One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. (Luke 18:1 nlt)
I prayed for more than thirty years for my mother to come to Christ. I was beginning to wonder if God would ever hear my prayer. But He did. It was all in His timing. The Bible says, “God has made everything beautiful for its own time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 nlt).We don’t want to rush things. We don’t want to run ahead of the Lord, and we don’t want to lag behind Him. We want His perfect will in His perfect timing. But we have to be persistent in prayer.Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7 nkjv) Notice the ascending intensity Jesus used with the words ask, seek, and knock.
We start by asking God. Then we go to the next level: We’re seeking.
We’re not going to give up on it. Finally we’re knocking. We’re pounding
on the door. We’re not taking no for an answer. We have to be
persistent in our prayers. We don’t want to give up.
If the request is wrong, God says no. If the timing is wrong, God says
slow. If you are wrong, God says grow. But if the request is right and
the timing is right and you are right, God says go.
We don’t always know what the will of God is, but I think when we’re
praying for the salvation of a loved one, when we’re praying for our
country to have a spiritual awakening (we urgently need that), when
we’re praying for God’s will in our lives, we can’t back down. We can’t
give up.
We have to keep asking. We have to keep seeking. We have to keep knocking. Then, the Bible says, the door will be opened.
From Pastor Greg Laurie & www.harvest.org
Today's Bible Verse...
If you do not obey the LORD, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers.—1 Samuel 12:15
Thoughts on Today's Verse... Dietrich Bonhoeffer said more than 50 years ago that grace had become cheapened. I wonder what he would say today? I'm all for grace, but I'm horrified at the cost by which it came. I can't for the life of me understand how we can so often claim to have received it and yet bear no resemblance in character to the one who gave it. God's Word through Samuel is a harsh one. Yet it is one that I believe we must include in our triumphant song of grace. You see, true grace changes us. It will make us gracious and more like the Grace-giver himself. If not, what we call grace is impotent, powerless, and false. Paul called this a form of religion that denied God's true power in us (2 Timothy 3:5). Let's return obedience back to the pantheon of virtues and rescue it from the attic of our religious past.
My Prayer... Father, I know that you are disappointed with my sin and yet your grace still flows and covers it. But Father, I NEVER want to presume on that grace. You and I know the deepest struggles of my character and the things I only want to "kinda" give up. Please work your perfection in me through the Holy Spirit, conforming me to be more and more to be like my Savior Jesus, in whose name I pray. Amen.
The Thoughts and Prayer on Today's Verse are written by Phil Ware.
Today's Verse Illustrated...
Dangers of Visitation by David W. Harbarugh
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