EFFECTIVE PRAYER: LETTING ALL OUR PRETENSES GO

                                                By A. W. Tozer
 

            You try to look like saintly men, but underneath those pious
              robes of yours are hearts besmirched with every sort of
              hypocrisy and sin.                       -  -  Matthew 23:28
 

                The basic artificiality of civilized human beings is hard
              to shake off.  It gets into our very blood and conditions
              our thoughts, attitudes and relationships much more
              seriously than we imagine.

                 The desire to make a good impression has become one
              of the most powerful of all the factors determining
              human conduct. That gracious (and scriptural) social
              lubricant called courtesy has in our times degenerated
              into a completely false and phony etiquette that hides
              the true man under a shimmery surface as thin as the oil
              slick on a quiet pond. The only times some persons
              expose their real self is when they get mad.

                 With this perverted courtesy determining almost
              everything men and women say and do in human
              society, it is not surprising that it should be hard to be
              completely honest in our relations with God.  It carries
              over as a kind of mental reflex and is present without
              our being aware of it.

                Nevertheless, it is an attitude extremely hateful to
              God.  Christ detested it and condemned it without mercy
              when He found it among the Pharisees. The artless little
              child is still the divine model for all of us.  Prayer will
              increase in power and reality as we repudiate all pretense
              and learn to be utterly honest before God as well as before
              men!

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             Yours in Christ,
              Paul N. F.