(Click here to listen to Pastor Bojan’s message “Prayer Traditions”.)
making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.
-Mark 7:13
Jesus told the Pharisees that their problem was tradition.
What traditions do we see in our prayer lives? What traditions can impair our prayer life and, ultimately, our relationship with God?
• Striving in prayer when striving is not necessary.
Longer is not necessarily better. You don’t have to fight God for something He has already given to you. You need to pray with God…not at Him.
• Continually speaking in prayer.
Jesus said to stop the vain repetitions. Look at the story of Mary and Martha: Martha was busy doing, doing, doing. Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and listened.
• Having a long prayer time over a meal.
What did Jesus do before eating? He lifted up and gave thanks. That was it. By the way, you don’t have to pray for the food. It isn’t sick. It has already been blessed. It was blessed when it was a seed—that’s how it was turned into a meal. Just say thanks.
• Disbelief
When you pray that something will happen…believe it will happen. When Jonah prayed in the belly of the fish, he prayed a prayer in the past tense. He was so confident that it would happen, he spoke as though it had already happened.