But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly... [Matthew 6:6]


Prayer, is an indispensable ingredient to the Christian faith. It is the only available means given unto man, wherewith he can reach God


" enter into thy closet, ... shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret... "

Our Father has a dwelling place, He resides in a habitation. This dwelling place, where He can be found, is not in the open. The Bible says "...thy Father which is in secret...". If I need to reach God, I must have an understanding that God is not available in the open place, He is not available in the market place, He cannot be reached by just a little stretch of the hand or a callout, He is not present in the showground. To reach or touch God, I must withdraw into the secret closet ...enter into thy closet..., there is no other way I can find Him, because He is not available just anywhere.

The place of prayer is not in the open arena, it is not the place of public show, it is not a place of window shopping and showcasing talents. There are those whom we call "special prayer warriors", who vaunt as prayer experts, they make prayers so attractive, they make prayers a form of business, these are opposed to the modalities of scriptural praying. The Bible enjoins that I must FIRST enter into my closet, and my closet goes beyond just some hidden physical place, it is not just my physical bedroom, neither is it just some quiet place, I could be dwelling in a quiet abode, whereas there is pandemonium within my thoughts, I need to shut out distractions, thoughts and other interferences because nothing must interfere with prayers, I cannot meet with God in the open place. I may be in my regular place of praying, but the question is, "am I in the closet?"

There is a tendency that after I have entered into my closet, the things that are outside may still want to gain entrance, therefore, there is a SECOND step I need to take, and that is to SHUT THE DOOR. I need to shut the door even to my "self", close the door against any form of externals or infiltrations that may want to disturb while I am in communion with the Saviour. Praying and meeting with God is actually a serious issue, because if God must hear it, I must pray it.


"...pray to thy Father..."

When I am done with all these prerequisites of entering into the closet, and shutting the door behind me, it is only then that I am ready to pray. The reason why I have to go through all these elaborate prerequisite processes is because GOD IS NOT AVAILABLE IN THE OPEN. It is not on the pulpit that I will do my prayer for the pulpit. Effective ministry is not a product of brilliant public display, the shouting and pulpit mannerisms are mere decorations, the real substance is obtained as the man slugs it out with God. The place of formation and incubation is the closet, the pulpit is only a place of publication and manifestation, and if there is nothing already formed in the private, the public becomes a mere show of noise making.
The place of meeting with God is NOT the pulpit, the pulpit is only a place of dispatching the goods received in the closet, if I have not FIRST fulfilled all the prerequisites by meeting with God in the closet, there is nothing to show on the pulpit, and woe betides the congregation who have come to return empty. God is NOT available publicly to listen, He can only distribute in the public what has been received in the secret.

Prayer is not a degree that I want to showcase. Praying is not an award you win which you want to display for everyone to see. The people who actually pray, you dont want to see them because the place of prayer is a place of travail, it is a place of burden, a place of tears, it is not beautiful for human eyes to behold. When a woman wants to give birth, she does not possibly come to the open and publicize for everyone to come and watch her travail, no, travail is not a palatable experience, it is not good-looking to behold. When the woman reaches the hospital, she enters inside, even though she has entered inside the clinic, she will not deliver her baby just there, she still needs to go further inside - maybe into the midwifes office. Even after she enters into the office to see the midwife, when it is time to travail, the midwife still needs to take her further inside into a more secluded place before birth will take place. Why does the woman in travail need to enter inside, then inside, then inside again before birth?, it is because travail is not for public glare, it only takes place behind the closed doors of the closet.

The place of meeting with God is a place of the closet, where you strip yourself of every form of glory or covering, it is the place of power, the place of crushing, the place of breaking, the place of pains and tears, it is the place of disintegration, a place where you lose your full identity, a place of humiliation, a place where you lick the dust, and God deals decisively with you, it is a place where you come to your end, and God takes over, it is clearly not a place you want to display for the public to see.


“Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon, there shalt thou be delivered, there the LORD shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies” [Micah 4:10]

A woman in travail loses every form of dignity, she throws all manner of self management, beauty and decorations away and stays unashamedly naked in pains, crying out for only one thing - that she may bring forth.
If you are not yet in the secret place, in the place of travail, the place where you lose yourself and nothing matters again, where the world loses value and meaning, if you have not entered into the closet, and shut your door and got to a place where God dwells, you CANNOT SEE Him. If you have not pierced the ordinary and lost the physical, if you are still wearing a beautiful garment for show in the place of prayer, you cannot FIND God, He is NOT available in the open place. If you need to meet with God, you need to come out of the open and come away from the place where everybody dwells, from the realm of external display and get to the place of nakedness, travail and death.


"...thy Father which is in secret..."

Take note: God cannot be found in the common place, in the company of well wishers, in the company of friends or even foes. He does not dwell in the exposed arena, He cannot be found where admirers can see you. The Father IS IN SECRET, in the place of travail, that is His dwelling place, and that is the only place you can meet with Him. A man can pray for hours or days anywhere outside the secret place, but He will not be found of God because he is browsing the vicinity where God never resides. God is only available in the SECRET place.


“...thy Father which seeth in secret..."

The Bible is very clear here: God has eyes, but the only place where He SEES your labours is in the secret. Whatever you do, whatever display you put up, to whatever extent you have gone to deny yourself, if in all, you never got to the secret place, friend, the Father DOES NOT SEE IT.

Whatever acrobatics a man puts up in praying to God, if it is not done in the secret, God does not see it. The only place where the Father looks is the secret. Your many noise making on the pulpit is NOT what determines divine response because God will check whether that "pulpiteering" is a product of the secret that He had seen or mere cosmetics. A man can preach gloriously with lots of exegesis, lots of theatrical arousing presentations, and release a wonderful display of theological prowess, but that is NOT what God rewards. If the preaching is not an output of a closet labour, but an exercise of mental energy or brilliance, it will attract no reward from heaven. God is not rewarding the public place, He is rather looking at the secret to find something which to reward in the open.

The eyes of God are only opened to SEE in the place where He resides and that is the secret. His eyes are opened to REWARD in the open, ONLY what He has SEEN in the secret.


"...seeth in secret ... reward thee openly".

If there is any time that God wants to reward anything openly in the public, He will want to check your own input in the secret. If God is to multiply anything at all, He wants to see your own seed that you have sown in the closet. The seed is not sown on the pulpit, it is not sown in the public place, it is sown only in the secret.

Anytime you come out and see the name of Jesus being exalted, when you suddenly begin to see miracles taking place, when the blind are seeing, the lame is walking, the fire of revival is being ignited, souls are receiving the touch of the Saviour..., these are not rewards of the preaching, it is not a reward of what you are seeing publicly, it is only a reward of some close door, private, secret labours which HE SAW.

If God wants to reward you because of your labours and elaborate religious activities, He is going to be checking the secret, and if He sees nothing there, regardless of your much public manifestations, He will have nothing to reward.

Did any soul get saved?, it is not ONLY because he heard the gospel message that turned him around, someone somewhere sometime had tarried before God in the secret duties to pray him in. When you suddenly see the blind getting their sights, the deaf hearing, the dead living, righteousness exalted, and revival breaking forth, these are not direct results of powerful public preaching, O yes, the preacher could have preached some powerful sermons, but there are countless other much more powerful sermons that produced no results - these are rather, clear public rewards of some secret travails that the Father saw and responded to in the open, the price thereof had been paid - IN THE SECRET.

If God has not rewarded anything you have done despite the several great and mighty things you have engaged yourself in for Him, it is because He has searched your closet and found it empty, you have taken a holiday from the demeaning, undignified secret duties to pursue some more elegant jobs in the open, no input from your secret place has been received, all your labours have been in the wrong place (perhaps, to seek recognition) - at the public place, where God is not present, where the Father never looks at, and because He cannot see anything to reward, you have NO reward.

If you are looking for a great public manifestation of the miraculous from God, if you are looking for a divine blessing upon your labours and ministry, if you covet a beautiful radiant life in the public, the place of sowing to reap these bounties, is not in the open place of public glare where you appear crisp and good looking, gorgeously dressed with flamboyant presentation, rather, it is the place of tears and travail of some dark closets. Only that which is sown into the dark earth eventually brings forth fruits for bountiful harvests.