There was a Hottentot in Africa who went to work for a Dutch family. The Dutchman was a Christian, and so were his wife and their children. Every morning after breakfast they would get together and read the Word of God and pray and sing.
This was marvelous to the native and he wanted to be like them, but he didn't know how to pray. One day he stood outside of their door and said to himself, "I'm going to listen, and learn the secret."
The reading that morning was in Luke 18: "Two men went up into the temple to pray," and the native said, "Oh, now I can learn to pray!"
"Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men."
The Hottentot said, "Oh, that's not me. I'm like other men, or maybe even worse."
The reading went on: "I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all I possess."
Again the native was discouraged. He said to himself: "I don't give anything to anybody. That prayer is not for me either."
"But the publican," they read, "standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner."
And the Hottentot said to himself, "That's me! That's my prayer! He said he stood afar off. I do too."
And do you know, he just stood right by that door and shouted, "I am like that man! God be merciful to me a sinner!"
The Christian family heard that shout; God heard him; the Lord Jesus Christ heard him; the angels heard him, and there was joy in heaven.
Have you prayed the publican's prayer? Have you had the joy of knowing yourself justified?