Persistence in Prayer

Even though God will answer our prayers according to His sovereign plan for our lives, Jesus taught that we are to be persistent in our prayers. In Luke’s account of the Gospel, right after Jesus instructed His disciples using the Lord’s Prayer as an example, He then continued His teaching:

 

Then He said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to him at midnight and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine

 

has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and from inside he answers and says, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs. (Luke 11:5-8)

 

Jesus used this parable to teach His disciples another lesson about prayer, and that is the need to persist in our requests to God until we get an answer from Him. In the following verses Jesus said: “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened.” (Luke 11:9-10).

 

It is interesting to note that in the original Greek text, the words translated as “ask”, “seek”, and “find” all have a continuing action to them.

A more complete translation to the English language would be “ask and keep on asking”, “seek and keep on seeking”, and “knock and keep on knocking”.

 

Jesus concluded His teaching by saying: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” (Luke 11:13).

The Holy Spirit is referred to as the Comforter or Counselor in several

passages of John’s Gospel (John 14:16, 14:26, 15:26, 16:7). In Matthew’s account of this same teaching, we read: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:11).

 

From these passages we learn that when we persevere in prayer to God our Father, we are promised the Holy Spirit, who is our Comforter and Counselor. And we are also promised “what is good” for us and planned for us according to God’s sovereign purpose for each of our lives.

 

The need for persistence in prayer is also illustrated in the Parable of the Persistent Widow in Luke 18. Jesus told this parable to teach His disciples that they should always pray and not give up hope of receiving an answer from God.

 

Jesus began the parable saying that there was an unrighteous judge who did not fear God, and who had no regard for men. There was a widow who kept coming to this judge, asking for justice against an adversary of hers. The judge at first kept putting her off, but she kept returning to him, persisting with her request. Finally the unrighteous judge said to himself that he would grant this widow the justice she sought, so she would not keep troubling him with her continual returning and pleas.

 

Jesus ended the parable with a lesson for His disciples about persistence in prayer when He said: “…Hear what the unrighteous judge said; now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:6-8).

 

So again in the Parable of the Persistent Widow, as in the Parable of the Friend Who Comes at Midnight, Jesus taught about the necessity of persevering in prayer as we bring our requests to God, and He assured us that we will receive God’s answer to our prayers. Jesus’ final words in the passage are: “However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). This question that Jesus put forward indicates that at times, some of God’s answers to our prayers may challenge our faith.

 

When the answer to our prayer is “no”, our faith may indeed be challenged. We may wonder why our God, who can do all things, and who said that He loves His children, will not grant us our request to be freed from some burden that we have brought to Him in prayer.

 

If God’s answer to our prayer is “no”, then He calls upon us to submit to His answer as part of His will and plan for our life, at least for the present time (again consider Matthew 26:36-46). If our burden is not lifted, and we find that we must continue to suffer with it for a while longer, then we can take comfort in seeing and understanding the troubles which God has allowed to touch our lives in the light of the teachings that we have seen from the Scriptures before.

 

These teachings reveal to us that a share in the sufferings of Christ will be experienced in the life of every believer. Just as Jesus bore fruit through the sufferings that the Father had ordained for His life, we must follow Him in that we will bear fruit through sharing in His sufferings, in

 

some measure, as God has ordained for each of us. And the fruit born through these sufferings will achieve for us a share in Christ’s eternal glory (John 12:24-26, Mark 10:36-39, Romans 8:17).

 

Once again let us consider the encouragement that Paul gave to us for the troubles of our present lives. In 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 he taught that our troubles are only for a short time when considered in the context of eternity, and they are achieving for us an eternal measure of glory that will far exceed the weight and burden of the troubles themselves. Even though we must

endure these things for a time as part of God’s plan for our lives, we can take comfort in knowing that we have been promised the all-sufficient grace and strength of Christ for our every weakness and need, as Paul learned through his own experience (2 Corinthians 12:1-10, Philippians 4:11-13).