Answer: True prayer is not about how to call out, how many words to say, or how nicely one speaks, but depends on whether we can speak from the heart with God sincerely. Because the Lord Jesus said, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). In our life, everyday we’ll encounter something to pray for. When something happy happens, we pray to offer our thanks to God from our heart. When we have troubles or difficulties and don’t know how to solve them, we seek God’s will and pray for God’s inspiration and guidance. Since we pray to God with our heart, we feel that our relationship with God is very close. When God hears our prayer and solves our problem, we feel that God is so faithful, and it’s so good to rely on God. Thus it even more inspires our resolution to spend for God. This is the result achieved by truly praying. Just as God’s word says, “What does it mean to truly pray? It means speaking the words within your heart to God, and communing with God having grasped His will and based upon His words; it means feeling particularly close to God, feeling that He is in front of you, and that you have something to say to Him; and it means being especially radiant within your heart, and feeling that God is especially lovely. You will feel especially inspired, and after hearing your words your brothers and sisters will feel gratified, they will feel that the words you speak are the words within their hearts, the words they wish to say, and that what you say represents what they want to say. This is what it means to truly pray. After you have truly prayed, in your heart you will feel at peace, and gratified; the strength to love God will rise up, and you will feel that nothing in your entire life is more worthy or significant than loving God—and all this will prove that your prayers have been effective.” “The lowest standard that God requires of people is that they be able to open their hearts to Him. If man gives his true heart to God and says what is really within his heart to God, then God is willing to work in man; God does not want the twisted heart of man, but his pure and honest heart. If man does not truly speak his heart to God, then God does not touch man’s heart, or work within him. Thus, the most crucial thing about praying is to speak the words of your true heart to God, telling God of your flaws or rebellious disposition and completely opening yourself up to God. Only then will God be interested in your prayers; if not, then God will hide His face from you.”
This shows that the best prayer is to say what is in our heart to God. If we don’t truly pray from our heart, even though we call out to God everyday, it’s just clinging to regulations and going through the motions, and it’s for others to see and hear, not for God. Such prayer will achieve no result. The Lord Jesus said, “And when you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Truly I say to you, They have their reward” (Matthew 6:5). We can see that the Lord Jesus despised the hypocritical prayer of the Pharisees. They said many nice words in their prayer, and often stood in the corners of the streets to pray. But their praying was to cling to regulations, to show off their “godliness” before others so that others could praise them. This is purely hypocritical. No matter how many such prayers they have, they can’t gain the Lord’s approval, but are despised by the Lord. God says, “Prayer is not a case of going through the formalities, or following procedure, or reciting the words of God, which is to say, prayer does not mean parroting words and copying others. In prayer, you must give your heart to God, sharing the words in your heart with God so that you may be touched by God.” Thus, If we just go through the formalities to pray but show no sincerity, then no matter how we pray, we won’t feel the presence of the Lord, not to say the enjoyment brought by the work of the Holy Spirit. And we won’t truly know God and our love for God won’t increase, but we will stray further and further away from God. Therefore, only by sharing the words in your heart with God with a sincere attitude, can we gain the work of and be touched by the Holy Spirit.