When You Pray: 4 Verbs That Change Your Prayer

Introduction

Many Christians pray without really knowing what's happening in their prayer. We recite, we ask, we inform God of things he already knows, and we walk away without having heard anything from him. In Matthew 6:6, Jesus opens up a path for you in four very simple verbs: pray, enter, shut the door, and let your Father reward you. Four verbs that, if you take them seriously, can transform your relationship with God.

Outline of the message

1. Praying means opening a conversation with your Father

• The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 to 7) is a concentrate of Christianity, the most beautiful words ever spoken on earth. And within it, everything is about relationship: the vertical arrow toward God and the horizontal arrow toward the brothers and sisters.
• Praying isn't speaking to God, it's speaking with him. It's a dialogue. Too often we forget that little word "with": we talk like a machine gun, without giving the Lord time to get a word in.
• We even inform God as if he didn't already know everything; we describe to him the lady and her little tilted hat… He knows her better than we do.
• God is your Father. Even if you never knew your biological father, the Holy Spirit teaches you to know a heavenly Father greater than all fathers. Even Jesus, though both God and man, needed to withdraw to renew his communion with the Father.
• In a conversation, you also have to listen. Today we no longer know how to listen to a bird's song; even less to the Father's voice. Praying means the mouth opening and the ear leaning in.
• There are several types of prayer: petition, thanksgiving (saying thank you), adoration (for who he is), praise (for what he has done, as in Psalm 78, which reminds the Hebrews of everything God accomplished for them), and intercession, standing between God and someone, as Abraham did for Sodom and Gomorrah.
• Like on a guitar, you can't stay your whole life on the E major chord: you have to learn the barre chords, vary the chords. Prayer too must be varied to be complete.

2. Entering means crossing the threshold of the sanctuary

• Before going out to act, you must first enter. "If you want to move fast, get on your knees." It's through prayer that you truly move forward.
• A missionary was arriving with his team of evangelists at a river in flood, impossible to cross. Take a 20-kilometer detour? No, they got down on their knees. While they were praying, there was a huge crack: a giant tree fell across the river and they crossed on the trunk.
• You never waste time when you pray. Prayer isn't the goal, nor is it an idol: it's the means by which you reach the Lord.
• At the Father's house, you don't need an invitation card for every visit: the door is always open because his home is your home. But it's a place reserved for those who pray, for those who belong to his family.
• You can enter this sanctuary anywhere: on a plane, in a submarine, in a beautiful cathedral, in prison, in a hospital, when you're sick or for someone who's sick. You can pray at any time.
• Above all the riches of the kingdom, there is the One you want to see: the Father. And the Son. And the Holy Spirit who leads you to know them more and more.

3. Shutting the door means separating from the noise of the world

• "Shut your door": this separation is vital. God says to his people: "You are a people set apart", different, separated from the mindset of the world.
• Without a life of prayer, you will be swept away. You'll think like the world without even knowing where God's will lies.
• A frog dropped into boiling water jumps out immediately. But put it in a pot of cold water and heat it slowly: it won't notice a thing, right up to the boiling point. Too late. That's how it goes for the Christian who hasn't shut his door.
• When you pray, the Holy Spirit tells you: "Those things aren't good for you. Those friends, you have them to your own harm." You have to know how to shut the door on images from the web, on the race to become known: Jesus never sought an image, he was a reality.
• Watch out for the "buts" that call every promise of God into question. If God says something, it's true. You have to learn to be sealed off from everything that will creep down to the heart and turn you into someone lukewarm, and God detests the lukewarm.

4. "Will reward you": the promised reward of prayer

• Prayer and answered prayer go together. There is a reward for the one who prays: God honors the one who honors him and gives to the one who asks.
• A good dad and a good mom don't refuse something good to their child, even when the child doesn't deserve it. Your heavenly Father is even more patient.
• To Cornelius (Acts 10), a Roman citizen who did not yet belong to the people of God, the angel said: "Your prayers and the gifts you have brought to the poor have gone up as a memorial before God." God keeps a record of everything we bring him in prayer.
• When you pray, you can pray with great confidence: your Father will take care of it. He even gave one man a car through a chain of circumstances, without the man asking anyone for it, because he knew in that man's heart what he needed.
• Since the pastor arrived in Paris in 1995 with Claudine, they haven't stopped praying, crying out, fasting, staying up at night for France. And God has noted all of it. Soon he will come to reward it, he will send his angel, he will give back. He is the rewarder of those who seek him in prayer.
• Sometimes God puts it on your heart to pray for something he has already planned, but he wants you, through prayer and then through action, to take part in his miracle.

Key takeaways

• Prayer is a dialogue with your Father, not a machine-gun conversation where you inform God of things he already knows.
• Vary your prayer: petition, thanksgiving, adoration, praise, intercession, like a musician who doesn't stay on a single chord.
• Enter the sanctuary before acting: "If you want to move fast, get on your knees." You never waste time when you pray.
• Shut your door to the mindset of the world, or you'll become lukewarm without even realizing it, like the frog in the slowly heating pot.
• God is the rewarder of those who seek him: he remembers every one of your prayers and will reward you in his time.

Personal application

1. In your last prayer, did you give the Father time to speak to you, or did you monopolize the conversation?
2. Among the five types of prayer (petition, thanksgiving, adoration, praise, intercession), which one is sorely lacking in your life?
3. What urgent decision is on your mind today that you haven't yet gotten on your knees about? What would happen if you stopped everything right now to enter the secret room?
4. Which "door" in your life (social media, the surrounding chatter, friendships that pull you backward) do you need to shut so you don't become lukewarm?
5. Is there a prayer you've carried for years, one you're starting to doubt God even remembers? How does the word spoken to Cornelius change how you see it?

Verses cited

• Matthew 6:6
• Matthew 5 to 7 (the Sermon on the Mount)
• Genesis 18:16-33 (Abraham's intercession for Sodom)
• Psalm 78
• Acts 10:1-4 (Cornelius)
• Revelation 3:15-16 (the lukewarm)

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if my prayer is "done right"?

Prayer isn't a performance to nail. Jesus first defines it as a conversation with your Father in the secret place. If you speak with him the way a child speaks to a dad, if you also take time to listen, if your prayer isn't just a list of requests but makes room for thanks, adoration, praise, and intercession for others, then you're on the right path. The rest is the Holy Spirit shaping in you over time.

Is it worth stopping to pray when I already have so much to do?

It's precisely when you're short on time that you need to pray. "If you want to move fast, get on your knees": the story of the missionary and the flooded river shows it. They could have lost hours going around the obstacle; instead they took time to pray, and God brought a tree crashing down across the river so they could cross. You never waste time when you pray, you gain it.

Why doesn't God seem to answer some of my prayers?

The text of Matthew 6:6 promises that your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you. And the account of Cornelius in Acts 10 reminds us that God keeps a record of everything we bring him. Sometimes, as Pastor Paul ETTORI says of the prayer for a revival in France carried since 1995: God takes note, he prepares, he waits for the right moment. Sometimes too he puts it on your heart to pray for something he has already planned, because he wants you, through prayer and action, to take part in his miracle.