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?" Luke 18:1-8
Things looked bleak for the children of George Muller's orphanage at Ashley Downs in England. It was time for breakfast, and there was no food. A small girl whose father was a close friend of Muller was visiting in the home. Muller took her hand and said, "Come and see what our Father will do." In the dining room, long tables were set with empty plates and empty mugs. Not only was there no food in the kitchen, but there was no money in the home's account. Muller prayed, "Dear Father, we thank Thee for what Thou art going to give us to eat." Immediately, they heard a knock at the door. When they opened it, there stood the local baker. "Mr. Muller," he said, "I couldn't sleep last night. Somehow I felt you had no bread for breakfast, so I got up at 2 o'clock and baked fresh bread. Here it is." Muller thanked him and gave praise to God. Soon, a second knock was heard. It was the milkman. His cart had broken down in front of the orphanage. He said he would like to give the children the milk so he could empty the cart and repair it.
George Mueller was known for his powerful prayer. In the course of his ministry to the orphans of England, he never asked for financial assistance from men - only God... and he constantly received what was needed to the penny.
How is your prayer life today?
As we look at the Scripture today we see that Jesus is addressing two themes.
-One is to pray always.
-And the other is not to lose heart.
I ask you how your pray life is because most of us are not very persistent on a daily basis as George Muller was. Think for a moment, what keeps you from being persistent in prayer, why do you lose heart? Why do we give up? Or what stands in your way of approaching the Throne of grace?
I think there are many reasons some of us are not persistent. For some of us, it is unbelief, we don’t believe God really cares about our needs; our unbelief is based on the idea that God doesn’t have our best interest at hand.
Maybe it is fear, a fear of growing closer to God, a reason for this can be we have sin in our life and we live with the fear of judgment. One reason for fear is we aren’t sure what God would ask of us if we drew near to Him. Or maybe it is we are afraid how He will answer our prayer, maybe He will cause us to go through something we don’t want to go through. Just like any relationship we have, we wonder what the cost will be, what is required of me if I allow God close.
Some of us are in a spiritual fight; Satan can use many things to keep us from growing closer to God. He uses fear at times, but for most of us he uses distractions. Problems, dilemmas, and things we enjoy keeping our focus on anything but God
I think one of the most identifiable reasons is discouragement. Discouragement brings about a lack of hope, a lack of faith. We may have asked God for help in the past but didn’t see any answer to our prayer, so we become discouraged and gave up on Him. Now we may look good on the outside, we come to church, we do all the right Christian things, but inside we are distant from Him and don’t really trust Him, discouragement destroys any relationship, especially with God.
Maybe you’re skeptical; you don’t really believe He wants to help. You say to yourself and others, “He has more important things to concern Himself with.” On the other hand maybe you’re mad at Him, because life hasn’t turned out like you wanted it to. So you turn your anger and bitterness towards God. You’ll show Him, you will just keep your distance, somehow thinking that will you will get what you want by punishing Him with your coldness. Dave Harvey in his book Rescuing Ambition says, “Sometimes when God delays our ambitions, we try to and I know this is crazy – punish Him by pulling our dreams off the table. “God, you don’t deliver, so I’m not trusting my hopes and dreams to you. So there!” Have you pulled your dreams off the table, and trusted your hopes and dreams to someone or something else? Is so, you might be guilty of a heavenly temper tam tram.
The last reason I think we are not persistent is because we are prideful. We think we need to pull up our own bootstraps to get things done. Going to God because we are in need, seems weak to us. We think God wants us to figure things out on our own, and we would rather do that, than admit we need Him. Pride stands in our way, pride tells us to be self-sufficient, and depending on others is a sign of neediness. So we don’t persistent in prayer.
If you aren’t persistent in your prayer life, then which one of these do you tend to fall into? Which one is keeping you from a closer walk with God?
