility (Prov. 15:29, Ps. 66:18, Jas. 4:6, 1 Pet. 5:6-7)
This one is just as important. Do we come to God in our own righteousness. Of course not? Can we ever conjure up our own righteousness? Absolutely not! The good that we are even able to do is only because of the grace that God gives to us to do it. My college president use to say that righteousness means right like God sees it. So what do I mean by coming to God with righteousness? We need to come to God with clean hearts… or come to God being right as He sees fit. Right with Him according to His standards. That means with confession and humility.
The Lord is far from the wicked,
but he hears the prayer of the righteous.
If I regard wickedness in my heart,
The Lord will not hear;
Combine that with verses like
But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
and you get the picture that God only deals with humble and righteous people in prayer.
As I was hoping to do last week, we see this kind of spiritual posture of the heart within the Lord’s prayer. But where do you see this declaration of a heart that is coming to God in righteousness and humility. Well, it’s in the words.... forgive us our debts ....
Attrition vs. Contrition -
Attrition vs. Contrition -
Attrition is repentance motivated strictly by a fear of punishment. The sinner confesses his sin to God, not out of genuine remorse but out of a desire to secure a ticket out of hell.
Note how David prayed in Psalm 51… God would be justified in His punishment of him
True repentance reflects contrition, a godly remorse for offending God. Here the sinner mourns his sin, not for the loss of reward or for the threat of judgment, but because he has done injury to the honor of God.
Because we are all sinners and know that we share a common guilt, our confession tends to be superficial, often not characterized by earnestness or a sense of moral urgency. - Sproul
Jonathan Edwards in his sermon “the Justice of God in the Damnation of sinners” well described this when he said that
“Any sin is more or less heinous, depending on the honor and majesty of the one whom we have offended. Since God is of infinite honor, infinite majesty, and infinite holiness, the slightest sin is of infinite consequence. Such seemingly trivial sins are nothing less than “cosmic treason” when viewed in light of the great King against whom we have sinned.”
Therefore… as R.C. Sproul likened it to...Confession is like a declaration of bankruptcy.
And that is why Christians should OFTEN confess sin per the instruction of 1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The verb tense indicates on ongoing process. The unbeliever and the immature fleshly Christian will rationalize his sin. But a Christian who is mature in His faith will be sensitive to his unworthiness and will make confession a significant and daily part of his or her prayer life.
But let me continue though with Jesus’ prayer… forgive us our debts.... as we forgive our debtors.
The warning that Jesus gave in this request is that God will judge us according to how we have judged other people.
Let’s turn to Matthew 18:23-25 for a brief minute. Account of 2 men. Both owed money. One man owed $10 million dollars, an amount that even by today’s standards would be extremely difficult to pay off, but near impossible in the day that this parable was told especially considering that most people’s daily wage was around 18 cents. The was another man though that owed $18 to the man that was in greater debt. Now the parable goes that the man with the insurmountable debt was mercifully forgiven his debt but the man the owned him the $18 dollars was not forgiving but even demanding and harrassing of the one that owed the smaller debt.
The point should be clear. Our offenses to each other and the offenses people do to us are like an $18 debt, while the innumberable offenses we have committed against the Lord God are like the $10 Million debt. He has forgiven us… but we cannot forgive the ones that do sin against us which is much smaller by comparison.
Forgiven people forgive other people. We dare not claim to be possessors of His life and nature and at the same time fail to exhibit that life and nature. If God has forgiven someone, can we do any less? It would be incredible to think that we, who are so guilty, would refuse to forgive someone who has been forgiven by God, who is completely guiltless.
C. With Thanksgiving & Praise (Ps. 95:2, Phil.4:6-7)
C. With Thanksgiving & Praise (Ps. 95:2, Phil.4:6-7)
Naturally, it follows that if we have been forgiven much, then much we have to be people of praise and thanksgiving, so we should come to the Lord with a thankful heart in prayer.
Psalms 95 is a great place go for this topic but look at verses 2 specifically...
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
But what about when times are tough. Are we supposed to still give thanks. Philippians has the answer to that.
do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
R.C. Sproul said has a look of really valuable this to say about thankfulness in prayer including this statement.
“If God never grants us another glimpse of His glory in this life, if He never grants us another request, if He never gives us another gift from the abundance of His grace, we still would be obligated to spend the rest of our lives thanking Him for what He already has done. We have already been blessed enough to be moved daily to thanksgiving. Nevertheless, God continues to bless us.”
He continues you to say...
“One of the things that betrays our fallen condition is the concept of the self-made man, one who takes credit for the bounty of his goods and forgets the Source of all his provisions.”
So for many of us, we don’t give thanks. And if we do, we rarely give thanks enough for ALL we have. It’s like we pocket certain things to give thanks for but certain things we don’t because we earned them, and though we would never say this out loud, I did this without God so therefore why give Him praise. Though our tongues my not say that ever, our lives live that by practice when we don’t give thanks for all we have. Don’t be generic. Be specific. Doing so will greatly enlarge our view of God and dependence on Him, of course, increasing our relationship with Him, and will minimize self and pride.
There is a real danger if we don’t give thanks daily in prayer. For one, scriptures describes people who don’t give thanks as people who are pagan, unregenerate, lost, and apostate.
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
That’s a real scare. But beyond that, unthankfulness leads to all sorts of other of sins. R.C. Sproul pointed this out in relation to the Israelites when God delivered them from the land of Epypt. He states that ...
God miraculously provided for the people with bread in the form of manna. Then what happened?
First, they stopped thanking Him for His provision.
Second, they stopped asking Him for His provision.
Third, they began grumbling about His provision.
Finally, they began reminiscing about how good things had been in Egypt.
In other words, they turned against God, and stopped finding Him necessary. They preferred the tyranny of their wicked slave owners over the goodness and grace of almighty God. Forgetting that those slave owners named Pharoah once beat them and tortured them and put them to extreme labor, but at least the food wasn’t manna. Oh, how we too often forget the goodness of God, but it starts when we chose to stop giving thanks in everything.
D. With Faith & Confidence (Heb. 11:6, Jas. 1:5-8, Mark 11:22-24)
D. With Faith & Confidence (Heb. 11:6, Jas. 1:5-8, Mark 11:22-24)
And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Suppose you give a man your checkbook signed with your own name and left blank, to be filled up as he chose. That would be very nearly what Jesus has done in these words, “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” If I had a good name at the bottom of the check I would be sure that I would get it cashed when I went to the banker with it. So when you have Christ’s name, to whom the very justice of God has become a debtor, and whose merits have claims with the Most High—when you have Christ’s name there is no need to speak with fear and trembling and bated breath.
What Sproul is saying in this quote is that not only should we come to God with faith but also confidence. Confidence because Christ is our mediator to the throne of grace. Heb. 4:14-16 is our great passage there.Jesus has multiple times expressed that we are to come to him at anytime. Come to me all you who are week and heavy laden. In fact, going back to the passage in James, it says if you lack wisdom, ask God, who and this really important phrase… who gives generously and WITHOUT REPROACH… meaning without throwing it back in your face. That’s a stupid request. That’s a waste of my time. That’s foolish to even be thinking about that. This verse says that we can go to God in Christ because of His sacrifice on the cross and anything that we ask of Him, He won’t scorn you for. Now, I should say within reason. Anything you ask, IN MY NAME… certainly has a restraint in what God wants, not just anything we want. Which leads us to our next heart posture.
E. With God’s Will in Mind and Submission (1 Jn. 5:14-15)
E. With God’s Will in Mind and Submission (1 Jn. 5:14-15)
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
This confidence is based upon our requests that are in the will of God.
God does not give up his prerogative as King when he tells us to pray and then guarantees He will answer it. We could illustrate this by what a young child asks for from their parents. Their requests are sometimes to ask for the kitchen knife or the tool in Dad’s workshop or the medicine that is is in the cabinet. But your response is what? Of course, not. I will always try to give you what is good for you but I cannot and won’t give you those things that either I don’t have or can’t have or things that are dangerous for you to have.
So it is with our God. He denies us many things we wish for because they are not good for us. But there is one thing that is certain: “He does not withhold good from those who walk blamelessly” (Ps 84:11). If it is really good for you, you will have it, and God shall be glorified by it.
Another example of this would be found in the Lord’s prayer. Much of the prayer was focused on the will of God. The first 3 requests were focused on God’s Honor, God’s Kingdom, and God’s will. But even when the requests in the prayer turn towards us, they are still in the will of God. We’ve already talked about the request to be forgiven our debts. Will look at the next 2 quickly with these last 2 heart postures.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one has the proper heart posture written all over it. Is that request with confidence, with faith, with God’s will in Mind, with Humility, and Reverence. Of course it is!
Think of all the things we are expressing to God when we make this simple request. We are making known our hatred for sin and confessing our weakness to overcome it. We are counting on God to never leave us or forsake us. We are trusting in the power of the Spirit to be our strength and our shield. Jesus does not instruct us to pray for more willpower to do the right thing, even if our wills must always be engaged in the fight against sin. Our prayer is not for the courage to fight but for our heavenly Father to be our refuge, our rock, and our rescue. - Kevin D. Young
It’s a prayer for a life set apart from sinning, not a prayer for a life set apart from all suffering. It’s sound like the verse is saying 2 different things, don’t lead us to temptation but if you do, deliver us from evil. That’s what I originally thought, but after much study, this verse actually contains parallelism which says one thing then says the same thing a different way. So it’s the same request said twice. Jesus doesn’t want us to pray for lack of temptation or trails. In fact, Jesus was led by the Spirit to the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. God uses trials and temptation (He’s not the cause of these) for our good. But our prayer is that we would be delivered from them. Victory through him. A prayer declaration of a heart that is proper and right before God, why because the heart is completely dependent on Him. And that’s the last posture of the heart we will look at.
F. With Utter Dependence (Ps. 102:16-17,Matt. 6:34, Jas. 4:13-16)
F. With Utter Dependence (Ps. 102:16-17,Matt. 6:34, Jas. 4:13-16)
For the Lord builds up Zion;
he appears in his glory;
he regards the prayer of the destitute
and does not despise their prayer.
Once there was a rich man who had a son to whom he promised an annual allowance. Every year on the same day, he would give his son the entire amount. After a while, it happened that the only time the father saw his son was on the day of allowance. So the father changed his plan and only gave the son enough for the day. Then the next day the son would return. From then on, the father saw his son every day. This is the way God dealt with Israel. It is the way God deals with us.
And that is what we see in the request to give us this day our Daily bread. Two words I want to focus on. Daily.
Today’s grace is for today’s trials, and when tomorrow’s trials come, God will have a new grace waiting for you there. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Another great truth from Kevin D. Young…
Anxiety is living out the future before it get here. - Kevin D. Young
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
So don’t start living out the troubles of next Tuesday because you haven’t gotten to the grace that will be there waiting for you next Tuesday.
That’s why James instructs us to pray the Lord’s will for tomorrow.
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
Conclusion:
As we wrap up today’s message, it’s abundantly clear. Man looks on the outward appearance, even in prayer. All concerned with the externals of pray. What God cares about is the heart. Our hearts must be right. I trust that as we have looked at the importance of prayer, you will be increasing convinced, convicted, comfortable, and constrained to pray to more often. As I close my time of teaching through prayer, I want to portray to you one last illustration that I hope will stick in your mind.
In a region of Africa, the first converts to Christianity were very diligent about praying. In fact, the believers each had their own special place outside the village where they went to pray in solitude. The villagers reached these “prayer rooms” by using their own private footpaths through the brush. When grass began to grow over one of these trails, it was evident that the person to whom it belonged was not praying very much.
Because these new Christians were concerned for each other’s spiritual welfare, a unique custom sprang up. Whenever anyone noticed an overgrown “Prayer path,” he or she would go to the person and lovingly warn, “Friend, there’s grass on your path!”
Friends, I hope your prayer is well worn. We need God. As we sang, I need thee, O I need thee. Every hour I need thee. O bless me now my Savior. I come to Thee.
Questions:
What do we focus more on when we pray? Do we focus more on that we are quiet, eyes closed, hands folded, saying the right words or do we focus more on what our hearts should be like when we pray?
What posture of the heart do we most struggle with? Is it reverence, confession and humility, thanksgiving and praise, faith and confidence, God’s Will and my submission, or is it utter dependence on Him?
What should we begin to do today to right our improper hearts towards prayer?