Discipleship Devotional Study Guide – Promises – Day 218 – Luke 18:1-8 – Pray And Never Give Up – Growing As Disciples
One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, 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!’” Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. 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? 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?” Luke 18:1-8 (NLT)
Persistent In Prayer
Will you do that? Will I do what? Will you be persistent in prayer? Will you keep on praying until you have an answer from me? Yes, I will be persistent in prayer. Yes, I will keep on praying until I have an answer from you? You do have a few questions about prayer, don’t you? Yes, I do. Go ahead, ask me. Why are not all my prayers answered immediately? Why must I sometimes wait a great deal of time before a prayer of mine is answered? Let me ask you a few questions. I’m listening. Is “no” an answer to prayer? Yes, “no” is an answer to prayer. Why might I say “no” to one of your prayers? I may be asking for something that is not helpful or healthy for me. I may be asking for something far less than what you want to give me. You might have something completely different or better in mind for me. So, a “no” from me is not just an answer to your prayer, but it is a very good answer to some of your prayers. I get that, I understand. That’s good. I have another question for you. Is “not yet” or “wait” an answer to prayer? Yes, “not yet” and “wait” are both answers to prayer. Why might I say, “not yet” or “wait” to one of your prayers? The timing is not right. I may not be ready to receive what I am asking of you. Other circumstances may need to come into alignment to make it to be the right time for my prayer to be answered. Yes, those are real and true reasons why I haven’t answered some of your prayers immediately. Have I ever answered one of your prayers in a way that you could have never dreamed of, asked for, or even imagined? There is no doubt about that. Has it sometimes taken you quite a while to realize that I had in fact answered your prayer without you even noticing it right away? There is no doubt about that either. Now, for the hardest questions. Have I ever asked you to keep praying because I wanted to grow your faith and develop your persistence in prayer? Has waiting and being persistent in prayer caused you to rely more fully on me? Has waiting and be persistent in prayer caused you to draw nearer to me and made our relationship more intimate? Yes, and that is no doubt better and more important that what I was praying for anyhow. It pleases me that you know this to be true. Thank you, Heavenly Father for all your varied answers to my prayers. I will keep on being persistent in prayer. That will be very good.
Heavenly Father, with a heart filled with faith, I will be persistent in my prayers. I will not lose heart. I will not give up and quit. Help me to be persistent in my prayers. Do your good work in me so that you will find me full of faith when I meet you face to face. Amen
For today’s complete 4 page Discipleship Devotional Study Guide click here:
Please consider sharing these devotionals with others through the social media you use.
Individual users may save the Discipleship Devotional Study Guide to their desktop for private use. All the blanks in the study guides are fields that allow typed responses. To use the fields on the study guide you may need to open the guide with a free version of adobe reader.
By Jon Ulrich © All rights reserved Copying not permitted www.GrowingAsDisciples.com
