"Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving." Colossians 4:2

So why pray? Calvin said, "Believers do not pray with a view to informing God about things unknown to Him, they pray in order to seek Him, to exercise their faith in His promises, to declare that from Him alone is their hope and expectation that they will receive from Him all good things." Luther said it simply - "by our praying we are instructing ourselves more than we are Him." Do we make prayer into a way to get attention or gain a reputation? An empty exercise? Mechanical rather than relational? Our only hope is in staying humble and dependent like a child, under God's authority. Jesus teaches that true righteousness is greater because it is of the heart, true love is fuller because it includes enemies, and true prayer is deeper because it is sincere, the exercise of thinking people. What Jesus calls us to is so much better than what can be found in the unbelieving world. Prayer is attending to God, not ourselves. Which are you doing?