| Christ taught the necessity of a real, personal, sincere, practice of our salvation. He had hard words for those who only had an outward profession without showing their faith in daily living. Firstly he spoke against giving so everyone will know about it. That type of giving is done to receive the praise of men. True giving is an act of worship and is to be done as unto God. Our Father sees what happens and will always reward us in his own time and way. Then Jesus spoke about prayer. He had hard words for those who prayed loudly on street corners so that others would hear what they were saying. That sounds strange to us, but perhaps we need to be more careful about our own public prayers. It is not wrong to pray in public but we need to remember we are praying to God and not to those around us. Christ said the best place for prayer is alone with God in a secret spot. That does not mean we should never pray with other Christians, but there must be regular prayer times with God alone. Further, our Lord warned against 'meaningless repetition'. The length of our prayers is not as important as our sincerity, and how definite we are. Keeping a prayer list can be a great help. The Lord's prayer has only 66 words, yet it contains a number of personal, definite petitions. We are reminded in verse 8 that our Father already knows what we need. Why then must we pray? God gives us many gifts, without asking-life, air, rain and sunshine. But there are some things God won't give until we ask him. Forgiveness is the first of these, but there are other things too that God is waiting for us to ask him for. Remember he is our Father and loves to give good gifts to his children. A PRAYER FOR US ALL: Lord teach us to pray. | 
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