Welcome to the InTouch podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, October 16th.

Do you ever feel like your prayers have become routine?

Today you'll discover how to get beyond simply reciting words, learning to talk with God and experiencing the joy of his friendship.

Well, there's a prayer lots of folks have repeated and repeated and repeated. In fact,

millions of people have prayed this prayer or repeated it. Didn't know what it meant. God never

heard it the first time. And you and I call it the Lord's prayer. But what in the world does it mean?

And you see, if you're just repeating a prayer and you don't know what it means it's meaningless and

God's not going to answer it well that has three parts to it and I want you to look here for a moment

has three parts to it the first part is in verse nine when he says our father which art in heaven

that's sort of the doxology or rather the the invocation. And then comes the petition, beginning

with Hallad be thy name. And then comes the doxology at the very end when he says, for thine is the

kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. A very short prayer. But I want you to ask yourself

this question. I want to explain it. Then I want you to ask yourself this question. Can I really pray that prayer? Now here's what I want you to see. And I want you to understand

this because I don't want to be critical to say to someone, you can't pray this prayer. I just want to tell you

the truth. And I want you to understand why you can't pray this prayer until first of all, you have

received Jesus Christ as your Savior and have been willing

to say that you have accepted Christ as your Savior. Therefore, now the Father becomes your Father.

Let me show you why. First of all, the first petition in this prayer, and there are six of them,

three of them have to do with God. He says, Our Father, we'd to pray, who art in heaven, hallow would be thy name.

And listen to this, thy kingdom come.

Again, my friend, if you've never received Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you can't

pray this prayer.

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