Prayer is putting God's interests first

Quintus Heine

Matthew 6:33 "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

Edward Pell said, "In the light of Jesus, man cannot truly pray to God if his thoughts centre on himself, he can only pray to God when he is more concerned about God's kingdom and his will than his own."

This is a huge mental shift in thinking about prayer. In the first place, prayer is not about what God has done or will do for us. The Bible teaches us that our prayers should be God-centred. People will tell you quickly that their prayers are centred on God, but in reality, many sometimes struggle with this. Even with the best intentions, we often still put our own needs first. Prayer is primarily to bring glory to God for who he is! We always need to put God's holiness, his absoluteness, his kingdom, his will, his love and his power first and central. As our text puts it: "Seek first the kingdom of God."

Your prayer life illustrates how you live every day before the Lord. This is why we like to use the expression: "Your whole lifestyle is a prayer to God." If your lifestyle is to put God's kingdom and his will first, this will emerge in your prayer life. This is the basic lesson that Jesus teaches us about prayer. Prayer is about God. Once we realise this, God’s promises in Matthew 6:33 will be true for us. We must seek first the kingdom of God!

God teaches us to pray in the model prayer the "Our Father". There is a parallel between the Ten Commandments and the "Our Father". In the Lord's Prayer, the first three requests are about God, followed by three requests for the person themselves and the needs of their loved ones. In all circumstances, we must first seek God's glory and his will in our prayers!

Prayer: Lord Jesus, I pray that you will help me to always seek God's glory and his will first. Teach me to always put your kingdom first.