Genuine Prayer

Well, if you would take your Bible, turn back to Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6. Now, last week we started in Matthew 6, but out of habit, you know, we were in Matthew 5 for quite some time. I said Matthew 5 last week and one of the men of the church kind of poked fun at me for that. And he said, "You know, you confuse me." And he made it sound like he was confused for half the message when really he was not. So we will be in Matthew chapter 6. Now I will mention a few other passages and you can write those passages down.

I like to let you know if we're going to turn to some other places, I want us to be able to follow the message and be together in this journey as we are studying God's word together. And like I said earlier, we'll be in verses 5 to 8 right here in chapter 6. Now last week we started a new section in the Sermon on the Mount and that new section is chapter 6 verses 1 to 18. And last week we saw how Jesus shifted in his teaching, his teaching approach from the inward man. That's what chapter 5 verses 21 to 48 was all about. And now he's shifting to the outward work of man and that's verses 1 to 18.

Now here in these 18 verses, Jesus is attacking three areas of Jewish religious life and he is showing just how terribly flawed their external religious life truly was. You might say, "Pastor, you have been saying that all along." And that's exactly right. Jesus has been attacking and exposing the erroneous Jewish life or their religious life. Now here in these verses he exposes their giving, he exposes their flawed giving, their flawed prayer life and he exposes their flawed fasting.

Last week I stated that these were three of the most common acts of service in their religious life and some scholars say that these were some of the most important outward expressions of their religious life. Now remember something I asked you to do last week. I asked you to begin to make a list. I asked you to begin to make a list of maybe the most important expressions in our religious life. Maybe they're three, maybe they're two, maybe they're four to you. I even encourage you to discuss this with your spouse, maybe with brothers and sisters, people here. So I want us to make that list.

We're going to come back and visit that list in a few sermons. Now we need to remember that Jesus starts off this new section with a vitally important principle that is meant to be a guide for true believers as they express the outward Christian life. Now the principle was meant for all believers listening there on that day and it is meant for all true believers, even us in our day. I know this is not part of the message but let's look back at verse one. Here's the principle. It says beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them for then you will have no reward from your father who is in heaven.

Now here in verse one, Jesus calls his people to be very, very careful. He's saying be very careful not to show off your religious works for others to see so that you would impress them. And he says if you do, you have no reward from God. Now remember I kind of put this command, this principle in my own words and it might sound a little comical but I think it's true. I phrase it like this, beware of the dog. You might ask who is the dog? Well we all are. What I mean is this, we are all low down, dirty rotten dogs. We're all sinners and we can all fall into this sin. You might say pastor I'm not so sure. Yes you can.

And so beware, beware of the dog of showing off your Christianity like some religious side show for other people to see. And remember the Jews and their giving that we studied last week? Theirs was a spectacular side show. They just put on a performance when they gave their alms. And it was all meant to impress men and they called all kind of attention to themselves. That was the meaning of the phrase and wording about trumpets. And you know there's one word that is at the heart of this principle. It's not found in verse one but it's found in each of these lessons, the word hypocrite.

You can look at the lessons and you'll see the word hypocrite or the word hypocrisy. You might say well pastor that's two words. Well two words that speak to the same thing. And we must see that the hypocrite is the one who violates the principle. Hypocrisy is deep within the heart of the one who shows off their outward service to God for any other reason other to please God. And if we think about it we should know and understand that hypocritical service to God has really always been a big problem for man ever since the fall of man there in Genesis 3. All the way back in Genesis 4 Cain was probably the first hypocrite.

When Cain was offering a sacrifice he made an offering that was not pleasing to God. And when God confronted him about his hypocritical offering what did Cain do? He got so angry that he went out and killed his brother. We see a good example of hypocrisy in the story of Absalom. Now Absalom was King David's son. Absalom was the son who led a great rebellion against his father so as to take the throne. Well in 2 Samuel 15 Absalom makes a hypocritical vow of allegiance to his father the king. And of course we have the preeminent hypocrite in the New Testament. I think everybody would probably guess Judas. Judas was the preeminent hypocrite.

Judas pretended to have a true and genuine righteousness but he ultimately proved his hypocrisy by selling Jesus out for what 30 pieces of silver. But there's one we can't forget. Don't forget the Apostle Peter. The Apostle Peter in his hypocritical behavior. In Galatians 2 we have the account of Paul confronting Peter because Peter was associating with the Gentiles but then when the Jews came he withdrew and he associated with the Jews only. So hypocrisy. A false showy self-righteousness. Hypocritical acts of service to God.

Sadly it is very prevalent in and around the church today just like it was in the New Testament in the New Testament church when Ananias and Sapphira remember those hypocrites when they were active in the church. So the principle that Jesus gives here it must be a guide throughout all of our Christian life. So this morning we will begin to examine this second lesson on outward service to God which is Jesus teaching on prayer. Now the teaching on prayer starts at verse 5 and goes all the way to verse 15. And we can see the lesson really here in two parts. You can look at your scripture and you'll see it when I point it out.

Jesus is teaching on genuine prayer or praying without hypocrisy in verses 5 to 8. And then Jesus gives an example or an illustration on genuine prayer starting in verse 9. Look at verse 9. What does he say? Then pray like this. That's the example. That's the illustration of genuine prayer. So this morning we will study verses 5 to 8 in what I call genuine prayer. That's the title of the message. It is genuine prayer as opposed to hypocritical prayer. I want us to go back and read our verses together. Let's start at verse 5 and go to verse 8.

Jesus says, "Now when you pray you must not be like the hypocrites." Well they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and they're in the street corners that they may be seen by others or other men. "Truly I say to you they have received their reward but when you pray go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

Do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask him." Now when we look at the verses here there are some quick observations that I think jump out for most of us. First of all Jesus assumes that you're going to pray. There's an assumption. It's right there. And he doesn't command them to pray nor does he condemn them for praying. But we also see some other details. We see the hypocrites there in verse 5 do we not? And then there are those who are in the synagogues in the street corners and then we have the room and the shutting of the door and we have secrecy. Oh and then we have the Gentiles in verse 7.

See those are the things that might jump out at us rather quickly. But I want us to see that Jesus addresses two things that we might not see at first. The audience of the prayers and then the contents of their prayers. This is how we'll break the verses down. The audience that is in the prayers here and that's going to be out of verse 5 and 6 and then the content of the prayer and that's from verse 7 and 8. And this should be easy for you to follow along. So number 1, I want us to look at the audience of the prayer. The audience of their prayer out of verse 5 and 6. Now again, Jesus is not condemning prayer in any way.

He is revealing the hypocrite and the genuine in prayer. He is revealing the audience of the hypocrite and the audience of the genuine. So first, the audience of the hypocrite in verse 5. Nobody can look at verse 5, "And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites." Well they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the street corners that they may be seen by others. "Truly I say to you, they have received their reward." Here we can easily see what Jesus is describing. He says the religious leaders, they love to pray, out for everybody to see and to hear. I love how one commentator says they were play acting.

That really just gripped me this week and I've held on to it. Jesus says that they were play acting back when they gave their alms. We studied that last week and now we see Jesus is saying that they're play acting when they do their praying. But I want to give a few details, dig into some of the details that will help us see their play acting. First, he says they love to stand outside and pray there in the synagogues. Now in Jesus' day, the synagogues were the different places of worship. And this does not need to be confused with the temple.

There was one temple there in Jerusalem, but there were many synagogues scattered in their towns and in their villages and they were places of worship. They would gather together, pray and read the scriptures. But then second, Jesus says that they love to pray standing on the street corners. Interestingly, the word used here for street, it's described as a broad major street, not a narrow street or some obscure alleyway. Now what's the point here that Jesus is making? Jesus was calling out the Jews because they love to pray out in the public where people could see and hear them.

In their places of worship and on the busiest of street corners, oh they love to pray for all to see and for all to hear. So Jesus is exposing the fact that the Jews purposefully positioned themselves in the most public of places for one reason. They wanted to pray in public so as to impress as many people as possible with their fake piety. They were seeking spiritual prominence in the eyes of other people. And Jesus was aiming at a lot of hypocrites here because in verse 5 the word "you" is in plural. It's the plural which means that Jesus was including many in this condemnation.

Now besides the specific synod around, the synagogues in the street corners, there's some cultural practices that will help us here as well. Scholars help us see the prayer lives of the Jews and what it looked like really beyond what Jesus gives us here. There's really a lot of information and I condensed some information that I studied all week and I think this really will help us here. I think it's worth the time. You see the Jews have become very ritualized in their prayer life. They had written prayers and forms of prayers that were set. The Jews simply would recite these prayers from memory.

If they could not remember them, they would read them. So it was routine. It was ritual. No feeling, no emotion. For instance, every morning and every evening they would recite what was called the Shema which was selected portions of Deuteronomy 6, 4 to 9 and Deuteronomy 11, 13 to 31. And then they had other similar prayers. Whether at home or in the fields, whether they were in the synagogues or there at the temple, whether they were with family or friends, when their common hours of prayer came up, they stopped what they were doing and they would recite these prayers. Their common hours of prayer were 9 a.m., 12 noon, and 3 p.m.

And so at 9 a.m., 12 noon, and 3 p.m., no matter what was happening or where they were, the Jews would stop and they would recite their prayers. And how did they pray these prayers? For all to hear? It was a spectacle for everybody to see and hear? But then also the Jews had developed prescribed prayers for many occasions in life. They had prescribed prayers for good news and for bad news. They had prescribed prayers for traveling and for meals. They had prescribed prayers that were connected with light and dark or that would be the night and the day.

They had prescribed prayers that pertained to the weather like lightning and storms and the new moon and then also even comets. Really there's a lot more that they had. And their desire was to make God a part of every aspect of life, but it had become mechanical. Scholars tell us it was mechanical and it was formal and it was ritualistic. This led them to pray only at specific times and not when they had a genuine desire or a genuine need. Now how did they pray with these circumstances? Again, it was a spectacle and it was a spectacle for all to hear. But also they had developed a love for long prayers.

They had developed a love for long repetitious prayers. They somehow thought that long repetitive prayers produced true and effective prayers. There were Jewish teachers who taught that longer prayers were more likely to be even heard by God. And as we continue, we'll see where the Jews picked up this belief and this practice. The worst of all was their desire to be seen and heard by others. That was the common theme. Their common practice was to purposefully position themselves in public so that they could pray to impress men.

They loved to pray to gain the prominence of their fellow Jews and reciting these long formed prayers, praying the specific prayers for all of these many occasions, praying these long repetitive prayers, gain them prominence in the eyes of their fellow Jews. So simply they were pious, but they were play actors. I like that phrase. And they were seeking to gain spiritual prominence in the eyes of men. Listen, they were hypocrites because why? They had the wrong audience. Then second here, the audience of the genuine. Look at verse five or verse six.

But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you. Now in verse six, we can see Jesus makes a shift. He shifts from the many hypocrites to the few believers. This word you hear in verse six in the original, it's in the singular. It means that there were few here in the group of the believers. Now examining a few specifics here will help us understand the genuine as opposed to the hypocrite. Perhaps Jesus calls them to go into the secret room, to go into a secret room and shut the door.

Now in their day, it was common for Jews to have a secret room or a secret place for spiritual purposes. The roofs of their houses were flat and most often they were used for various reasons. Many times they would use the roofs of their houses for study and for quiet meditation, really for a lot of purposes. And often some of them would have a small room on their roof which is specifically used for spiritual purposes. And also Jesus says, go. He says, go and pray to the father in that quiet place away from everyone else in secret. Now what's Jesus point here?

Jesus was calling these few believers to a quiet place, to be alone with God in prayer. He was calling them to a new location of prayer, not out in the open but more. Jesus was calling them to a new audience in prayer and a new attitude in prayer. Their attitude and desire was to be alone before God, not out before men. God was to be their audience, not men. And the purpose in prayer was to truly seek communion with God, not the praise of men. Instead of pious play actors, Jesus is calling his followers to a secret place of purpose in prayer. And he was calling them to a totally new audience.

Instead of seeking the audience of man, Jesus is calling his followers to a private life of prayer and worship and prayer before God, not man. Now a question that we do need to ask and flesh it out a little, is Jesus condemning public prayers here? It could seem like that for some. Well the answer is no. Jesus is condemning hypocritical public prayer. Prayer with the wrong heart and motivations. Prayer for the approval and honor of men. He is calling them to be genuine by making God their audience in prayer. But again the question, was Jesus condemning public prayer? No. No. A couple of examples that will help us here.

Some of you know your Old Testament in 1 Kings chapter 8 and 2 Chronicles chapter 6. We have the story of Solomon, King Solomon when he prayed publicly. There was this great dedication of the temple and he prayed out for the whole nation of Israel to hear. And then the story of God bringing his people out of Babylonian captivity through great leaders like Ezra and Nehemiah. In Nehemiah 9 we have the record of Nehemiah and Ezra and their great public prayers. But one that might be obscure for you, in Acts chapter 21 we have the story of Paul praying before a great crowd and he literally kneels down before them.

And look none of these men were condemned in their prayer. That's just a few. So what was the difference? What was the difference between just a few that I mentioned and what Jesus is teaching here in Matthew 6? In each of these cases these men prayed to God with the right motives and for the right reasons and God honored their great public prayer. Now an application this relates to us maybe more than you know. I want to ask a few questions here. Do we have a quiet secret place of prayer? Do we? You know if you think about it we have a place for everything else. But most do not have a special place of prayer.

I begin to make a list really starting on Friday. I'll give you a couple of examples here. We have a place for our dogs and cats and animals do we not? You know we love our animals. Some in the life of our church. You know they're in the farming and those kinds of things. Whether we have a dog or a cat or animals we have a place. We have a place fixed up for our animals. But you know us men we have our shops or our barns or our utility sheds. You know those man things where we keep our tools and it's just manly in there. I have an old dairy barn on my place and it's where I have all that kind of stuff.

It's just been a mess lately and this week I realized I couldn't even get in my barn to work on a project. I had to work on a project out in the yard. So I started cleaning out my old barn getting it ready for a few projects. But you know we have a place for our toys. We have places for our athletic equipment. We have places for our boats and our four wheelers and our campers and our tractors. All those good things. There's nothing wrong with those things. I've known people who had a music room. Nothing wrong with the music room. I've known people that had a trophy room. I knew a guy one time he added on to his house.

He added on a 2,000 square foot room. One big room. One big trophy room. And you might say that cost probably more than my own home. Well he had to have the 2,000 square foot trophy room so that he would have a place to put his $30,000 African animal mounts. I've known guys that had a hunting room for all their hunting gear. I've known ladies who had a sewing room. Growing up my mother always had a place where she did some sewing. Some who homeschool. You know we have some that private school, some that public school and some homeschool. We do what the Lord leads us to do. But I've known people that had a homeschooling room.

But one that we all have. In all of our houses. We've got a eating room. We got a kitchen. We've got a bar or a kitchen table. You know I thought about it. If we were off at work and we came home and our wives had done away with the kitchen. I mean we'd have a fit would we not? Because most men want to come home to clean clothes and a meal. But do any of us have a prayer room? Do any of us have a place where we pray and study the word of God and seek the Lord? Do any of us have a place like that? I heard this story years ago and it's always resonated with me. He's a rather famous pastor of another denominational and theological persuasion.

And he talked about when he went to the Holy Land. He went to the nation of Israel. And you know a lot of these biblical sites we know right where they are today. And they even know right where Mount Carmel is. You know Mount Carmel was that great place where Elijah called down the fire of heaven. He talked about being there on Mount Carmel and he expected it to be some great spiritual experience. And he was there and I think he even taught the word of God to a group of people. And he spent some time with the Lord there. And he described how it was just empty. It just didn't feel right.

It just didn't have the spiritual experience that he anticipated. And when the trip was over he flew home and he went back to his church. And he went into his little small little prayer office. His place where he studied, prayed, and meditated on God's word. And he said he went into his little prayer office and he said it was as if the Lord said to his heart, "This is where I've met you all these years. Why would you need to go find me anywhere else?" If you were going to build a house or remodel a house, would you make a little prayer room or a place to study, a place where you could meet with God, would you?

Would you have a place to spend time with the Lord there? And you might say, "Pastor, this is a little much." No it isn't. What's Jesus teaching us here? So let's move on. I want us to notice our second major truth out of verses 7 and 8. This is the content of prayer. We have the content of this subject of prayer. Now here in verse 7 and 8, again a transition. Jesus transitions from the audience in prayer to the content of the prayer. But just like in verse 5 and 6, Jesus deals with two people who? The hypocrite and the genuine. So first the content of the hypocrite. The content of the hypocrite's prayer. Look at verse 7.

"And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words." Here Jesus compares the prayers of the hypocrite to the prayers of the pagan or the Gentile. The King James Version uses the word heathen. Now all of the heathen would be all non-Jewish people. Basically Jesus says this. Don't pray like the heathen. Don't pray like the pagans. Well how did the pagans pray? First of all they prayed using many empty phrases. They prayed with meaningless repetition, the New American Standard says. Now the phrase here it means thoughtless chattering, meaningless babbling.

This word was used in their culture to describe one who babbled or repeated their words. Maybe someone who was a little impaired. One scholar said the word in the original came from a Greek poet who went on with long tiresome verses saying the same thing over and over but with different forms, different words, different phrases. So this is meant to say the same thing over and over. Even maybe using different words and phrases but yet the same thing. But also the heathen they thought that with many of their words and with the repetition they would be heard by their God or gods. Couple of examples here.

In 1 Kings 18 the story of Elijah and his showdown there with the prophets of Baal. The text says that the prophets of Baal they arranged their offering and from morning to noon to evening they prayed and they called upon Baal to answer their prayers. And nothing happened. It was just meaningless repetition to know of Baal. Did you know that Elijah made fun of them? He mocked them. A great New Testament example is in Acts chapter 19. If you know that story there was a great riot there in the city of Ephesus. Paul was having a big showdown with the pagans there in Ephesus. And the great crowd of pagans there they gathered together.

It was a threat against Paul's life and they shouted over and over and over. Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. And they did this with great fervency. And this was some sort of prayer of praise to their pagan goddess. And just two examples here illustrate for us the pagans how they thought in regards to prayer. They saw continuous chattering in prayer as effective prayer. They believed that repeating the same phrases on and on and on was productive. And they believed that this would enable them that their gods would hear them. Now what's Jesus point here?

Jesus was looking straight at those true believers and he was commanding them not to pray as the pagans. He was calling them not to pray as their Jewish teachers did and how the Jewish teachers had taught them to pray. See the Jews were just like the pagans here and Jesus was calling his people away from the pagan practice of prayer. You see the Jews have been influenced by the pagan peoples in their prayer lives. They prayed like pagans. But then second the content of the genuine. Look at verse 8. "Do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask him." Here Jesus is rather simple.

Jesus says the true believers should not be like the Gentiles or the Jewish leaders. You see the Gentiles operated with false motives but the Jews operated with hypocritical motives. You see the Gentiles they had false motives. They were deceived but the Jews they operated with hypocritical motives because they wanted to impress their fellow men. So first Jesus is saying do not be like the pagans and second he goes on to say that they do not have to harass God or coerce God. Now what is Jesus point here? God is their father. God is their father.

And he already knows what they need and because he is their father and he knows their need Jesus is telling his followers that they can come to their father with their needs, with their burdens, with their hurts, with their concerns. He is telling them that they can come with a genuine desire to know God and to commune with God and to know his will for the things that are on their hearts and that are in their lives. And Jesus is beginning to show them what prayer is like with genuine content, with genuine motives. He is calling them to come to prayer to their father not as if he is some off distant God.

No, God knows their needs and so their entire approach should be different from anything that they have seen and experienced. Simply Jesus commands his followers not to be like the pagans and then he compels them to come to God as their father. A loving father who knows their needs, he calls them to come with genuine motives and with genuine content. Now an application, there is a lot here that we need to see and I want to ask us a few probing questions here as well. What is the content of our prayers? Is most of our praying a lot like what we have seen here with the Jews in these verses? This might surprise some of you.

Is our prayer ritualized? Maybe we do not have written forms of prayer or memorized prayer but if we say the same thing isn't it just the same? I can't help but think about a church I served in years ago. It was a leader in the life of that church. You know leaders often do things in church publicly. Pick up the offering, nothing wrong with that. Helping giving out the Lord's Supper, nothing wrong with that. One thing that leaders do in the life of the church is they will pray. I will never forget this individual. Every single time he prayed, he prayed the very same thing every time. See, I was a student minister then.

That meant that I sat there right in front of all the students. You know every time he prayed, you know what those young people did? They laughed. They would predict what he was going to say. I would hear them behind me and they would say, "He's fixing to say this. He's fixing to say that." They would write little notes and year after year after year he prayed the very same thing and everybody knew it. Maybe we do not have common cultural times of prayer like the Jews. They prayed at 9 and noon and 3, but we sure do have prayers for certain occasions at meals, at events, at holidays, during a tragedy or maybe even a time of blessing.

You know I thought about this as it relates to culture. You know there are people, if you don't have prayer before a football game, they're mad because you don't have prayer in school. They'll look out in culture and they'll see where prayer has been taken out of culture, but some of those very same people never pray in private. Do we have certain times of prayer yet we seldom have personal quiet time of prayer? You might say, "Pastor, we don't have certain times of prayer, 9, noon and 3. We do at our meals." Are we praying like the pagans? Long, repetitious, saying the same thing, saying the same thing.

Listen, the content of our prayers may be more pagan than we know. You might say, "Pastor, are you going a little too far?" Well, what is Jesus teaching here? I think it's pretty easy for us to see. Now I want to move toward concluding the message, and I want us to remember two things about our reward. Remember in all of this, Jesus explains reward. Jesus says that if we pray so as to be recognized by men, the only reward we will get will be the honor of men. It's sad. Normally, hypocrites honor hypocrites. Write that down, folks. Normally, it is the hypocrite that honors the hypocrite.

Usually the genuine will spot a hypocrite for what they are, and the genuine seldom honor the hypocrite, because if you honor the hypocrite, you are a hypocrite. I say, "Pastor, I'm not like that." But remember the warning in verse 1. Remember the principle. Jesus calls his people to be very, very, very careful not to show off their religious works for others to see, to impress men. That's why I say, "Beware of the dog, because all of us have some dog in us." And if you do, you have no reward from God. But also the reward for the genuine.

Jesus says if we go to our secret place and we meet with our Father and we seek His will and we seek to worship Him and love Him and praise Him, and yes, bring all of our needs and concerns to Him, there is a reward. And look, others may never see our prayer, nor will they ever see our reward. And we may never get the honor and the esteem from men. Now I want to close with a pastoral warning here. Inevitably there are some of you here that will move towards absolutes, black and whites, rules, extremes. And see, if we form absolutes here from Matthew 6 verses 5 to 8, we will only have secret prayer. You see?

Prayer, public prayer will be seen as evil. We'll condemn it. We will only pray short prayers. No repetition will condemn repetitious prayer. And when we hear someone praying long prayers, maybe even being repetitious, we will judge them and judge their prayer life. Why? Because we formed absolutes where black and white, rules, extremes. Do you know Jesus teaches on prayer in a lot of other places? If we go and study Jesus teaching in Luke 18 on prayer, our absolutes will be different. We will only see long prayers as godly.

And if we do the very same thing, if we study the teaching on prayer in Luke 11, we will only see repetitive prayer as godly. And there is even more teaching on prayer and there are more examples. Now pastor, what is it? What is it? The answer is yes. It's all. It's all of it and then some. You see Elijah, when he prayed there on Mount Carmel, there was that one quick short prayer and fire from heaven fell. And he was just as right with God as when Hannah in 1 Samuel prayed year after year after year, the very same thing in Shiloh. And this one might surprise you.

Solomon, when he prayed before the nation of Israel, dedicating the great temple to the Lord, he was just as right with God as when Jesus prayed so many times in the very secretive places even away from the disciples. Not that Solomon was like Jesus, no, but he was just as right with God. You see folks, prayer is relational, not ritual. Prayers of the heart. Prayer must be in worship and in submission and in obedience. Prayer must be genuine. Genuine. What have we seen this morning? Genuine prayer as opposed to hypocritical prayer.

If I wanted to be negative, I could just turn the title around and just say it's about hypocritical prayer, but it's both. And then next week we'll see that Jesus goes further and he begins to give an example, an illustration of what this genuine prayer looks like. So let's pray. Let's commit what we have studied to the Lord. It's a lot. And let's ask the Lord to work this out in our life that we would have a true, genuine, God accepting prayer life.