The Lord Jesus taught us many things about prayer. And one of these lessons you can find when Jesus says like this: “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words” (Matthew 6:7).

What are “vain repetitions”? They are litany. Any prayer addressed to God (even if it is the “Lord’s Prayer”) that is said as a magical formula, a repetition, before God in vain.

God doesn’t want people to treat prayer as something mechanical. Repetition of words will only irritate God, just as a person irritates us for repeating something meaningless. In the book of Malachi, we see that God told the priests to stop because everything became “vain repetitions”.

Prayer has to be sincere and true. It has to be a frank conversation. An expression of the sincerity that is within the person, of what the person thinks, feels, is living at that moment and their request regarding their condition before God.

However, there are useful repetitions, such as the habit of talking to God every morning and the habit of thanking God when putting your head on the pillow at night. What is good, you should repeat: do good, go to the House of God, read the Bible, run away from sin, etc.

Check out this message in full through the video above.