No 8
(Fervent and Persistent)
Prayer is the way of life for the true believer. There is much discussion as to when, where or
how we are to pray. When Paul wrote his
first epistle to the Thessalonians and said “Pray
without ceasing” (
We don’t have to tell our body to breath; it does it on its
own. Actually it is harder to hold our
breath than it is to breath; the same thing ought to apply to prayer. When something good happens to us, we ought
to immediately thank the Lord; when temptation occurs we ought to ask for
strength; when an unsaved person is in our vicinity, we ought to ask for
opportunity and so on. David said: “I
have set the Lord always before me” (Psa 16:8).
Jesus gave two examples of persistant prayer – in Luke 11:5-10,
we read about a man who asks his friend for a loaf of bread in the middle of
the night and because of his persistence, his friend finally gives him what he
wants. The other example is in Luke 18:2-5 where a widow asked a judge give her
justice regarding an adversary and because of her persistence, the judge gave
her what she wanted. In both cases, the
giving persons were fed up of hearing the asking persons; so to get rid of
them, they gave them what they wanted.
Also, in both cases, Jesus mentions how much more our heavenly Father
will hear our petitions and grant us them according to His will. God is just the opposite of the bread giver
and the judge because He longs to respond to the prayers of His children;
especially when they intercede for others.
If we wish to pray intercessory prayers for others, we must be
alert as to what is going on in the lives of those who are near us; we ought to
be looking outward, not inward. When we
say to someone, “I’ll pray for you”,
do we really do so or do we forget? As
we become aware as to what and who is around us, we learn what to pray
for. In the epistle of James, we read “…pray one for
another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man
availeth much.” (