01.07. PRAYER AND MOTIVATION

7. PRAYER AND MOTIVATION And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matthew 6:5-6) The effect of sin in man is so strong that he can often make the most sacred activities into expressions of his wickedness. He can do something that appears to be very spiritual from a very unspiritual motive. For example, a person who prayer long and often may appear to us as very spiritual and devoted, but this is not necessarily true, since he may be praying precisely to make us think this about him. Sin has made the heart of man so vile that he may even give his life to make himself look good to others, and thus Paul writes that he is possible for a person to suffer martyrdom without any love in his heart. Surely some people willingly endure persecution just for the glory of it.

Many people display strong emotions when they pray or sing at church. Although some of them are probably sincere, many of them are not. Their emotions do not result from an intense gratitude toward the grace of God, but from their self-pity or the desire to cause others to think that they are spiritual. For similarly illegitimate reasons, other people dance and scream at church, perhaps to demonstrate to any observers their spiritual freedom and love for God. They are trying to show that they love God so much that they do not care what other people think about them; however, they do what they do precisely because they care very much about what other people think.

Preaching the true gospel includes a declaration of the sovereignty of God and the cost of discipleship. For the most part, the church today preaches a false gospel that hides or even denies these two crucial elements. Because of this, many false converts have been introduced to the church community so that I would go as far as to say that most people who call themselves Christians today are not true Christians. Since people who are not true Christians cannot worship God in spirit and in truth, there is very little true worship in our public gatherings today. It is easy to throw a rock concert and call it a worship service, and it is easy to think that if we feel good about something, then it must be acceptable to God. Some churches think that true worship includes rolling on the floor and foaming at the mouth. But only the Bible can show us what is true worship.

If God has truly regenerated you, then your faith is real and at the root of your personality is the desire to offer true worship. But since your sanctification is incomplete, you still continue to commit sins, and therefore you must consider the possibility that you do not always worship God with complete purity and sincerity. That is, although at the root of your personality you indeed love God, and you indeed offer him true worship to some extent, you do not always love or worship him in complete purity and sincerity. Rather, you continue to love and worship him imperfectly, and with ulterior motives.

Jesus says that the first and greatest commandment is for us to love God with our all, and there are people who really think that this is what they are doing. However, they fail to realize what this commandment really means. You may feel very loving toward God, but that is not at all an indication of how much you love him. Jesus says that if you love him, you would obey his commandments. Thus if you love him perfectly, would you not obey his commandments perfectly? If you indeed love God with all of your heart, then you would be perfect, and you would never sin. But the apostle John tells us that if we say that we have no sin, then the truth is not in us. If we admit that we continue to sin, then we have also admitted that we do not love God perfectly.

Also, it is impossible for most people to love God very much at all, not to say perfectly, because of their ignorance of theology. If you know next to nothing about God, then you cannot love him, since your love is either directed toward nothing, or to a false conception of God. Whether you have no conception of God or a false conception of God, the object of your love is not God, and whatever you think you love so intensely is not God, but a product of your imagination and false theology. In fact, unless you are among the elect, the more you find out about God, the more you may hate him. Only the elect can love a God who has absolute sovereignty and exhaustive knowledge, who does whatever he pleases, justifies the elect, and condemns the reprobates.

There is a common misunderstanding that if God gives you a command, then you are surely able to obey it. However, a command of God serves only to define sin, that it would be sinful for you to disobey it, but it says nothing about whether you will be able to obey it. Jesus says that the first and greatest commandment is for us to love God with our all, but no one is able to obey it. No one loves God perfectly, and anyone who claims to be doing it has only succeeded in showing us his very low definition of what perfection means.

Now, that we are unable to obey God perfectly when God demands perfection means that, if we were to be acceptable to God, we will need a foreign righteousness imputed to us ­ - we will need God’s own perfect righteousness credited to our account. This is what Christ has done for his own people. If God has chosen you to be saved, it means that Christ came to die for you, and that he has paid your debt incurred by sin, and that when you believed in Christ, his righteousness was imputed to you. God then pronounced you as legally justified in his sight, although in yourself you are still a sinner. It is on this imputed righteousness that you depend both at your justification, and your continual acceptance before God in your Christian life. That said, this does not mean that you may give up on fighting against sin. The believer is not in the same position as the unbeliever, in that God has given the believer the Holy Spirit, who assists the believer in sanctification. The Holy Spirit causes the Christian to remember and obey the commands of God. Therefore, once you realize that your motives in prayer and worship are not always pure, you may proceed to actively fight against the sin that lingers. You must struggle to remove the remnants of sinfulness and wickedness in your heart. You must stifle and frustrate the desire for praise and approval from people.

I am trying to show you that your motives in public worship may not be entirely pure, and this applies not only to worship, but also to any context in which you have the opportunity to demonstrate your spirituality in public. Although you have a genuine love toward God if you are truly regenerated, it remains that your love toward him has not yet been perfected.

How should you proceed?

You should practice private prayer and worship. If you are excited about praying when other people are around, but if your enthusiasm becomes almost nonexistent when nobody is watching or praising you, then this is evidence that you have the type of spiritual problem we are talking about above. Your love for God alone should be able to sustain your habit of prayer and study. Jesus says that if you perform spiritual activities in order to gain the approval of other people, then that is all the reward you are going to get. But if you are willing to sincerely offer prayer and worship to God in private, then he will hear you and reward you.

Even when you are in church gatherings and other public settings, there are a number of things that you can do to stifle and frustrate your sinful desire to gain the attention and approval of other people. In general, you should keep a low profile when possible, and avoid drawing attention to yourself by your outward appearance and behavior. This includes dressing, praying, singing, and doing other things in ways that would not make you stand out. If you have been having problems in this area, this might be painful at first. But it is a wicked thing to use a church gathering as a contest to see who appears to be the most spiritual and in love with the Lord. You may even ask a friend to point out ways through which you attract unnecessary attention to yourself. Of course, at times you may have to do things that may attract some attention to yourself, but are necessary to edify the church. For example, the preacher has to stand up and speak, and the ushers have to walk around the meeting place. These functional activities are approved by Scripture, acknowledged by the church, and performed by appointed individuals, so do not use this as an excuse and think that whatever you do to attract attention to yourself is necessary for the edification to others.

Some people claim that we should allow the Holy Spirit the "freedom" to control how we behave at church. If the Spirit moves them to sing and dance and to roll on the floor, who are they to resist? But the apostle Paul insists that we retain control over our faculties in church: "The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets" (1 Corinthians 14:32). Those who disagree oppose apostolic authority (v. 37) and are subject to church discipline.

Stifling and frustrating the desire for human approval instead of divine approval is not only the responsibility of the individual, but it is also the responsibility of the church community. Too often we do things that encourage sinful motives and hypocritical behavior. For example, we may tend to admire and praise superficial displays of excitement rather than true character and devotion. One reason for this is because genuine virtue is more difficult to detect, since we cannot see into the hearts of men. But we can certainly withhold compliments toward people’s outward behavior when we are uncertain that their thoughts and motives correspond. Expressing our appreciation for a truly spiritual person is one thing, flattery is another.

Ignorant and irresponsible ministers make the mistake of encouraging outward "freedom" and unrestrained expression in prayer and worship without reprimanding the false motives of the people in their congregations. Ministers must preach against superficial spirituality and expose the pretenders. They must urge believers to seek only God’s approval and to pursue private prayer and worship. In cases of severe abuse and blatant disobedience, the leaders must exercise church discipline to discourage future disorderly behavior.

We must not underestimate human sinfulness, whether in ourselves or in others. Even in private prayer and worship there is room for hypocrisy and false motives. Self-approval and self-congratulation is a common sin. Thus we must learn the habit of self-examination and self-confrontation. We must confront sin in our own hearts with constant vigilance and ruthlessness. Jesus talks about a Pharisee who congratulated himself for not being a tax collector, while the tax collector repents to God for his sinfulness. The one who repents is the one who leaves the place of prayer justified (Luke 18:9-14).