Matthew 23:14
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.”
There is some strange breed of people who claim to be spiritual men and women, and their job is to seek for weak and needy people to manipulate in the place of prayer. They come in pretense as though they have come to help, but they are coming to exploit men by offering long showy prayers as the evidence of their spiritual prowess. According to Jesus, these wicked people will receive a greater condemnation for they have devoured the needy in their time of need under the guise of offering spiritual help.
Prayer is not a job to be done by specialized people. You don’t contract prayers to specialists who require a fee before they can offer you prayers. Whosoever prays for you, and charges you for praying, is a prayer contractor; and of such Jesus is vexed. If I must offer prayers for you, I am merely joining my faith with yours, that our God may hear our cry. The solution lies in the hands of God before whom we pray; so how dare I expect to receive payment for a result that I have no claim over. Praying for money or personal gain is wickedness and exploitation, and we must never encourage or permit these prayer contractors to function within our areas of influence.
“Lord, my soul is vexed with these wicked wolves who exploit the weak and needy and who sometimes create false alarms so that their services can be patronized. May I stand firm to fight them off, and to teach God’s people to stay away from them. In Jesus name. Amen.”
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