Do you have a prayer closet?
After you pray your most private prayers, do you then publish them on your favorite social media to share with all the world? Jesus’ Father did. It’s called the Psalter.
Do we ever think how awesome it is that the world has a written record of Jesus’ prayers? What an amazing thing! Whose prayers does the world want to hear more than any other? The prayers of Jesus, of course. And yet Jesus prayed privately, just as he taught his disciples.
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:5-6 ESV)
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. (Mark 1:35 ESV)
Nevertheless, the private prayers of Jesus, and often God’s personal responses to these, are preserved as prophecies centuries before they occurred in human, real time. The Psalter, popularly known as the songbook of the church, is also the church’s book of Jesus’ prayers. We pray the psalms because Jesus prayed them before us.
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