The Prayer Closet

'But you, when you pray, enter into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret shall reward you openly”. Matthew 6:6

I believe the above verse is meant to include times of praise and worship. Something wonderful happens when you steal away and praise God...alone, undisturbed, without concern for how your voice sounds or with what people might think as you sob your way through the verses. King David was the most masterful worshipper of all times. Many of the Psalms were written by him and and as any musician, author or artist will attest, total privacy is necessary to produce the best results. I am more than certain that King David spent many an hour in his prayer closet with God. Since the book of Psalms is the longest in the Bible I believe it underscores the priority the Lord gives to praising Him with music and song. 

Stepping into your prayer closet to sing promotes intimacy. While corporate worship is important, there is a level of intimacy that can be established with the Lord in your prayer closet that simply cannot happen when others are present. Freed from the shackles of worry about the quality of your voice or missing the words, and the distractions that can come from being surrounded by others, your spirit is set free to reach heights simply not attainable in any other way. 

Failure to thrive refers to a condition that causes an unborn baby to fail to develop properly. Just as the child is nourished by the cord that connects him to his mother, so too do we receive the necessary spiritual nutrients through the cord that is established by times of intimacy with God. While every moment spent with God helps us to grow, without time in our prayer closets, our spirits suffer from “failure to thrive.” Time alone with God is critical, otherwise Jesus would not have said it. 

Just as the unborn child is oblivious to the world outside the womb, the prayer closet can be a time of comfort where the sounds of the troubled world outside become muffled and where spiritual growth can be accelerated. Most importantly.......God loves it!
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