IDEA: Our prayers reveal the fundamental values of our lives.

TEXT: "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s" (Exodus 20:17).

"You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s" (Deuteronomy 5:21).

PURPOSE: To help listeners see how their prayers reflect what they really want in life.

Jesus said, "You cannot serve God and money" (Luke 16:13).

What are the implications of that statement?

I. Our most sincere prayers reveal what our lives are centered in.

They should be centered in God and thus they will reflect God’s interests.

The Lord’s Prayer tells us to pray first about God’s honor and God’s kingdom, and then about our needs.

II. Our prayers can be centered on money or on things money can buy.

We may come to God, not because we love Him best, but because we love our possessions best. So instead of using our possessions to serve God, our prayers reflect that we want God to give us possessions. We pray to God merely to be the night watchman over our possessions.

We ask God to save our country without asking whether it’s a country God would want to save.

We often pray for God’s assistance to maintain our "continually increasing consumption." We do not ask simply for daily bread. We ask for cake and ice cream and the refrigerator to put it in and the house for the refrigerator.

III. It’s not wrong to ask for daily bread, but if we ask it for ourselves, we must ask it also for others: "Give us our daily bread."