The Secret Place
From Pastor Kevin King
In Matthew 6:5-8 Jesus was preparing to teach His disciples to pray. He had two admonitions for them so their prayers weren’t carnal, but rather productive and satisfying. The first was to not pray as the hypocrites do, being vocal and seen in public places. These people prayed in such manner in public because they wanted to be seen of everyone. They wanted to impress people and be seen as deep and holy. Since Jesus called them hypocrites, they must have been anything but deep and holy, still wanting people to think they were. Jesus condemned this kind of attitude by saying, ‘Surely they have their reward.’ That is, the attention and admiration they received from people, that was their reward. But, they received nothing from God.
The second was to not use vain repetitions as the heathen do - mindlessly repeating the same thing thinking it will cause God to hear you. Heathens don’t have a relationship with God, but still think that if they say it enough times, He will hear.
But we are not heathens, and we should not be satisfied by the admiration of people. We should want to have a personal satisfying relationship with the Lord. Part of the way we nurture that is by having a secret place to which we retreat to pray. Jesus instructs us to have a closet. He even mentions shutting the door. This is a place where we can pour out our hearts to God in privacy, quiet, and without distractions. Fears, disappointments, injustices, excitements, doubts, gratitudes, and whatever else we need to give to Him is for the secret place. I’m of the opinion that we should have a place, the same place if possible, where we go to pray and fellowship with God every time. You can just nestle in and seek the Lord in quietness and confidence.
When we go into this secret place, we must remember that God already knows what we have need of before we ask. Why do we pray then?? Intimacy is developed when we consciously release those things in our heart. We can give a lot of things to people, but the things in our hearts are very personal, and only the people we trust, truly want to be close to, and share with get those things. God receives that intimacy because He sees that you trust Him and love Him enough to release to Him those things. He knows already, but it means something to Him for us to tell Him anyway. Jesus tells us that when we pray this way, in secret, that God will reward us openly. Our reward is not the admiration of people but the blessing of the Lord. Find a secret place and develop intimacy with God.
