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disciples of Jesus. Rather they are to pray with confidence to their all-knowing heavenly Father.
Just as the loving heart of our heavenly Father, who desires to give good gifts to his children
when they ask, is to motivate us to pray (Matt 7:7-11), so here the fact that our Father already
knows our needs before we ask is to motivate and to shape our praying.
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As Calvin says,
Believers do not pray with the view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of
exciting him to do his duty, they pray in order that they may arouse themselves to seek
him, that they may exercise their faith in meditating on his promises, that they may
relieve themselves from their anxieties by pouring them into his bosom; in a word, that
they may declare that from him alone they hope and expect, both for themselves and for
that "the muttering of nonsense syllables [was] common to magical incantations in the pagan
religions of Jesus' day" (Matthew, 118).
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Blomberg says, "Here we are told that we need not badger the Father with our requests,
for he knows our needs" (Matthew, 118). Morris comments, "Before they offer any prayer,
he knows exactly what their need is. They pray, not to inform the Father on matters of which
he is ignorant, but to worship him" (Matthew, 142). Craig S. Keener says that "One should
pray not because one thinks that one's prayers or formulas earn God's favor, but as an
expression of trust in a Father who already knows one's need and merely waits for his
children to express their dependence on him" (A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], 213). He notes that this attitude "contrasts with pagan
prayers that required the supplicant to describe the request precisely lest the deity grant the
wrong favor" (Ibid., n. 158).