Tonight, we are going to be focusing, the Spirit was just speaking to my heart. Lately, Pastor Frank has been expounding upon the Word of God through prayer. And it's so vital. It's one of the greatest graces God has given us. There's two graces that the Lord has given us. It's the scriptures. and prayer. And those two graces that he's given to us is just so powerful. As you grow, if you've just come into a relationship with the Lord, I encourage you to carve out some time in prayer. Set aside that time because that is where you will grow in your relationship with the Lord. Because it's a dependence on God, really. That's what, like, when you're praying and you're crying out to the Lord in prayer, there's a dependence, right? It's like, you know, you're coming to Him with all of your needs, all your desires, all your wants, whatever it may be, right? But you come to Him and you go to Him and you cry out to Him. So it's going to just cultivate that relationship in Christ, where you're just going to be in tune with his will. Amen? So when Pastor Frank shared the other day in the scripture verse, he said, now Jesus was praying in a certain place. And when he finished, one of the disciples, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, Teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. And he said to them, when you pray, and then he goes forth with the Our Father. So right now, let's have a word of prayer before we begin. Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you for your word and for your truth, and for the, Lord, the awesome privilege of coming into your presence, Lord, and speaking with you. is just so awesome and great, and you are so gracious and kind to hear our prayers, Lord, and Lord, to answer us. Father, we thank you for this night tonight. We pray that your word would come forth with power this night, that the Holy Spirit would minister to each and every single one of us, Lord, that, Lord, if anybody comes in this house with a hard heart, that you would soften that heart. Father, that you would draw them ever nearer to yourself, Lord. Father God, if anybody's come into this place with a lack of faith, that you would increase their faith, Lord. If anybody has come in here suffering, Lord, that you would meet them in their suffering. If anybody here is in need of a physical touch from you, Lord, that you would pour out your spirit and bring healing into their body. because we know that you are our creator, you are our Lord and God and King, and we trust in you and in you alone. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So this prayer, this heart of, Lord, teach me to pray, it begs of humility, correct? Like, Lord, show me how to pray because I don't know how. I need to learn from you, Lord, on how to pray. And what I did was able to find, there's a list of instructions from the scriptures that should guide our prayer life. And there's seven instructions that I found. But this is not a full list, of course, but these are seven different topics that I found that we could be able to grow in our prayer life. Amen? So, number one, two, another part of this is in 1 John 5, 14 and 15, it says in the word of God, this is the confidence that we have in approaching God. That if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked of him. This is the confidence. We have absolute, if you're born again, filled with this spirit, you have a confidence in approaching God. No matter where you are, no matter where you're at, you have confidence, it tells us. And it says that if we ask anything according to whose will, that is the key. For my sister Faith, a quote, from one of her mentors, right? The hard work of prayer is getting yourself into a state of mind in which you prefer the will of God over your own. That is so monumental in your prayer life. When your will start to lessen and you start to understand what God's will is. Because it doesn't always line up the way we want it, correct? We go through life, we go through challenges in life, we don't understand why things happen, we don't understand when tragedies happen, we don't understand. And we say, Lord, why are the heavens become brass, oh God? Amen? Why are they brass? It seems like when I'm saying, it bounces right back to me. I'm getting no answer. But do you know that God always answers your prayer? Always. He's always listening. I have a God who listens all the time. He don't stop. It could be at three o'clock in the morning while I'm at work, right? It could be just when I'm waking up, whatever. God is there listening. And he delights. He delights in you coming to him and depending upon him in prayer. He delights in it. He rejoices in it. If you approach that and cultivate that in your prayer life, because prayer is what? What did Tozer say? The hard work of prayer. It's not for the fainthearted. I'll tell you what, when the pandemic hit, we started a Zoom prayer meeting. At the beginning of the pandemic, we had like 20, 25 people would join us in prayer. By the end, we were down to eight to seven people. It's hard work. It's commitment. It's, you know what, I'm gonna, I'm setting my time and I'm going to pray no matter what. No matter what. I remember for a time here in this church where Wednesday night service disappeared and I came back and I saw that the Wednesday night service disappeared. For two years I cried out to the Lord in this church to raise up this Wednesday night service again. Hallelujah. And look what happened. There was a few saints, Pastor Lou, Lenny, Rita, Carol Gorgon, there was a few saints that gathered together Felt like a couple of years, man, right? We prayed and prayed. Then all of a sudden, bam. And then this ministry, boom. Kids being ministered to. Us, we're getting ministered to. And we're like, praise you, Lord. I didn't say nothing to Pastor Frank. I didn't say a peep. I cried out to God. He worked in his heart to restart and rekindle the Wednesday night midweek service, amen. I remember that. It's hard work prayer. Sometimes you're crying out to the Lord and it may not come for years or you may never see it until you get into the kingdom. Hallelujah. Sometimes we don't understand, but you know what? He knows all things. He knows beginning from the end. He has you in the palm of His hands, and He listens to your every prayer. So, we're gonna take a look at seven things. Number one, pray for the things for which God's word commands us to pray. Number two, follow the godly characters in scripture. Pray with the right motivation. Number four, pray with a spirit of forgiveness towards others. Pray with thanksgiving, number five. Number six, pray with persistence. And number seven, rely on the spirit of God in prayer. And oh, how sweet in God's ear is the prayer of his people. Spurgeon wrote that, and I just had to add that in there. So number one, number one. Pray for which the things the Bible commands us to. Matthew chapter 5, verse 44. But I say to you, this is Jesus speaking, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. So what is the Lord telling us? This is a command. This is not a suggestion, guys. from our Lord, the people that you don't like too much. He's saying, pray for your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Love your enemies. Can you do that apart from the Holy Spirit? Impossibility. It's an impossibility. Without the Spirit of God living inside you, right now, I'm speaking Chinese to you. You won't understand what I'm communicating. But if you're filled with the Spirit of God here tonight, you know those situations at work where you have people who are, you know, that Satan's using to come against you, to attack you, to tell lies about you, right? There's things that happen like that all the time. Or does that only happen at my workplace? There's people that do it all the time. You know? But instead of engaging and pay back evil with evil, Right? Instead of getting into a fight or, you know, defending ourselves. What should we do? Pray for them. We need to pray for our enemies. We need to engage in prayer. We need to pray for the persecuted church. Our brothers and sisters in Christ are being persecuted like never before. all across the world. It says in Hebrews 13, three, remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them. When you're engaging in prayer, do you sense that you're locked in prison with that brother and sister in Christ? Because that's what the scripture is telling us. It says, remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them. Have mercy on me, oh God. Have mercy. And those who are mistreated since you also are in the body. All members of the body of Christ. Now, I just read in Nigeria at a school 125 Christian children were kidnapped. 125 lives snatched from that school that they had family members because they were followers of Christ. They don't know where they are. This is the 10th one in Nigeria since December. Should we be carrying them in our heart? Should we be walking with them in our heart? Like, Lord, have mercy on them. Lord, give them a way out, Lord. Lord, make a way for them to get out of that situation, Lord. Make a way, do something miraculous. So we need to pray for the persecuted church. We need to cry out to God for these nations. This is the top 10 list of extreme persecution. Top 10, North Korea. Number two, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan. We started praying this Eritrea. I never heard of Eritrea before. Until during the Zoom prayer meeting, I just found out I'd never heard of this place. But they're number six on the list. Extreme persecution. Yemen, Iran, Nigeria, and India. These are areas where Satan is just running rampant. There's a demonic presence over these nations that is powerful. And you know Satan hates God's children, and he will do anything, anything, to hurt the body of Christ. So start to pray for these nations. There's VOM, anybody familiar with Voice of the Martyrs? VOM is a way also to support those who are being persecuted through VOM. So if the Lord touches your heart tonight to do something further, You can engage in that and helping our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted. Why all this persecution? Why? I mean, Christians? The Lord tells us to love our enemies. The Lord tells us to show grace and mercy, right? Why are we so bad, right? John 15, it says in the word of God, if the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. See, this is the reason why the world hates Christians. This is why we see all of this persecution. because they hate Jesus and everything he stands for. So what is the enemy is going to do? He's going to go for the thing that he loves best. Those are his disciples. So it's something that is something that we need to be prepared for because it is coming our way. Be prepared. Like Lenny just said it before. It was a slight warning. We need to be prepared for the oncoming of what's coming. We don't know how deep the persecution is going to be, but it's coming. We've already seen it in our nation. We've seen it in many ways. You know, we've seen bakers get sued, right? Because they wouldn't prepare a cake for a homosexual couple, right? And we've seen it where the guy was totally wiped out financially because of it. Just little taste of persecution, right? Maybe you engage in your family, a family member mocks your faith, right? Or makes fun of you. That happens. So that's part of the persecution, right? When somebody mocks you or makes fun of you or, you know, makes sly comments at work, whatever it may be, that's part of the persecution. But it's not always, remember, we need to receive it in a way like it brings joy to our heart. Because you know what? They're persecuting me because of my union with Christ. And what did Christ Jesus tell us? He says, take it all joy when people mock you, right? He said, take all joy when people abuse you and just take advantage of you. You know, it happens. You know, it happens in the body of Christ where, you know, people come in, they take advantage, and then they move on. That's, but that's the grace of God, isn't it? It's just like the Good Shepherd mission, you know? There's no rules, you know, anybody in need, come in the door. There's no rule to it. You need a roof over your head? You need a meal? You need a shower? Come on in. A piece of bread? Come on in. You know, that's the grace of God. That's the way we always need to be, and the always, the hate's always gonna come. You need to be prepared for that hate, you know? I was there the other day, and I was preaching the gospel, and one of the guys got mad and went and got the pastor, and Pastor Donnie came down, I said, what's the problem? He's preaching the gospel. I remember one time I was preaching there that all men are sinful and wicked. And one of the guys got up in the back. He says, I'm not wicked. I'm not sinful. And Tony was there. And he says, yeah, I struggle with the same thing, too. You know, the acknowledgement that we are sinful and separated so convicted him, he stood up and cried out, no, I'm not sinful, I'm not wicked. I said, well, that's not what the scriptures say. That's not what the scriptures teach. It says all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It says that the wages of sin is death. But thanks be to God, to his son Jesus Christ, we could have eternal life. Amen? Hallelujah. So let's go to the next must we should pray for. Another must, in Luke 10.2, it says, and he said to them, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. So what's another prayer request for us that's mandated by scripture? What a beautiful picture here. We need to pray that God raise up workers to go out and preach the gospel. That's what we, we need to be engaged in that. That's got to be like That's part of my prayer list, you know? Lord, work in the heart of your people. Start to speak into the hearts of the men and women. And Lord, draw them into a place, Lord, where they have to speak and proclaim the good news of your son, Jesus Christ. Oh God, work in them, Lord. You know I can't do it. Only you can draw them into a place where they'll go. So we need to pray for them. We also need to pray for our missionaries that we support. Pray for those Nazarene missionaries that we support and give to. And they're in places that are really tough areas, really rough areas to go and to live in. Think of it, you're leaving your home, you're called by God, you're going to a different country, different language, different culture, right? Going there and starting a ministry. It has to be all God, because if it's not, guess what's the average of the missionaries out there? Guess, two and a half years. Two and a half years, they're out there Guess what? They weren't called by God. That's what I think, personally. You know, there was something else motivating them to go. But we need to cry out to the Lord for the Holy Spirit to work in the hearts of all of us. It's the whole gospel for the whole church to go and proclaim to the whole world. It's all of our jobs. It's not just the pastor's job. It's everyone's job. The Great Commission, go therefore, make disciples of all nations. Go, proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. He's speaking to everybody. I love it when people come, oh yeah, that's not my ministry. What? Wait a second. God's called all of us to the same calling in that. Read the word. It will show you. It will expound it to you clearly. Another thing we need to pray for, lost souls to turn to God, people who are lost, people who are blinded, people who can't see the truth regarding Jesus Christ. We need to cry out to God like never before. Because I don't believe that the Lord is sitting down any longer at the right hand of the Father. I don't believe that. That's me personally. This is my reading into the scripture. I don't believe he's sitting any longer. I believe he is pacing, waiting to come for his bride. There's an anticipation right now in the Lord's heart. He's not sitting any longer. You know, we don't have to look no more for the sign of the times. You know what I'm doing? I'm listening for the sound of the trumpet. Hallelujah. Come and take me home, Lord. Let's go. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to swim in that river of life. You know, Carmencita knows I love to swim in the ocean. Imagine doing that in the river of life. But honey, I know you don't swim, but you're going to know how to swim. It's going to be just normal. You're going to be like a fish in there. Isn't that beautiful? Sometimes things come in my mind. Praise the Lord. But we have to pray for lost souls. Amen? Another thing we need to pray for It says in Matthew 26, 41, watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. This is the Lord just warning us. Man. I don't want to fall into temptation. Think of anything right now that you could be tempted by and ask the Lord, Lord, I don't want to be tempted by it. Because I know that leads to death. Sin leads to death. Okay? That's what sin does. Sin leads to spiritual death. There's people who know the Lord, right? There's folks that have known the Lord and... And then they started to fall away from the Lord and they fell away. They backslid. And the sin led to death. I had a good brother in the Lord from the Good Shepherd. He had a wife, two children, and he had an addiction of heroin. But he came to the mission. He got saved, got born again. He knew the Lord. I used to go pick him up. We used to come here and worship the Lord together. And 12 months later, he OD'd on heroin. Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. You know, you gotta be so careful of what, you guys, Lord, I don't wanna sin, because I know you hate that, and I don't wanna do that. Lord, forgive me for my pride. Lord, have mercy on me. Is there not a man in this place that struggles with pride? All of us do. You're a liar if you say you don't struggle with pride. We all do. It's the root of all sin. Pride is the root of all sin. We all struggle with it. Selfishness, self-centeredness, egos, we all struggle with those things. I don't want to do that. I don't want to have that mentality. I don't want to have that behavior, Lord. You have given me your Holy Spirit. I want to walk in your spirit. I want to walk with you, Jesus. The temptation came, and Jesus answered the door. Amen? So we need to pray for that. We need to pray for our pastors, that a door be opened for them. Colossians 4, 3, 4. At the same time, pray also for us, this is Paul speaking, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak. Colossians 4, 3, 4. So we need to pray that God, what? Open a door, right? Make a way, Lord, that we would be able to bring the word. I've been crying out to the Lord that he begin to make a way in our community, locally, like in a two block radius from here, right? And Lord, make a way Open a door. Make a way, Lord. Not by the arm of the flesh, by the moving of your Holy Spirit, Lord. Not by just doing something for doing it, but doing it in the Spirit. And you see people coming to know Christ. And you'll see before you know it, we'll be in Piraeus in a bigger building. You know? Because that's what God does. That's what he'll do, right? Or we'll go to free services, right? Because what do we want? What does the church want most? for people to get saved. We want souls to get saved. We want people to come into eternity with us. We don't want anybody to go to hell. We don't want anybody, anybody. I used to joke about hell all the time after reading the word and getting to know the word and knowing what hell is and what you're gonna experience when you go there. I don't joke about it anymore. It's not funny. Hell is not a funny place. Hell is a place of torment. It's a place where somebody is gonna be experienced the wrath of God for eternity. The wrath of God, it's not, you know, people are, you know, like, what do we, like our, man, hell's a real place. But you know what we need to fear is the wrath of God for rejecting Christ and the only means of salvation. So we need to get the word out in a two block radius from this place. Imagine if the whole church had that one heart and one mind to go do that. Imagine if we were united in that way. I pray that our agendas would move to the side and that there would be one clear focus as a church family. that souls would get saved. I saw that prayer meetings coming up, right? From six to 12 on a Friday night. Are you called to pray? Are you called to come out and cry out for souls that are lost in this area? And that God would raise up workers from this field, from this field. Not the field on the corner, but this field. Lord, raise them up, Lord, that we would go as a unit to go and proclaim the good news of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That God may open to us a door for the word. All we need to do is knock on that door. Hey, there's people who are preaching a false gospel. and they're doing it all the time. The Mormons are knocking on doors left and right, right? Jehovah Witnesses, right? And we have the truth of the gospel. They're peddling a false gospel. Man, what a vision, right? I have a vision. Let's do it together. Amen? Let's start to stir that vision up. Get it rockin'. This is a tough one now. We also gotta pray. I exhort you, therefore, that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all therein authority that we may lead quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. So we need to pray for who? President Biden, Vice President Harris, all the senators, congressmen, our local government, We need to cry out for them. A lot of them don't know the Lord. I was thinking about this when this was written, Nero was in power in Rome. And he was using Christians. He was dipping them in tar and lighting the streets of Rome with Christians. Think of that. And this scripture verse was written during that time. Isn't that amazing? Think of that. And giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Think of that, being in that position, and being a part of a local church and what Nero was doing. And they were called to pray for Nero. And we ought to pray for President Biden. We ought to pray for the vice president. We need to pray for them and intercede for them. So that we could what? Lead a peaceable life. You know, the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. You know, sometimes I know we can get angry with some of the political stuff that was going on, right? There was a lot of emotions going on recently, right, in our country. But that anger and that, like, it's just never gonna produce the righteousness of God, it's not. The wrath of man will not produce that. No matter who's in power, God is still God. And we need to remember, remind ourselves, that we belong to him and to be a part of his kingdom, our kingdom. This is not our world. We're just passing by, folks. Saints, this is not our home. God has prepared a place for me in heaven with his own two hands. I'll be it. It may be just a walk-in closet, but I'll take that. They said a mansion. Really, it means apartments. So it's not like people think in their minds like they have a 27-room house in heaven. It's not that. It's apartments, guys. Remember that. So you won't get disappointed when you get there. OK? Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praise, James 5.13. You come to the Lord in prayer, relief from affliction, When you go into tough times, what do you do? You cry out to the Lord. When you go into challenges in life, you cry out to the Lord. When you go into physical pain and physical challenges, cry out to the Lord. You know, there's a wonderful picture of this same kind of, same kind of, it's a contrast here in this word. As you see here, the first part, is anyone among you suffering, let him pray. Is any cheerful, let him sing praise. Isn't that like a lot of times life is? There's both a time that you're going through suffering and at the same time, there could be something that's going on that you're giving praise. I remember distinctly at my mom's deathbed, she was in a coma and they told us that she, there was nothing that they could do for her. So we requested that they take her off the respirator. Let me tell you. She was surrounded by 20 people and a guy with a guitar. And we started singing hymns and songs unto the Lord. And there was such sorrow at that moment and suffering at that moment. Like a groan came out of me that I never, it's something like a groan that I never felt or sensed and never had since. It just came from my inner gut, you know? Like when they took her off that respirator and she passed and went home to be with the Lord. There was a great deal of suffering at that moment. But at the same time, there was praise going on in the room. There was worship. We were singing, great is thy faithfulness. God is our father. in that room with 20 people. And let me tell you, there was this just unbelievable weeping at the same time, and there was this absolute praise and joy that she was in the presence of Almighty God. You know? Sometimes life's like that, right? There's joy, there's suffering, and at the same time, there's praise going on. But we should pray for anyone who's suffering in the body of Christ, anybody who's going through challenges in the body of Christ. It's a wonderful thing. One of our sisters in the Lord, her daughter was suffering from seizures. It's a beautiful. And she was just sharing her heart. And we started praying. We started crying out to the Lord. And just a couple of weeks ago, she approached Pastor Frank and I, and she said that God heard her prayers and her daughter doesn't have those seizures anymore. And I was just rejoicing with her. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord, for hearing our prayers. Thank you, Lord, for working in that little girl's life and bringing healing into her life. Because God doesn't always heal. He doesn't. That's the truth. And I don't understand that it's a mystery to me why God heals one person and doesn't heal another. And I can't go there because that's something I just can't wrap my mind around. I can't really explain it. You know, does anybody know when people started to pray where we first see in the scriptures where prayer is going on? Anybody know when? It's interesting. It's the same kind of contrast. In Genesis chapter 4 verse 25 to 26 it says, and Adam knew his wife again and she bore a son and called his name Seth. For she said, God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel. For Cain killed him. So Seth, also a son, was born. And he called his name Enosh. At that time, people began to call upon the name of the Lord. Look at that. It's so interesting because you look what happened first. Cain kills Abel. There's a murder. First time in the history of humanity there's a murder. And then at the next, and Adam knew his wife again and she bore his son. So there was a murder there and also there was what? A birth there. So there's suffering again and joy at the same time. And then what did people started to do? Pray! Pray! Amazing what the word, like, it just shows us. Amen? It's so good. You know what? God gave me a word for all of us. Anybody in here suffering? Anybody going through a tough time? Psalm 30, verse 5, weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. So when you're going through a tough time, and you're suffering, and you're going through it, know, but joy will come in the morning. Amen? Let's go to one more. I'm only, what time do we usually, How long? Five minutes? This is the first thing I'm going through. As you can see, the Holy Spirit, I thought I'd be able to get through all seven. God only knows, man. So why don't we go through this last one, but can save this other message for another time. Let's go to James 5 verse 16. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. So what do we need to be praying for? We need to be praying for each other and pray for our healing. Pray that that we would be healed. And look how it joins sin. It says, therefore, confess your sins to each other. You know, sin really does an enormous amount of work on us physically. You know, if you're engaged in any type of practicing any type of sinful behavior, I'll tell you what, you may think, oh, I'm not hurting nobody. Let me tell you, sin leads to death in so many different ways. Anxieties, fears, you know, whatever it may be, your sin will find you out too. We gotta be praying for each other, helping each other, not kicking each other when we're down. If you see a brother who's struggling in sin, we need to help him up. We need to show a hand of grace to them, not condemn them for them falling down and sinning. Sometimes in the body of Christ, what happens is, is that somebody who is prideful, somebody would just speak into that person's life and so discourage them in their walk with the Lord. We need to pray for each other and know that that could be me, what that person is going through. That could be me. It's only by the grace of God. You know, like the Good Shepherd mission, that was me. Somebody who was addicted to alcohol, addicted to drugs. For many years, I spent in addiction. from the time I was probably 14 years old up until I was 29 years old. And then I got born again, hallelujah. And the Lord filled me with his spirit and made me a new person, a new man. And now I don't use drugs or alcohol anymore, amen? And that gives who the glory? God the glory. Because if it was up to me, I'd still be doing the same thing what I was doing in my natural state. In my natural man, that's the way I was built. That's what I wanted to do. But God had other plans. He had a whole nother mission for my life. Do you know Christ? For sure, for sure. Have you been born again with his spirit? Or are you just coming in here every day experiencing religion? Do you know him truly? Because if you don't know him, you can come to know him tonight. You could be born again this evening. There's something you need to do though first. You need to acknowledge that you're sinful and that you're separated from God. Your sin has separated you from God. You have to acknowledge that. You need to admit to that. You need to come to grips with that. Number two, the wages of sin is death. So there is a reckoning for your sinful life. There's going to be a reckoning. There's going to be a time of judgment for you. You need to understand that. Number three, you need to understand God demonstrated his love for you. While you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you. See, Jesus loved you so much in spite of your sin that he went and died on that cross for your sins. Now, what do you need to do? What is your work? Believe. That is all you need to do, is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. What does that look like, being born again? The Lord gave us a great picture of that with the tax collector and the Pharisee in the temple. And the tax collector was saying, I'm so good, I give all my money, I do this, I do this, I do this. but the tax collector could not lift his head up to heaven, was beating his chest and saying, oh Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. And if that's the picture of your heart right now, just receive him aggressively right now to say, Lord Jesus, I need you. I know and I acknowledge that I'm sinful and separated from you, Lord. And I place my faith and trust in you, Lord. And I ask you to fill me with your Holy Spirit. Lord, lead and guide my life. Help me, Lord. Help me, Lord, grow closer to you through prayer and through your word. And I trust this in Jesus' name, amen.