{"id":2755,"date":"2022-06-08T03:28:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T03:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=2755"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:34:10","slug":"when-you-pray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=2755","title":{"rendered":"WHEN YOU PRAY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Matthew 6:5, Jesus teaches,\n&#8220;When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray\nstanding in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell\nyou the truth, they have received their reward in full.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Years ago, I knew\na pastor&#8217;s wife who bragged &#8211; more than once &#8211; &#8220;Sometimes I am walking downtown,\nand I get so overwhelmed by God&#8217;s goodness that I just drop down on my knees\nright there on the sidewalk and start praying to Jesus. I just wave my arms and\npray, and people are walking or driving by me, but I don&#8217;t care who sees me or\nwhat they think.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She was one of the most insincere people I have ever\nmet.\u00a0Nobody was fooled.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here is the sneaky thing about self-righteousness: it allows the pretense of holiness to remain even as we disobey God&#8217;s commands.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">*****<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cPrayer is the <i>lifting\nup of the heart to God<\/i>: All words of prayer, without this, are mere hypocrisy.\u201d &#8211; John Wesley\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Matthew 6:5, Jesus teaches, &#8220;When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.&#8221;\u00a0 Years ago, I knew a pastor&#8217;s wife who bragged &#8211; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2756,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions\/2756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}