Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven.
Lamentations 3:41
It is easy to let our prayers become routine and repetitious, and we need to remember that God listens more closely to our hearts than the phrases from our lips. The Lord Jesus warns us about this: “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matt 6:7-8).
There are people who will lift their hands to pray or prostrate themselves on the ground. Some will stand; some will kneel. Some shout, some pray silently, some even leap and dance. Some will write out their prayers and then read them to an audience; others will pray eloquently and at great length. These actions are not wrong, but the thing that counts far more than these postures or eloquence is the attitude of our hearts. We must lift up our hearts to the Lord, not just our hands or our voices. Then the Lord, our Father in heaven will hear us and answer us!
We must be able to feel as the psalmist felt when he wrote: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.” (Ps 42:1). Our hearts desire first to be right, of course—pure and true in His sight, thirsting for the Lord Himself. Then we can “Call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim 2:22). We also need to acknowledge that “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me” (Ps 66:18). However, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb 10:22), because He has cleansed us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ!
Our prayers must likewise come from a believing heart. The scripture teaches to “let a man ask in faith, with no doubting” Otherwise, “that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord” (Jam 1:6-7).
With these conditions are met, the Christian is able to be confident of his/her prayer. He/she must pray from deep within their pure, true heart believing in the name of Jesus, and God will answer. Then “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (Jam 5:16).
Prayer is like oxygen to the body as it is to the lifeline to our soul. May the Lord in His grace and by His Spirit teach us how to pray sincerely from our hearts. Let us devote more time to prayers for it is only through prayers that we can move the heart of God.
