12 13 07 Continuing Prayer

“One day Jesus told his disciples a story to illustrate their need for constant prayer
and to show them that they must never give up.”
(Luke 18:1 NLT Bible)

As I was challenged in my church’s Bible study to examine my prayer life, I was very intrigued with Luke’s writings in both his Gospel and the Book of Acts. As both my ministers at church pointed out and here as you read from bible.org, both books are to be read and understood in relation to one another. The Gospel deals with the life of Christ and Acts deals with the life of the early church. Prayer is indeed a major factor in that life! I like to call it CONTINUING PRAYER! Luke called it “constant prayer” in writing to us to “always pray” (pantote in Greek; at all times).

Paul would say “but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6).

Whatever words we use to describe our conversation with the Lord, one thing we see is that it must be consistent and ongoing, rather than sporadic.

Read these remarks from bible.org concerning the passage from Luke 18:1-14:

Take note that in our text the Lord Jesus is teaching His disciples two lessons in contrast. The first lesson, that of perseverance in prayer, is taught by contrasting God, the righteous Judge who will speedily bring justice to the earth, with the unrighteous judge who reluctantly and only under duress gives the persistent widow the vindication and justice for which she petitioned. In the second paragraph, Jesus taught the attitude which is prerequisite for all prayer—humility. Thus, we see the smug self-righteousness of the Pharisees contrasted with the repentant contrition of the tax-collector. The underlying spirit of both is revealed by their prayers.
In this text we can learn much about ourselves from our prayer life. We will also find that Jesus has much to teach us about the kind of prayer befitting the saint who awaits the coming kingdom. We should consider carefully these words spoken by our Lord and recorded under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by Luke for our instruction and edification so that we may live in a way that is pleasing to Him, by His grace.

“But how much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when he returns?" (Luke 18:8 the Message Bible)

My pastor further challenged me personally and our church as to the amount of prayer that is going up from our church. I further questioned myself as to how much sincere prayer was going from my home…from my heart! What is Jesus seeing now when He looks down upon us? What will He find when He returns? We need to be REAL Christians today; 24/7, seven days a week, every day of the month, and twelve months a year, for the rest of our lives!!!! It really is no time to play!

We have to begin somewhere! It begins with scheduling our prayers and evolves into CONTINUING IN PRAYER! We begin to get comfortable speaking with God, listening to Him, and responding to Him. We look forward to the next conversation and stay alert for a new message from Him. We start desiring to please Him more and more. Sounds like a REAL relationship, doesn’t it? Pray for me and I’ll pray for you, as we all are CONTINUING IN PRAYER with our Father!