Prayer 101

The way to be a better prayer, in a sense, in public is to refine your conversation or develop a personal relationship in private. Normally, not all the time, but my gut tells me, this is Robbie speculating, that the person who, Father, thank you, Father, thank you, Jesus, God, Father, would you do, Lord, the reality is they probably don't pray a lot in private. Because when you pray like that in private, after a while, you start saying, what am I talking about? Welcome to the Forgotten Jesus Podcast. I'm your host, Adam French. I'm here with Pastor Robbie Gallaty and Candy Gallaty. Yes, sir. And we've got some exciting new material curriculum coming out, a new book, what's called the Movement Ready Church. Is that right? Yep. You know, we don't promote anything, or at least up to this point, we haven't promoted anything on this channel. Although we have been asked to partner with people to promote stuff. So when we promote stuff, we feel like it's something we think can help you guys. Right. If you're listening. This is a new book that just came out at the time of recording, just came out this week.

Vic Green and I, director of Replicate, put this together. It's Movement Ready Church. This is like a leadership book for pastors or ministry leaders. Okay. Could be for anybody, really, who wants to create a disciple-making movement in their church. What's cool about this book is, now I have another book that I wrote on the revival that's coming out in September. This one is like a snippet. So you get like a 30,000-foot view of what was happening in my life. Many of you listening know, God changed my heart on the porch, 10 months, silence and solitude. So I talk about, in the beginning, the shifts that took place in my own life. And I talk about five shifts based on this acronym of RENEW, how to renew your time with the Lord. Anyway, I just talk about the shift from working for God to working with God, trying to please people, you know, those kind of things. So that's the Movement Ready Church. You can buy that online. And then I started a new YouTube channel. That's right, the YouTube channel. Adam's starting his, but we're not promoting yours until next week.

Next week, it'll come out. Because it's not out yet. It's not out yet. But when you're out, we're gonna promote it. But we both got convicted about this, really, at the same time. We've been talking a while. But for me, I preach on Sundays, but only get 30 minutes. So I got 30 minutes to preach, and you know it takes a while to unpack. And I study so much. Like you, when you preach, you got all this extra material. And for years, I would just have to discard it. Like, oh, I'll use that one day. And so, and then I would teach it in my dGroups, kind of an overflow. But I just got convicted. We have a mutual friend, Nate Sala. Shout out to. Wise Disciple. The Wise, if you don't, if you haven't subscribed, Vivian's cheering. It's strong. Robert knows. Strong. I love Nate Sala's channel. Apologetics. Oh, man. He's a gift to our church. So good, so good.

The Wise Disciple is his channel. Check it out if you haven't. So they can find it on YouTube. What's your channel, Nate? It's just at Pastor Robbie Gallaty. R-O-B-B-Y, Gallaty. And I. We'll put a link in the notes. Yeah, put a link. And then I dropped a few videos already. One is God Stopped the First AI, in a sense. People said, oh, that's not really what you preached on. Well, AI, in a sense, is artificial intelligence. And their intelligence was, they were trying to rely on their language. And anyway, it's kind of a play on. The thumbnail says digital collapse on it. If you're looking for that first one, digital collapse. And then I put one out of the Great Commission, how the Great Commission was not started by Jesus. Actually, it was started on the first page of the Bible in Genesis. And I kind of weaved that through Noah and Abraham and the Lord's Prayer. So anyway, and then I got one dropping this week on Abraham. And it's basically about the shame of Abraham. It says, Abraham, the most disrespected name in the Bible, or the most discouraging name in the Bible. Why is that? Because God, his father named him Abram,

which is father of many, exalted father. And he has no kids for 75 years. So for every time Abraham walks around the community, just to mention his name was a shot at him. It was a gut shot. Like, hey, daddy, oh, oh, I'm sorry. You don't have kids, sorry. And then God steps in and changes it. So anyway, I'm excited about that. That's what Robbie got. Are you getting comments on these? On the videos or no? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, they get. Are they bad or good? Well, it's YouTube, so. I get mostly good, but I mean, there are some people out there. You get some trolls. Yeah, but I mean. I say trolls don't scroll. You know what I'm saying? She's fine with it. Trolls don't scroll. Oh, Vivian's waving the whip right back. My point is, listen. I don't want you reading the comments. That's what I'm saying. No, it's like a drug, you know? You know it's bad for you, but you keep reading it.

We're not on drugs. I'm not playing, I'm not playing. No, Robert actually is gonna read them now. Okay, finally, move on. Here's the last book, and I know it's a lot we're promoting, but this one will go with what we're talking about today. So I'll put this up. This one Candy and I wrote last year called The Practice of Prayer. Adam, you went through this with our church. And so let me just encourage you. If you're looking for ways to pray, learn how to pray, that's what this book is, and you can get this one. Put that one right there, Candy. It's gonna be in your way, right? If you're watching the YouTube. I don't know if people are gonna see that. Just show it. No, no, it's fine. Okay, lay down. One thing to say about that, this isn't. A book, a practice of prayer is not a book that is, it's not about defining prayer. There's stuff in there about it. There's a lot of theological stuff. Practice of prayer means you're actually gonna do it. So if you want to have a practical guide where you can pray while you're reading it, this is a book that you want. And it's really, it's almost like a springboard.

It's the, you know, right before you get in the pool, you wanna jump on the diving board. This is what you do. You're gonna dive into prayer. This is kind of a slow walk methodically through it. So it's a really good place to start if you're saying, you know what, I need to, I don't pray enough. I don't even have a plan. I don't have a process. I don't, any of that. This is what you're gonna learn when you read that book. So I think it's a very helpful tool to get you started. It's not, I just want to put out there, it's not another book that talks all about prayer. There's a lot of books on what prayer is. This is about praying. Yeah, we handhold you every day with a practice. You're gonna pray if you read the book. You're gonna pray. Well, you're not doing it right. That's why we specifically created it that way. Like, we didn't want to just be teaching everybody about prayer. There's a lot of resources that teach about prayer and why we need to do it. We wanted someone to actually sit down and pray. You don't teach how to lament. Teaching is minimal. We teach you how to pray the scripture.

We teach you how to have a prayer list. We teach you how to pray for yourself. We teach you how to hear from God. Silence and silence. So a lot of practice. Different postures of prayer. Yeah, speaking of prayer, let's get into it. Uh-oh. Here we go. Matthew 6, 5. Can she still quote along? We got a new person in the house today stepping in for Mr. Chris Clapp. Mr. Nathan Walker is joining us today. Yes, sir. Behind the scenes. Does anybody call you Nate, or is it always Nathan? Always Nathan. Always Nathan? Wow. Yeah, he's professional. He's getting his PhD, so we'll see what happens. Dr. Nathan? Call you Nate Dog? Dr. Nathan. Dr. Nate Dog. Nate Dog. Not Nate Dog. Nate Dog. Not Nate Dog.

Nate Dog. Yeah, Nate Dog. I like that. He's got a ring to it. Okay, Matthew 6, 5. So this is whenever you pray? I think so. I mean, I don't know. Whenever you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray, standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. Truly, I tell you, they have their reward. But when you pray, go into your private room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you. Whenever you pray, don't babble like the Gentiles since they imagine they will be heard for their many words. Don't be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him. Okay. That it? Yep. Nice, the double, the double. Off the cuff, too easy. Double. Okay, the thing Jesus can talk about, same vein as last week. He's gonna do three things in a row, just for recap. The three highest forms of practicing righteousness. I know that catches people off guard.

They're like, what do you mean? I'm a Christian, I don't practice right. No, Jesus expected the outflow of your faith would produce good works for him. You're gonna do some. It's a way of life. It's not like you're turning on a switch. Ooh, let me practice my righteousness today. It should be just who you are all day, every day. You're learning and you're living in that. You're living in the righteousness that's been given to you. Yeah, and these aren't the only three, but he just takes the big three, and he shows how, basically what he's doing is he's saying how even a good thing done with the wrong motives is the wrong thing. You're doing it wrong. Okay, so we start with Jesus saying, don't pray to be seen by others. If you do, you're gonna be like the hypocrites. Now, we learned last week the word hypocrite is the word that means what? You remember this? Acting, like putting on a mask. Putting on a mask. It means someone who played a part, and so you gotta understand, these guys loved to pray. They sought out every opportunity for theatrical praying that there was,

and back then, if they were giving out awards, these guys would have received an Oscar, these religious leaders, because they had amazing performances. I mean, these guys were the best of the best, and what they would do is, there were certain times of prayer throughout the day. Remember, there were two times of offerings, nine and three, there were certain times of prayer. Even today, if you go on a trip on a plane to Israel, and we've done this before, normally, we would try to get the exit row. Obviously, when you're 6'6 and a gorilla, you try to get an exit row, so I'm sitting in the exit row, and normally, what would happen, Vivian, you remember this, when we go to Israel, the rabbis, Orthodox rabbis, would get in the exit row area, because it's bigger. A bulkhead. At certain times of the day, they would try to face Jerusalem, you know, wherever that was, where you'd normally find East, and they would say their prayers, and they'd normally be rocking and saying their prayers, so they still have this kind of regimen today, but back then, they would sound a trumpet for people to start to pray,

and the Pharisees wanted to make sure they were in a well-populated area, because they wanted everybody to see, you know, thou heavenly Father, God above all things, whose name transcends ever. Now, we know people who pray like this, right? We all know somebody. I remember when I was in seminary, and again, I don't want to be critical of seminary, because I was probably prideful at times, too, but I remember seminary. Robert, you remember this. Nathan, you remember this. Guys in seminary class. All right, let's start the class by praying. Go ahead and pray. Mike, you pray. And then he would start praying before class. And I was a new Christian too back then. I was like, is that heartfelt? Are you talking to God, or do you want people to look at? You know, people like that. It's a sermon prayer. What does Bro T always say? Bro T always says what? Don't catch up on your prayer life. Like right before you're about to eat. You know what I mean? That's the person you don't wanna pick for Thanksgiving, right?

They run away. No, no, no. You wanna just say, bless the food. Thank you, Lord, let's go. Yeah, that's right, yeah. And again, I don't know the motives of their heart, but it seems like they're there not to talk to God. They're there to impress other people. And it's a challenge for all of us. And I tell you this before, and I'll tell you this again. This is a big pet peeve of mine. And again, if you do this, I'm not criticizing you, because, but I just remember in seminary, and I think this is kind of an old school way of praying, but it just, people pray, dear Lord, Lord, I thank you for this time. Lord, thank you for heaven. Lord, and Lord, thank you for this day. Lord, and it's like, okay, listen, he knows, it's like saying, Robby, Adam, I wanna talk to you. Adam, can you come over to the house, say, Adam, are you ready to play disc, Adam, tomorrow, golf together, Adam, with? I'm not, okay, if anybody prays that way in this realm, I'm not singling anybody out, I promise you. It's probably more powerful in private. Yes, well, here's the thing. You see what I'm saying? If you did it that way, and it's quiet, it would make sense, not publicly.

Okay, so here's how it works. The way to be a better prayer, in a sense, in public is to refine your conversation or develop a personal relationship in private. Normally, not all the time, but my gut tells me, this is Robby speculating, that the person who, Father, thank you, Father, thank you, Jesus, God, Father, would you do, Lord? I'm not, Chris, the reality is they probably don't pray a lot in private, because when you pray like that in private, after a while, you start saying, what am I talking about? I don't go to candy and do, I just say, hey, babe, how was your day? It's almost like you're using the word or the term that you're referring to Lord as, it's a filler. You're just filling in with all these multiple words. I mean, sometimes I say his name multiple times in prayer, but it's not necessarily a filler word, where it's just a habit of. No, I know, that's what I'm saying. A lot of people don't know, because that's just the way they were taught. So I would say, it's a pet peeve I just said, but I would say, and I even did some of that early on, too, but I found the longer I would spend time talking to the Lord, it became more of a conversation in the presence of a person and not a formal request before a formal king or a queen or a politician.

Well, it says don't babble. Yes, that's true. We're good at babbling. Okay, go with me to, I'll show you, those who are seeking attention in prayer, we have a perfect example in Luke chapter 18. So go to Luke 18, verse 10, and I wanna show you this popular passage of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Do you remember that one? These are two guys praying in church, of all things, and one of them is a Pharisee. He's in the temple, standing by himself, excuse me, which gives us a picture of what? Standing by himself, praying by himself. He's set apart. Oh yeah, he don't want you to miss. This is one of my favorite passage descriptions. Is this high enough? Hold on, no, no, it's not high. Let me get a little high. Can I get on that separate thing? Anybody standing on that stage? Okay, no, you are, okay. And then he gets by himself, and then Adam, you read it for us, since you love it. Read the first part. You wanted me to do like that? The Pharisee standing by himself, prayed this way. Let's read it.

Let's see, so is that verse 10? Verse 11. Verse 11, okay. Yeah, the Pharisee was standing and praying like this about himself. About himself, yeah. So that's a key phrase. He's praying about himself, which I don't even know. That's even, you should put it in the end. Is that even prayer, or keep going? Keep it going. All right, this is Jesus talking, so he's calling him out. God, I thank you that I'm not like other people. Greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give a 10th of everything I get. Okay, so let's stop here, because that's the first part of his prayer, because you know where we're going. So what does he do right away? He is reminding God of how good he is, right? He's like, God, look at this, I'm a good guy. I'm not like the rest of these jokers here. I mean, these guys here, these losers around here, they extort money, they're not walking with you, they're adulterous in their relationships. Oh, especially this joke, this joke right here. This guy, this guy, worthless piece of human being, this tax, I'm nothing like him.

So right away, not only does he elevate himself by standing apart, but he starts praying about himself to God to lift himself up. And then he gives a couple examples. What does he do? He gives, you ready for this? Two of the three, he's actually doing all three, just hit me right now. He's doing all three we just talked about in the Sermon on the Mount. He's praying, and he's talking about fasting and giving. Is that crazy? That just hit me, that just hit me. The three things we're gonna study, Jesus says, and when you give, and when you pray, and when you fast, this dude here does them all. And he says, I give all my money that you're coming in, I give a 10th and I fast. And it says, but, let's read the next part. So now you have a contrast, the story shifts, the camera moves to the tax collector, read the next part. But the tax collector standing far off would not even raise his eyes to heaven, but he kept striking his chest and saying, God have mercy on me, a sinner. We finish it off. Keep going, Jesus tells him. Hey, this is Gia. I tell you, this one went down to his house justified rather than the other,

because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. That's good. Boy, that's sobering. It's wild. You know, the first thing, when people, lot of times when people come in recovery, they've never prayed. They have no relationship with God, not church goers. They grew up in a place where they didn't know God at all. And so, but one of the things we always say, which I just thought about this is, hey, you shouldn't be praying for yourself. So your prayer for yourself is, God, give me the wisdom, the discernment to carry out your will for my life today, and then you pray for other people. That's good. So we really, we always say, that you should not spend time praying for yourself. You need to be focused on praying for others. Now, later down the road, we kind of teach them how to pray for certain things. But at the beginning is don't pray for yourself, because, I mean, if there's anybody that can mess up prayer, it's us. You know, and so that's, it's kind of a starting point. And it's interesting, this guy's prayer, he's focused on himself. He's not focused on other people.

He's not focused on God, search me, test me, find out what you want to change in me. God, you know, God come inside my heart and, you know, lift up every rock. He's saying, literally he's saying, God, this is who I am. Look at how good. Well, I would say. It says he's trusting in himself. Yeah, I would say that the contrast is, they're actually both in a sense praying for themself. One is praying with a false understanding of himself. The other is praying with a right assessment of himself. That's good. That's the difference. One is praying and impressing, trying to impress God and impress others. The other one basically says, I know exactly who I am and I know who, what he's saying without saying anything is, I know who I am, a sinner. I know who you are, a savior. And I know without you, I'm nothing. That's what the guy went home justified with. Here's what I would say. I tell people, this is a great way to start. I know recovery, that's a great principle. When I went to treatment in Mexico for the first time, we were with a couple, his name was Reese and I can't remember his wife's name,

but they were our friends. We hung out with them. My mom and I hung out with them the entire time. Sadly, Reese left and relapsed a couple years later. He passed, but he was a great guy. But he told me this line. I wasn't a Christian back then at the time. I wouldn't accept Christ until a year later, two years later. But anyway, he came in and put me aside and he said, hey, listen, do you pray? I said, well, I'm Catholic. And he said, I said, I pray the Lord's prayer and all that and our Father. He said, here's what I want you to do. He said, I want you to pray for seven days, but I don't want you to ask God for anything for you. See, that's what I'm saying, yeah. Just what you said. Now, Vivian, that seems simple, Ben. That was the hardest thing in my life. Because up to that point, the epicenter of my world was me. It was all about me, getting out of drugs, not getting caught, don't let this cop pull me over, don't let me go to jail, don't let me die. And I was like, wait a minute, pray for what? He said, well, God will show you. That radically changed my life. So here's what I tell people. This is how you know you're growing in prayer

if you're listening, okay, listen to this. Hopefully you're listening. You grow in prayer by, you first start when you pray, you start praying for yourself, which is fine. I tell people, pray for the person who needs it the most. I need it the most, you know, pray for myself. And not just selfish prayers, but not just wants but needs. But then when you mature in your growth, you stop praying just for yourself and you start praying for not just your will to be done, but other people's will and God to work in their life. But this is how you know you've really matured. When you stop praying just for you and others and you start praying for God's will to be done in the world, in your life. And that's how you know you're growing in maturity and prayer. Jesus is gonna give us the antidote for pride. And the antidote, and I alluded to it earlier, is this. If you struggle with pride in praying, stop praying in public and start going to pray in private. Pray in the secret place when no one's, that, you know, secret prayer determines, shows two things. One, it shows how serious you are in prayer. And number two is, it shows who you're praying to. A lot of people wanna pray, people come to prayer night, Tuesday night, we love it. We have a great prayer night here at Long Hollow. Had the largest attendance we'd had ever this past Tuesday.

Oh, it was awesome. Packed out. It was awesome. And we love it. Praying, I guess the war just started not long ago. I don't know, but the point is people came. But, and again, I love that people come pray in public, but the question is, do you pray in private? Are you praying when no one's looking? It says when you pray like that, just know I'm watching and I'm there. And so praying, if you're listening, write this down. Praying in secret purifies your motives for praying. Say that again. Praying in secret purifies or reveals your motives for praying. So Jesus says, but when you pray, don't be like the what? Let's hear it again, watch this. Hippocrates. The Gentiles or the Hippocrates? The Gentile, we already got the Hippocrates out of the way. The Gentiles. So the Hippocrates pray publicly with eloquent words to impress. For sure, yeah. Gentiles pray differently. Right. Okay. It says when you pray, don't babble like the Gentiles and say, imagine they'll be heard for their many words.

Don't be like them. Boy, he says it twice too. That's really, he doesn't say, don't do it. He says, no, don't do it. Don't do it again. Stop, stop it, right? Don't babble and don't be like them. Okay, the ancient rabbis believed that the longer the prayers, the better chance you had of God hearing you. That's what they said. The rabbis believed what? Some rabbis, some of the sages in the Talmud and the Mishnah would say, the longer the prayer, the better chance it has legs to get to heaven in a sense. So they prided themselves. But these are the Gentiles. This is in Jesus's day. Are they trying to copy the rabbis? No, no, I'm making a connection. So the rabbis prayed long prayers because they wanted to have these lengthy prayers. And okay, let me just say this. I'm not saying a long prayer is a disingenuous prayer. I'm not saying that. But sometimes it will lead to the danger of being insecure and pride, like you wanna be prideful. But the Gentiles' problem were they weren't just praying long prayers.

They were praying empty phrases, repetitive mantras, if you will. And they thought that by repeating the right word, the right way with the right sound, that would move the gods of that day. Now, a lot of this came into, again, don't email me because you're mad. I'm just, don't shoot the messenger. I'm giving you the message. So again, just don't be mad at me. But I was there. I was raised in a Catholic church, okay? And I'm just stating facts. Don't get mad, stating facts. I was raised in a Catholic church where I grew up with vain, repetitious babble, if you will. Okay, now let's just define what vain repetition and babble is. Vain repetition is, Jesus says, don't do it. Don't be like them. He says, wait. Vain repetition is what? I'll let you answer first. What do you think vain repetition or babble is? Empty phrases is what the CSB says. It's like there's no heart posture or thought process to it. It's just a routine thing. Yeah. So like, in your case, being raised Catholic, at that point in your Catholicism,

I can only speak for you, you had no relationship with God. It was a ritualistic thing that you went to church and you said the prayers at the right time, on your knees or whatever, in the confessional booth, after you got out of the confessional booth. But it was just, it was that part of your life in a routine manner. There was no relationship there. It wasn't like you were truly crying out to the Lord that to be forgiven of something. You were just saying the routine prayer. There was a relationship, but he was an overbearing, abusive, domineering, slap me every time I got out of line, daddy. That's how the relationship was. So really, there was no relationship. But I mean, the relationship I had, yeah, no relationship. There was a perspective. Let me take it back. I knew who God was. An awareness, yes. An awareness is a better example, yes. You had an awareness, but there was like- But no relationship, no, true. It wasn't like you, at that point, felt loved and cared for. Accepted, no, no way. And you could talk to him. No, I was scared of him.

I was scared. So it was a very routine thing. And I'm not saying everybody in the Catholic Church does that or not, because I can only speak for you. But you did not have that kind of experience in your upbringing, as far as the Catholic Church was concerned. But some other people in other religions don't either. Let's play that out. So if you think, like I did, my deal with God was, I was just trying to do just enough so I wouldn't get punished and in trouble. And I was scared. And I was always trying to cut corners. And every time God, if that's like a father who's overbearing, abusing, every time he comes in the room, man, you're scared. You don't even want to talk. Hey, how was your day? Good. There's no relationship. And some of you, Sally, don't have to be Catholic like I was. You could be Protestant or Independent Baptist, Church Christ. If that's your view of God, that's a wrong view of God. God is loving and caring and kind and compassionate. Well, we still do that, though. If you think about today, I was raised Baptist, okay? But our routine prayers were,

now lay me down to sleep, but pray the Lord, my soul to keep, okay? Or, you know. God is good. God is great. Let us thank him for our food. Nathan, you prayed that growing up? You know, so there were like routine prayers that we prayed. You did, but they do better. But not in a church setting. It was going to be in our home. And granted, there's nothing wrong with that. It teaches your kids to talk to the Lord and all that. But if we're just saying them all the time for like no reason, you know, like when I sit down now and pray and I'm like, Lord, thank you for my food. Like, I am so glad you have given it to me. Sometimes you get so hungry, you forget to pray. No, I say, this is what I say every time. Pray while you chew, Aliyah. I say, Lord, thank you for our food, and bless the hands of those who prepared it. And that would be me. Yeah, that's her little thing she says at home. Cause you're like. I'm like, I've been slaving in this kitchen for two hours, Lord. Well.

Thank you for this food, and bless the hands of those who prepared it. The boys and I push back, and we say, let's be, you know, very abrand way to pray is, by the way, they don't pray before the meal, they pray after the meal, and that makes a lot of sense. Why? Cause you don't want to know if you want to thank God and to, What? Until you're eating it. Until we eat it. We want to make sure we like the, My food is good. No, it's normally good. I mean, it's good. It's really good. It's really good. Unless I'm trying to make something healthy. You're a good cook. Adam, what were you going to say? I'll cut you off. No, I was going to say that they were trusting in the pronunciations of words and not in the promised power of God. Ooh, yeah. You know, which has grace, and they were just pronouncing words that they heard that they thought led to God,

but they actually led to nothing. It's just worthless babble of words and words where hopefully, like she was kind of saying, if you have a relationship and you have a understanding of who God is and where your standing is, then when your words are going, I'm speaking to the most powerful God on the planet. You know, he created everything, and he has all these promises that come along with it, and they're all backed and filled with endless mercy and grace. And that's kind of the difference of babble and like your word for our whole church this year, you know, it's calculated. Our words should be calculated. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and personal. You know, I think that prayer should be personal and not, I mean, it's between you and God. You know what I'm saying? And so it's like not for everybody else to be like looking and necessarily. Yeah, let's go back to the rosary. Again, not picking on the rosary, but I know it because I was raised using it. So let's use that in the context of vain repetition, which is what it is. And I'll explain it in a moment. But think about this.

If I am babbling or repeating phrases in order to move the hand or the heart of God, then where does the power in that rest? Think about this. Does the power rest in the practice or in the person you're praying to? You see, that's where the, and you're saying, well, it's just a bunch of bees. Okay, I get that, but let's just go back to how it was formed. A lot of people don't know this. Do you know who formed or created the rosary? Do you know who did it? It was a Pope. Guess what Pope? His name, he was a very humble man. His name was Pope Pius V. Very humble guy. Pope Pius. Pius means holy. Yeah, yeah. Just call me Pastor Holy. Pastor Holy. Holy Roman. Reverend Righteous over here. Just call me that. So Pastor Pius V instituted the rosary. You ready for this? Not in the first century, you would think. You know, this goes way back.

Not in the second, not in the fifth, not in the 10th, not in the 15th century. What? 1,500 plus years passed until the 16th century, and he decides to implement the rosary. Now again, don't shoot the messenger, but let me just tell you how you could trace the rosary back, you ready for this? To the practice of Buddhism. Nathan's shaking his head. You know where I'm going here, Nathan. The practice of Buddhism, because the Buddhist, during the Spanish Muslim days in the Middle Ages, this is true, they would take these beads and in a repetitive, repetitious manner, they could put themselves in a meditative state. And I get it, because I used to do this for a while. But here's what's even more baffling about the rosary to me. Protestant people will appreciate this, but the rosary works like this. You recite one, our Father, our Father who art in heaven, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy, okay, that one. Then you recite 10 Hail Marys. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou. And one Glory Be, and that is the cycle. You repeat the cycle four different times,

four more times, for a total of five, until you get to the end of it and you're done. Now watch this, here's what's staggering. Again, believe whatever you want about Mary and Jesus, but here's the thing, just take it face value. You're praying one time to God for every 10 times to Mary. Wow, that should bother you. So you're praying 50 Hail Marys, five Our Fathers, five Glory Be's. Now, I mentioned it was similar to Buddhism. Buddhists have, and I was just watching a documentary about this, if you go to Buddha, if you go to a country with Buddhism, like the Middle East, certain countries with Buddhism, like Thailand and China. India and Thailand? Yeah, India, but China. They have what's called the Buddhist spin wheel. Have you heard of this? I haven't heard of that. It's an interesting thing. They have whole factories that make these. You've heard of this, Nathan? This is interesting. Have you heard of this, Ben? Interesting. So look them online, Buddhist spin wheels, where actually they have different writing in Chinese and, you know.

you know, Japanese or whatever, and they take these wheels they make and they spin the wheels around, they'll spin them slow, and as the prayers are written down spinning around, you try to pray the prayers along with the wheel, and what they believe is, every time the wheel goes around, it's shooting prayers out to the world on behalf of Buddha. That's what Buddhism is. The wheel is. The wheel, they'll say as the wheel goes around, the prayers go out. Now, in addition to that, some of these ancient paganistic religions decided to amplify the prayers by partnering them with the lighting of candles. Sound familiar. Sound familiar. Sound very familiar. Now, I would say, again, lighting a candle in and of itself is not bad. I'm not saying you shouldn't do that. I mean, Candy has candles when she does quiet times. I'm not saying praying prayers, I'm not even saying using beads in and of itself for trying to get into a repetitive thing, although I don't do that. I don't think the beads in itself are bad. I think the problem becomes in the kind of prayers

we're praying and the purpose of those beads, which creates this repetitive mantra. The purpose of the beads and the priority of the prayers, or the direction of the prayers is the problem, because in my opinion, you're praying to the wrong person. Even if it was 10 Our Fathers, So One Hail Mary, you see what I'm saying? I think it'd still be a problem as long as the mantra, the way of the beads. But here's what I would say. The problem is, most Christians who throw shade at that and say, man, that's horrible. I can't believe those people do that. Here's your problem. You have an equal problem that's the opposite. At least those people are praying. Yeah, okay. My grandmother. I was gonna say, your grandmother. Godliest woman I knew growing up. I mean, my grandmother. And she was Catholic. She was Catholic. I think my grandmother went to, I believe a person can be Catholic and be a Christian. I think a person can be Catholic and not be a Christian. I think a person can be a Baptist and not be a Christian, whatever. Because it has to be, you have to have faith in Jesus Christ and Jesus alone.

I've said this before. You can be Catholic and be a Christian not because of the religious system, because it's a system of works, sacramentally, but in spite of the system. It's in spite of the system of Catholicism, which is you have to work through the sacramental seven-step process from birth to death to stay in good graces with the church so that you don't end up in hell or millions of years in purgatory. And that's a system of works. And Paul says, anything you add to the gospel nullifies the gospel. It negates the gospel. So the point I'm trying to make with prayer is this. Prayer is not some practice you have to get right. It's not some words you have to say perfectly. The practice of prayer actually is more about the person who's praying than the prayer that's being offered. Let me say that again. True prayer is more about the change that takes place in the pray-er than the request making it to heaven by the prayer being prayed. And I would say it's not bad to pray the same thing over and over. So don't hear what I'm not saying, because we have instances in the Bible

where Jesus himself prays what? Three times, the same prayer. God, listen, any other way? No, not gonna happen today, son. Okay, God, let me ask one more time. Any other, take this cup. Not gonna happen today, son. Okay, one more time. Paul, three times I prayed. Take it away, take it away. My grace is sufficient. I would say Jesus is showing us it's okay to pray the same prayers. Paul said it the same way. But if you perform your prayer to be seen and heard by men, God's not gonna hear your prayer. I think that's the point. And it's dangerous. I was just thinking the whole time about how when you become self-righteous, there's always fruit from our heart and our actions brings fruit. When we become self-righteous, there's that indignation. And you think of the most, what is the most violent religion in the world? Islam. Islam. And what does Islam do very often and pronounce all over the world?

What do they do? Pray. Oh, it calls to prayer. Five times a day, they're called to prayer. They pray all the time. They're the most religious people on the planet. They want everybody to see. They got special mats. I'm just telling the truth like it is. The reality is, They're the most religious of all. This is the ones who are saying, hey, look at me. This is when we pray. How much do you pray? And the byproduct of being self-righteous and what this guy's saying is violence and anger. And what's the by, that's why I think he says, don't be like them twice. It's a firm, hey, don't do this. Because if you do this, you're gonna be the point. I'm not gonna be the point. And the byproduct of that is violence. With Islam, and same question for Catholicism, does Islam have the routine prayers like Hail Mary? Like what kind of like the Catholic religion? Yes, they pray a prayer book. It's specific.

I'm not sure like what they say. But I know I had a friend that, you know, Josh and I, we used to connect with, we used to go and we'd always witness to these guys and eat with them and stuff. But I remember him sitting there and he had, it looked like, when you said rosary, I kept thinking about him. And he was just going over it. So I don't know what they prayed, but it seems like he was going over some sort of thing. When I said you shouldn't use beads, what I'm getting at is, I don't use beads, I wouldn't encourage beads. But the problem's not the beads, the problem is behind, that's what I wanted to clarify. But with, so with, in your, when you were growing up and you would say the routine prayers that they taught you, was there ever a freedom outside of that to just pray whenever you wanted? Do you know what I'm saying? Like, do you ever hear, like, did you ever hear your grandmother offering up a prayer, not the rosary or like the Hail Mary, the Our Father? Do you know what I'm saying? Like, was there, were y'all taught in any way to just be free with your prayer to the Lord? Or was it only the... You know what's funny is...

You know what I'm saying? Like, if you were to go to God, it was only that you could say the Glory Be or the Our Father and not, you know, like, did she pray over you when you were sick? Do you see what I'm saying? Like, was there just a... Never, no. I would say the only time she prayed an extemporaneous prayer that I can remember, and again, this is not all Catholics, but I think in my home, South Louisiana, which was pretty Italian Catholic, Roman Catholic, yeah. I would say the only time she would pray extemporaneously would be at Thanksgiving and Christmas, which at that time, it was a joke for her. I mean, I'm just, God have mercy on me, but we would close our eyes, and the longer she would go, you know, it would be laughing with my dad and my uncle. Shhh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. You know, it's like, come on, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. But she was the, like, the self-appointed prayer in the family. That's a loss. The whole family was lost going ahead. But she wasn't, and to Kenny's point, she wasn't praying like a Catholic. She would just pray and like, shh. No, she would pray like, Lord, give us health and food,

and then I think she would end with or start with, it was always start with our father. But no, but I would say, by and large, most Catholics, I would say, most Christians, too, but most Catholics are never taught how to pray. They don't have a language for prayer. They don't have a vocabulary to pray to God, and they're never encouraged to pray extemporaneously, which, if you think about it, that creates, like Islam, this barrier to separation. If every time I talk to Candy, it has to be, hail, Candy, full of grace. The Lord is with you, precious one. No, that wouldn't be bad, baby. Routine. That wouldn't be bad. If every time we talk that way, glory be to the Candy, to the son, and to Reagan Ryder. After a while, after a while, you'd be like. That's weird. What are you doing? Just talk to me, just talk to me. God's up here. You know, it does create that sort of barrier. If you're listening and you've never had a conversation, literally go home tonight, put an empty chair. This helps me sometimes, too, when I pray in my shed at night. I imagine Jesus is with me. You know, that's another thing people miss.

When I pray, and I've learned to learn this, but you have to imagine, I have a good friend who's led some prayer meetings with me at the Southern Baptist Convention, Bill Eliff. You know Bill, he's been great. Robert, you remember Bill. And great friend, loves prayer. Great books on prayer, if you hadn't read them. But Bill one year said, hey, can we walk people into the throne room of God in prayer? Boy, this was so powerful. I said, Bill, you're the Godfather. I'm learning from you, so you lead it. So literally, we started the whole convention. I think it was in LA, we were in California for this one. And he got up and he said, all right, I want you in your mind, close your eyes, and I'm gonna walk you into the throne of God before we even ask anything or talk to God. Dude, it was powerful. Basically, he says, I want you to go. You're walking into the presence of God. He's surrounded by angels, and you're hearing in the distance, holy, holy, holy. And you take a few steps forward and you look up above you and there he is, majestic and high. I mean, bro, it gave me chills now thinking about it. And then you bow down with all the saints and the elders and the angels before this God. And you realize, and you look at God

and you realize you're a sinful man and need to be cleansed. When you realize, man, I'm not talking to some fictitious caricature. I'm talking to the God of the universe. And not only talking, but he cares enough to hear. And Jesus says, he knows what you're gonna ask and still wants you to ask him. James Montgomery Boyce, one of my favorite commentators, said, I believe that not one prayer in a hundred of those who fill churches on Sunday morning is actually made to God Almighty, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ himself. They are prayers made to men or to the praying one himself. Tell us what you mean, James. And that includes the prayers of preachers as well as those of the members of the congregation. You wanna radically change your prayer life? Stop asking God for things and start saying, God, put on my heart the things that matter to you. That's powerful. Beautiful thing about that picture that Bill was painting is you would think that at some point, there would be a barrier, but there's not. When he says, come boldly to the throne of grace, what that passage means is you have authorized access to the creator of the universe. So because of Jesus' blood, because of Jesus' sacrifice and his resurrection, and he gave us the opportunity to walk into this place that the holy of holies and be with him, and that's the end point, is we get to be with God in prayer and hear from God, as you've taught us a lot. Yeah, and I would say for people out there, like, I think we make prayer more difficult than it needs to be.

And sometimes I think we don't have the right words to put to the prayer. And so I think that's why, for me, praying scripture is so amazing, because it's like you're praying back to God, his words, his truths, his concepts and stuff. And so, like, for instance, you've taught this in the Here Journal method, you know, like you have your highlight, explain, apply, and then you have this response. And that response, for me, 95% of the time is a prayer. It's not a super long prayer, it's normally something short, sweet, and concise that I've learned from scripture. And so it doesn't have to be super complicated, it's just literally, what did I read today? What did I learn today? What did God speak to my heart? And then how do I put that in form of prayer, you know? And, you know, right now, we have Rigg, who's a junior, is about to wrap up his junior year and he's going to be senior. And so I felt really challenged. You got one of those too. Can you believe we're both going to have seniors next year? Robert knows it, Robert has a senior. Don't tell us, Robert, that's like... I felt really challenged with Rigg, like, okay, he's going to be leaving the home in a year and a half, you know, this was in January, I was thinking this. And so I started a Bible for him where I am, I started it in January. So I'm doing my quiet time every day, I'm doing my hair journals, but the response is directed as a prayer for Rigg. So that, and I'll do this for a year and a half. It's this Bible, by the way, that I have the journaling Bible.

It's a really good Bible to journal in and it's a genius idea she's doing for Rigg. And I'm going to give it to him. He knows I'm making it. And so I'm going to give it to him when he leaves. And so he'll have a year and a half worth of my journaling from whatever the Lord showed me. And then a specific prayer. But I mean, sometimes it's only two or three sentences. It's not super long, but I'm trying to journal every day that I'm reading the five days a week. And then I'll fill in with extra prayers or even truths. I'm like, I'll put down a truth where I'm like, you need to, this is something you need to know for the rest of your life, you know, or be mindful. But then, listen, afterwards, because obviously I have two boys, right? And so I'm also, well, yeah, I've been praying for you. I'm praying for Ryder too. But as soon as Rigg goes off, Ryder's going to be the same age that I started this for Rigg and I'll start it again and I'll do it for him. And so it's like, don't make it more complicated than it needs to be. Read the word for yourself. What does God speak to you that day? How can I take that and pray for my child? You know, that's what I'm doing. You could do this for your spouse, your siblings, whatever. Another question that the audience, the studio audience is asking is, tell us that every day you make an entry, you're asking a question. You're going to say, Rigg, I have a... No, I don't. I ask you my questions. Every morning I get questions asked to me, which are hard questions, by the way. I did have one this morning. Well, if you think about it, that's how we should learn to pray from our parents.

Like I can remember as, you just made me think about praying with the boys when they were little. I would pray for, thank you Lord for popcorn. Like whatever happened, whatever they got that day, that was good. I know a guy who prayed for a puppy. I did pray for a puppy and she's amazing. I know a guy who prayed with a guy who prayed for a puppy. Who now, who now sits on his mother's lap all day long, who didn't want him. Josie didn't want him. She's got him. But you know, like I was thinking this with, cause I always pray for, thank God for electricity, food, all that. When I pray with my kids, cause I remember I was homeless. So I remember it was like, but with Stella, you know, praying, thank you for chicken nuggets. Like whatever, I want them to see, whatever was good came from the Lord. So what you're doing, you're doing the same thing. And I think it's important that we, if you're going to pray in public, you know, this could be, I don't know if that's public or not, but if you're going to pray in public, it needs to be in front of your kids. Cause that is a part, I think that's a part of discipleship of training. Yeah. You're teaching them, praying over them, praying out loud. I mean, I don't, I'm not, you know, I'm not doing short prayers at night with my kids. I'm trying to pray everything I can think of. One, because I want that for them, but two, they're learning prayer from me. More caught than taught. Yeah. Well, and I would say another thing. So those that's a great way to challenge people. We're almost done, but I want to give you these three challenges. You got me thinking. Number one is how often do you pray with your kids or how often do they see you pray? Number one. Number two is how often do they see you reading your Bible? That one got me years ago,

because I would always go to a quiet place, don't bother me, I'm gonna take my Bible and get alone with the Lord in a dim lit, and that's fine and sanctimonious and great, but at the end of the day, Candy, who was more spiritual, she was sitting on the couch, they'd come down, and one day it hit me as I was going to my quiet place, my kids are gonna grow up when they were little and never see Dad ever read the Bible. Now, they knew I read the Bible, obviously, so I moved to a sunroom in the morning, and I'm not doing it like, hey, I'm reading the Bible, but I do it in a place where they start to watch us do what we're gonna expect them to do. You can't expect them to do what you're not emulating yourself, right? And then the final one is, are you praying big prayers with them? So not only praying in front of them, but asking them, what are you praying for, son, that if God doesn't step in, it doesn't work? Yesterday, I'll just tell you a cool moment, man, not to ruin the confidence of this guy, but Ryder has a friend that is his really close friend he plays games with and stuff, and this friend, we've been talking about, we've been praying for this guy, we've taken him to Saturdays with us just to hang with him. Doesn't go to our church, parents didn't go to church,

and I just kept teaching Ryder about slowly ministering and being an example. Bro, I get home yesterday from church, I always say, hey, what did you learn? And he was raving about Grant. Grant, talk about, our student guy, Grant did this, he loved it. Grant talked about building the Tower of Babel versus the Altar of Bethel, cool example. They were saying Bethel and Babel, Grant, shout out to Grant. So good, that's a strong word there, Grant. Grant Allen, baby, killing it, killing it, yeah. Babel, not Bethel. So after he finished that, he said, you're never gonna believe this, this is my son I love. I mean, when you kids do stuff like this, it's so exciting. He said, Dad, you're never gonna believe this. He said, my friend was at church today. His friend never goes to church. I was like, what? He's like, he came to church. He said, I thought I saw him, I didn't know. He said, but then when I came home, my friend texted me and said, hey, I came to church today. I've got some questions about the Lord and the Bible. Do you think your dad would make time to talk to me? And that this would be good for my mental health, he said. He said, it'd be good for my health.

I was like. I was like, writer. Of course. And I said, wow, so here's what I did with my son. Here's what I did with my son. I said, son, look, you always wanna do this for your kids too, teachable moments. You can't manufacture them, but you make a big deal about it. I said, writer, do you realize what God has done? God has answered your faithfulness, son, and you're praying for this. Brother, of course I will talk to him. So anyway, that's a perfect example of God even changing the prayer. Writer's affected now by the prayers we offered on his behalf. I just wanna close before next week. We'll get to the Lord's Prayer next week, which we're just about out of time. Well, I was gonna say too, one thing that you did I think is important, like helping kids learn to pray too, is letting them pray. Like you always had the boys like, hey, daddy's going to speak at this event, pray over me. Or writer, somebody, I can remember Rigg just bending down and praying for someone that was in a wheelchair one time. Or you know what I'm saying? So in helping them to see, like calling on them to say, hey, you pray over this person.

You pray for their healing. Every time I traveled early on, and a mentor, yeah, not to cut you off, but it reminded me, she'll tell you this. Every time, when I started traveling young, when my boys were real little, they were excited that I was traveling. I'd go speak out, my boys would be like, daddy, where you going? I'm going to Alabama, I'm going to Florida. Bring me home a toy. They'd say, bring me home a toy. I'd say, of course. You know, in the airport, I'm picking them up a Mickey or something. Well, there comes a point when they hit like seven, eight, nine, where they stopped saying, dad, bring me home a toy. And they said, dad, we want you home. We don't want a toy, we want you. And that bothered me, because I felt like I had this call, like candy. We both feel called to preach and teach outside of our church. Obviously we preach here most of the time, and I've scaled back a lot. But back then I was preaching, traveling a lot. And a mentor came to me and said, the problem is your boys look at this as something that's taking away from you in the home, and not something they partner with you in ministry.

And I was like, but they're seven and nine. He's like, bro, it don't matter. And he taught me this trick, watch this. He said, from now on, every time you have a speaking event outside the home, anytime I go to the prison and preach outside, or go to the home, whatever. He said, you tell them ahead of time, and you ask them to pray over you and with you before you go. So Candy would tell you, regularly Vivian would say, all right, daddy's leaving. He's going here. I get on my knees. They were little, you know. Ryder would be on my back and Rick. And we'd go around. Candy would say, all right, Rick, you know, Ryder, you first. Thank you for daddy. Okay, you know, Ryder was little. And then Rick would, he's like his mama, long. All right, Rick. All right, Rick. No, let me tell you though. Not to cut you off, but the best story about this is when we came for you to preach in view of a call here at Long Hollow, we're in the green room, our family. And there was a couple of staff maybe back in there

and we all got on our knees to pray. And Rick is the one who voiced the prayer that day. And I think it was, he said a couple of things. I think somebody videoed it. I think you were about to be there. No, it's even better. Robert can put this, if y'all are interested in this, put it in the chat. But you remember when they pulled us out on stage, there's a picture somewhere, this is crazy. They pulled us out on stage, and they were saying we just voted you in as pastor of the church, and they have a picture. Rig is seven years old. Vivian, he's on his knees by my feet, on his knees with his hands folded praying, and they snapped the picture. What a cool picture. But the video in the green room is him saying the prayer, and I think he says something about nobody pushing you off the stage or something. Yeah, be on my daddy's, he preaches, don't let anybody push him off stage. He was worried about security, big germ, before John. And the whole time Rig's praying, Ryder's just looking around. But it was really, even from a young, early age, they were learning to not be shy, but just to be able to pray, and just say whatever was on their heart to God.

So I think the more we can do that even now, as you're raising your kids, and even as they get older, keep doing that, keep calling on them and asking them to pray over different things, so that it becomes like something they're a little more comfortable and familiar with. Yeah, and I would say, one more time, just to clarify, prayer doesn't necessarily guarantee that God will answer your petition, but it always alters the person asking it. That's right. So think about prayer. It's not trying to get God to rubber stamp my life, trying to move the heart of God to do what I want, as much as it is God changing my heart to His will. And the promise Jesus makes, James makes too, you don't have, because you don't pray according to God's will, Jesus' will. So how do you know if your prayers make it to heaven? You pray one that was sent down from heaven, and you know it'll get back to heaven. That's good. That's powerful, great stuff. Next week, the Lord's Prayer, baby, don't miss it. We're making it to the Lord's Prayer. Thank you again for tuning in and listening. If you're enjoying this content, please subscribe, like, share, comment. Get this out. We're on the road to 10,000 here

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