Prayin’ Like A Pagan - Matthew 6:7-8 Series

But just like any good thing it can become paganized. And I have many times heard people in Charismatic circles do that same sort of thing, but what they say is just mindless chanting: “Oh thank You Jesus, thank You, Jesus, Oooh Lord Jesus...” It is never “Thank You for…” and then some specific thing. Thank You for being our refuge and fortress and deliverer. Thank You for conquering death and raising us to newness of life. It is just “Thank You Jesus thank You Jesus” And it becomes little more than mindless, paganized prayer.

Mindless liturgy

And it is not just a problem in Charismatic circles. In high church circles – in the more liturgical churches – pagan prayer slips in with the liturgies. They recite prayers out of a prayer book, and instead of using all the procedures and forms as tools to express their love for God they just fall into thinking those rituals are pleasing to God in and of themselves, and the heart and mind become disengaged. They crank out the ritual – stand, sit, kneel, recite, bow, say “amen” and they are out the door and on their way and they never even paid two minutes attention to God.

That was a problem for the Jews of Jesus’ day. Their prayers were mostly formal, pre-written prayers. In fact I read about one rabbi who was bucking the trend when he decided to invent at least one new prayer a day. And so they were susceptible to this.

And again – I do not say this to ridicule liturgical churches. I am not against liturgy at all. There is a lot to be said for some of the more formal kinds of worship. The catechisms and some of those written prayers are so rich and so deep and profound and biblical they put many of our prayers to shame. And some of those more formal styles of worship can evoke feelings of awe and reverence and trembling before God that is rarely experienced in less formal styles of worship. So I am not condemning any style here – I am just pointing out the various ways pagan praying tends to worm its way in to each style.

Mindless spontaneity

And we are not exempt. In Charismatic circles it is mindless tongues or mindless verbiage during worship. In high church circles it is mindless liturgy. But what about in evangelical circles? How does paganized prayer creep into a church like Agape Bible Church? For us it is not usually through mindless tongues or mindless liturgy, but through mindless spontaneity. Our prayers are almost all spontaneous. We rarely read our prayers – we just come up with them off the top of our heads. And that is supposed to guard us against mindless liturgy. But spontaneity does not prevent mindlessness. Some of the most mindless prayers you will ever hear are spontaneous prayers in an evangelical church.

I know I am guilty of that. We are going to have a meeting, I say, “OK, let’s open with a word of prayer: Lord, we ask that You would bless our meeting and guide us and direct us, blah blah blah…” and I get to the end of the prayer and realize the whole time I was just thinking about what to say – but I was not paying attention to God at all. We pray before a meal, “Dear Lord thank You for this food, bless these French fries to the nourishment of my body, yada, yada, yada, amen.” We might as well just say, “Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub” and start eating. We are not thinking about God at all. We are just cranking out a spontaneous, empty ritual.