Luke 18:1-8 – And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’ ” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
THEME OF THE DAY: HOW TO NOT LOSE THE HEART FOR PRAYER. Today’s scripture is about prayer; persevering prayer or the type of prayer that takes us to the heart of God. This scripture also provides an insight on how our Lord views faith. Take a moment and read the last sentence. Jesus recognizes persevering prayer as one of the marks of possessing true faith. We may rightly conclude that if we are a praying people, a persevering prayer people, it gives evidence of the genuineness of our faith in the Lord Jesus. Yet, the other aspect would also be true. If prayer is foreign to us, rarely sought out of desire for relationship with God, only offered at meals or when in a tough spot in life, we should do a thorough spiritual examination of ourselves to find out what is wrong. A prayer-less Christian is either not a Christian or one in a severely backslidden condition. Prayer is the life of the Christian. It is the breath of the spiritually born person. However, the type of prayer in today’s scripture is difficult. Jesus tells us upfront of the difficulty with the mention of losing a heart toward prayer.
Why is persevering prayer so difficult? Why do we often lose heart and thus lose this type of praying? A couple of reasons. First, the devil. He hates a praying Christian. It does much damage to his work and kingdom. He will do all he can to weaken our resolve to pray. Another reason for the difficulty in praying is our flesh. We grow weary. We get fatigued. We exhaust ourselves in the things of the world leaving no time for this type of praying. And this battle must be fought. Hard. The flesh will never cooperate when it comes to praying. It must be captured and put to death.
Now, how do we keep from losing heart toward persevering prayer? Here are two things to keep before us that will greatly help us toward the goal of praying as Jesus describes. First, remember what it cost us to pray – the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Our Lord had to die, not only to save us, but to open the door for intimate communication with God and that through prayer. When praying gets hard, and it will; when the flesh screams “rest, rest”, and it will; immediately remember the cross and what Jesus did to enable us to pray.
The second thing to do when tempted to neglect prayer or substitute something else for it is remember what prayer is; and invitation by our Creator-Redeemer to spend time with Him. In and through prayer, we get an audience with the God who created all things and the King of Kings who rules over all things. If we let that sink in and guide our fight against the foes of prayer, we will win a lot of battles when it comes to persevering prayer. God invites us to His throne room to know, love, and enjoy Him through prayer. Such awareness will cause us to deepen and safeguard sacred times for persevering prayer. May the Lord who urges us not to lose heart toward prayer also show us the great privilege of prayer so we won’t lose heart.
PRAYER: “Father, I praise You for the gift of prayer.”
QUOTE: “If we lose the heart for prayer, we weaken our heart for God.”