1. Prayer Request
Why
do we take prayer requests if God already knows what we need?
2. Luke 18:1-3; One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. 2 “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. 3 A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’
Widows and orphans were some of the helpless people of
the Bible. Both the Old Testament
prophets and the New Testament apostles preached the need to take care of these
people.
Examples:
Exodus 22:22-24; “You must not exploit a widow or an orphan. 23 If you exploit them in any way and they cry out to me, then I will certainly hear their cry. 24 My anger will blaze against you, and I will kill you with the sword. Then your wives will be widows and your children fatherless.
James 1:27; Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
3. Luke 18:4-5; The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, 5 but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’”
Winston Churchill said,
“Never, Never, Never, Never Give Up.”
4. Luke 18:6-8; Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. 7 Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?”
To persist in prayer and to not give up doesn’t mean
endlessly long prayers with big fancy words, but it does mean keeping our
requests before God. And while God will
answer our prayers quickly, quickly to God and to us are two different things.
God will always answer our prayers. Here
are just a few possible answers God may give us.
Yes.
No.
Not at this time.
I have other plans for
this situation.
Something better is
coming.
It is done, but not
like you think.
I am working in you to
make you grow.
Maybe.
Well See.
I can’t be bothered.
I’m too busy.
That’s stupid.
Persistent prayer has
less to do with getting an answer from God, but more to do with the development
of our character in faith. Persistent
prayer is an act of faith. We pray because
in God we have faith that God is listening and he will answer.
References: Archaeological Study Bible form Zondervan, Life
Application Study Bible NLT from Tyndale House,
