How Not To Make Vain Repetition Before God In Prayer
To make vain repetitions in prayer, will get you nowhere
Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, as recorded in:
Matthew 6:7, KJV
“When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking”.
Other translations say:
- “Do not use meaningless repetition” — (NASB)
- “Do not heap up empty phrases” — (ESV)
- “Do not keep on babbling” — (NIV)
In other words, vain repetition means meaningless words, empty phrases, babbling or useless words. You can add powerless words to this count.
So, Jesus is warning us that repeating worthless phrases in our prayers will not guaranty that we will be heard by God or receive answers to our prayers.
God is not concerned with word count or formulaic phrases as used in pagan or heathen practices. He is only concerned with our faith, based strictly on His Word.
God only gives attention to His Word, spoken and used in prayer by faith. But the Word of God, ought to be used rightly in prayer inorder not to fall under vain repetitions.
Knowing how to pray Word of God based prayers in faith, will move your prayers from vain repetitions, to effective and powerful prayers that moves mountains. Why is this so?
God declared in:
Jeremiah 1:12:
“I will hasten (supervise, watch-over, protect, look after) My Word to perform it …”
God would answer our Word of God based prayers because He watches over His Word to perform or demonstrate it.
Another reason why God would give attention to and answer Word of God based prayers is because God has placed the greatest and utmost value on His Word. The bible confirms this by declaring thus:
“Thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.” — Psalms 138:2
Jesus also confirmed this by saying:
“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” — Matthew 24:35The Bible also declares:
“There has not failed one Word of all His good promise……” — 1 Kings 8:56
No word spoken by God has ever failed. God daily — moment by moment, watches over His Word to perform it.
So, when you pray Word of God based prayers, you are guaranteed that you will have whatsoever you desire. John the Apostle confirmed this also when He said:
“And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us. And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” — 1 John 5:14–15
Asking anything according to the will of God means to pray in line with the Word of God. Using the promises or the Word of God to pray gives us confidence that what we asked for would be granted. This is how we become effective in prayer and in ministry.
PRAYING WITH SEVERAL SCRIPTURES VS VAIN REPETITIONS
Praying with the scriptures is not the same as vain repetition. Praying with a collection of scriptures for a particular need, is like an attorney standing before a Judge in the court of law.
In the court of law, the attorney stands before the judge on behalf of his client just for ONE THING! For the judge to pass judgment in favour of his client. He uses several words, similar case references, witnesses, testimonials of witnesses, or evidences to ask and demand for just this ONE THING — PASS THE JUDGEMENT IN THE FAVOUR OF MY CLIENT!
To drive the merit of his case, the attorney keeps at this — he repeats this process using different approach until he exhausts everything he has. This what praying with scriptures is all about.
Praying with the scripture like in the example above is not what Jesus described as vain repetition in Matthew 6:7. The reason is this:
In the art of Scripture Prayer, the prayer point maybe the same, but we make references to different scriptural verses, and we use these scripture verses to drive our prayers to God. It’s like in a law court where an attorney uses several instances of the outcome of previous and similar law suits to present his case, so that the Judge will rule in his favour.
Attorneys also make references to the constitution in order to prove that their case is worthy of merit and that the sitting judge should rule in their favour. The Word of God we make reference to is our Kingdom Constitution. When we make reference to several scriptural verses and use each reference to ask God to do a thing, we amass enough spiritual energy to deliver the answer.
For instance, I can make demand for one thing using several scriptural verses that covers it and this always gets me results. This is persistence in prayer.
POWER OF PERSISTENCE IN PRAYER
Persistence in prayer is a form of repeated-consistent plea to God to intervene in a situation, using various forms of arguments and established scriptural cases, events and promises of God. Persistence in prayer, when done this way, does not fall under vain repetition.
Abraham’s prayer to the Lord to save Lot and His family from the destruction coming upon Sodom is a perfect example of persistence prayer (Genesis 18:17–33).
Abraham made his request known unto God by making references to specific numbers. He made reference to 50, 45, 40, 30, 20, 10 righteous people in Sodom.
He was saying, “Lord, would you still go ahead to destroy the city, even though there are 50, 45, 40, 30, 20 or 10 righteous people found in the city?” He was trying to get God to spare Lot and his family, but he didn’t present or make his argument in one stretch of prayer sentence. He repeated this prayer, making references to different numbers. These number references are a type of scripture verses that we use in prayer. They may represent the promises of God to us in the bible, and what God did for someone whose case was similar to yours.
If you observe closely, Abraham prayed and asked for thesame thing, using references to 6 numbers. His desire and request was specific: “Lord, do not destroy Lot and his family together with Sodom. O’ Lord, spare Lot and his family”, but he used references to 6 numbers to drive his plea before God. This is how you use a collection of scriptures to ask for a particular thing in prayer.
Abraham, also based all his arguments on the righteousness and mercy of God, which God had handed over to him through various revelations and encounters with him. This too, is a type of the promises of God, which we can find in the bible and use in prayers everyday.
When we make references to scriptural verses of the bible and use them to ask God to do a thing, we would get answers to our prayers just as Abraham did.
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