He Said, "It's Not a Prayer" - Is It?

In Matthew 7, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches about the power and principles of prayer:
7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. We are told to ask - to present our requests before God.   We also are taught to seek for God - I believe that requires an intentional effort to access God's presence and approach His throne.  It also implies that we are seeking knowledge.  The Bible teaches us to pray according to God's will, so we have to seek, to search for God's will in a matter, which I believe includes praying the Scriptures.  And, we are told to knock - I believe that means we are to be consistent in our requests, not just asking once half-heartedly or speaking the words when our minds are halfway around the world.  I believe He calls us to earnestly go before His throne.   Ask, seek, knock - some of principles that can produce effective prayer.

James chapter 5 outlines some principles of effective prayer:
(16b) The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

In 1st John 5, we get a great idea about the content of our prayer and the condition of our heart.  John writes:
13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
So this is written to those who believe in Jesus, and we are told that we can have confidence, or faith in the Lord:
14 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. The issue of the use of prayer to open a legislative will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court soon - the high court agreed to decide whether an upstate New York town is violating the Constitution by opening public meetings with prayer. The justices will review an appeals court ruling that held that the town of Greece, a Rochester suburb, violated the constitutional prohibitions on government sanction of religion by opening nearly every meeting over an 11-year span with prayers that trended Christian.

The WORLD website reports on an instance of a prayer to open up the Arizona House of Representatives recently.  Rep. Juan Mendez told the lawmakers that he did not want them to bow their heads or close their eyes.   He said, "I would like to ask that you take a moment to look around the room at all of the men and women here, in this moment, sharing together this extraordinary experience of being alive and of dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the lives of the people of our state."

Like it so far?  Yeah, it's pretty good.  Rep. Mendez continued:  “This room in which there are many challenging debates, many moments of tension, of ideological division, of frustration. But this is also a room where, as my Secular Humanist tradition stresses, by the very fact of being human, we have much more in common than we have differences. We share the same spectrum of potential for care, for compassion, for fear, for joy, for love."

Uh-oh.   A secular humanist prayer to open a legislative body?   There's a new twist.    He concluded by saying, "...let us root our policymaking process in these values that are relevant to all Arizonans regardless of religious belief or nonbelief. In gratitude and in love, in reason and in compassion, let us work together for a better Arizona.”

Now, the House Speaker Andy Tobin and Senate President Andy Biggs have filed a legal brief agreeing with the town of Greece's position in that New York prayer case.  Tobin actually didn't have a problem with the Mendez, well, so-called "prayer".  But Rep. Steve Smith sure did.  He said, “When there’s a time set aside to pray and to pledge (as in the Pledge of Allegiance), if you are a non-believer, don’t ask for time to pray...If you don’t love this nation and want to pledge to it, don’t say I want to lead this body in the pledge, and stand up there and say, ‘you know what, instead of pledging, I love England’ and (sit) down.

“That’s not a pledge, and that wasn’t a prayer, it’s that simple,” Smith said.

OK, this gets a little complex.   Having an atheist open up a legislative body really doesn't fit the "prayer" mold, but it could have perhaps got Greece, NY or some of these cities that are having prayer legality issues off the hook.    No, Rep. Mendez didn't pray, and Rep. Smith was probably a bit harsh in his retort - after all, remember we don't want to turn off the same people we're trying to win.   Got to remember that.  

But, it wasn't a prayer. 

And, maybe sometimes what we call prayer really - isn't.  Prayer is communication with Almighty God - it involves praise, petition, intercession, and confession of sin, among other things.  And, I believe that Jesus taught that true, effective, fervent prayer, which avails much, is prayed by a righteous person.   And who is righteous?   The person who has accepted Jesus as his or her Lord and Savior.   Jesus said no one comes to the Father except by Him.   So, if you feel like your prayers are not effective, check your heart - do you know Jesus?   Are you in right relationship with Him?   Have you confessed sins of omission or commission?   Are you asking selfishly?    For our prayers to be heard and answered, we have to be in the right position.  So often, prayers end up being mindless repetition or some kind of formulaic approach.   God wants our hearts, and He desires that we communicate with Him from the heart.