“But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.” (Matthew 6:7)

It may seem encouraging to some to read a sign outside a store that reads, ‘Pray Harder for our Country.’ However, when you analyze what is behind such a statement, there is cause for concern.

1. It presumes that things are not according to what the LORD has purposed. And yet, if we know and believe the God of the Bible, the whole world is His, and all that lives, moves, and has its being is, "of Him and through Him and to Him are all things." (Rom. 11:36)

2. There is a prevailing blindness in people’s view of prayer which our LORD calls ‘vain repetition’ and pagan, to think that they will be heard for their much speaking. How often people say, ‘Prayer changes things’ and therefore to get it done…pray more, pray harder, pray longer. If God can change by the will and efforts of men, then He is NOT God, and man himself becomes, in essence, God. Such was the fatal thought that Satan sowed in Adam and Eve’s heart and brought about the fall, making them think that if they just acted, they could be as God- Genesis 3:5.

How then ought we to pray? Prayer is not the poor, weak creature forcing God to submit to his will, but rather the humble supplication of the sinner to be brought into submission to the will of God. Our LORD taught His disciples to pray, ‘Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.’ (Matthew 6:10)As one writer states it succinctly, ‘God requires that we shall worship Him, and prayer, real prayer, is an act of worship. Prayer is an act of worship inasmuch as it is the prostrating of the soul before Him; inasmuch as it is a calling upon His great and holy name; inasmuch as it is the owning of His goodness, His power, His immutability, His grace, and inasmuch as it is the recognition of His sovereignty, owned by a submission to His will.’