In Matthew 6:19-34, Jesus teaches us some amazing truths about what it means to pray.  The Word Is simple, we just need to live it!  I am learning that the secret is about getting ourselves to the right place.  This means that the work I have to do is on me.

What Is Prayer?  Prayer at it’s most basic level is communion with God!  It’s about relationship!  If you care about someone, then you want to have a relationship with them and that relationship is made possible by investing time with one another.  Most people pray for answers, but this should really be a very small part of our prayer lives.  We need to learn to make the main thing the main thing!  Matthew 6:33 says:  “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you!”

Make God #1!  Matthew 6:19-21 says:  19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  We tend to focus on what we can do, what we can make happen, what we can manipulate.  We treat God as an add on.  God is much more than an add on!  The problem with doing it this way is that we put the burden on ourselves and then wonder why we are frustrated!

God Makes It Work!  In Matthew 6:22-23 it says:  22 “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”  It is supernatural and we miss it because we get stuck in the physical.  The saying:  “It is what it is!” is right.  We don’t have to add anything and we can’t take anything away.  No matter what you are going through, then you need to know and believe that “God’s got this!”  If you are in relationship with your Creator, then all the All the devil can do is aggravate you, so don’t allow him anymore influence or power over you.

We Obsess & Stress Over The Wrong Things!  Talking to God is also talking to yourself!  Matthew 6:24 put’s it this way:
 24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”  Get your heart and head right by getting into God’s presence.  Don’t allow anyone rent space in your mind.  You were made by God and God wants to change your life for the better!

Matthew 6:25-27 says:  25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?  We obsess about the wrong things!  Have you ever stopped to think that 90% of what we stress over can be taken care of simply by loving God.  You can be better off accidentally than you have ever been on purpose, if you will just love God!

Fix The How! Matthew 6:28-32 challenges us to think about it:  “28 And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31 Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.”   The process to a better life is simple: 1.  Start loving God.  2. Stop asking for everything.  3. Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness and all these things shall be added…

Getting Prayer Right!  We read and we need to believe Matthew 6:33-34 when it teaches:  “33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  Salvation, the amazing and beautiful gift of God is about intimacy!  It’s not just so we will not perish, it’s also so that we will have everlasting life.  And everlasting life is a present tense reality!  Stop viewing eternal life as something that is coming and start seeing it as something that is here, powerful and life changing right now.  In John 17:3 Jesus describes it this way:  “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom you have sent…”  To know is to be intimate!  The goal of salvation is much more than heaven and hell, it is relationship.

The Good News Is That God Is Not Mad At You!  He loves you and wants relationship.  God wants you to hear it, feel it, experience it.  We don’t need to chase the blessing, we need to love God and the blessing will catch us!  That’s right, The blessing will chase you!  All we have to do is:  Just love God! (We are not human doings, we are human beings.)  God who is love, loves to be loved!  The right approach is to love God whatever, whenever and however and the result is always the same, we will live blessed!