The Gospel of Luke: Jesus is for everyone – Persisting in prayer
Luke 11:1-13
How easy do you find it to pray? Do we give the impression that we pray more than we do? How often do we say we will pray and then forget to do so? How many of us struggle to pray? Do we encourage each other in prayer.
Prayer is not a magic formula. Prayer is talking to God and talking to Jesus, our Lord and Saviour. Prayer is not a ritual, it should flow from a relationship with God. Prayer is asking the Holy Spirit to empower our lives. Prayer requires faith, practice, patience, persistence, oneness of heart and spirit.
- Jesus and John the Baptist modelled prayer – there was something different about the way John and Jesus prayed. They saw that Jesus prayed out of relationship with the Father. They wanted to pray like Jesus. If you want your prayer life to grow then spend time with prayer warriors.
- Jesus taught them to pray – Jesus’ prayer was radically different because it was based on an intimate relationship with the Father. We are in relationship with God and we can call Him Father. We can speak directly to the Father and He hears and listens to each one of us. Our Father is the eternal, sovereign Lord God Almighty and yet we can call Him Abba (dad). We need to consult Him about everything and submit to His way.
- Jesus urged His disciples to persist in prayer – If we want answers then we need to persist in prayer. We need breakthroughs and we need to keep on praying. Verses 9-10 do not promise instant results. They are written in the present imperative continuous tense. They actually instruct us to keep on asking, keep on seeking and keep on knocking. Jesus is not promising instant results, He is encouraging us in these verses to be persistent in prayer.
- Jesus says God is a giving and good God – God delights in giving good things to His children. He will not give us bad things. We can ask for small things like our daily bread. God desires the best for us. He want us to continually ask for Him to fill us with His Holy Spirit.