No matter what activity you pursue, perseverance is a key factor in success. For the most part, people quit too soon.
• It took Edison over ten thousand experiments to perfect the light bulb. What if he would have quit at 9,999?
• Albert Einstein suffered through disappointment after disappointment, including World War I, to prove his theory of relativity.
• And the list goes on.
A miner worked for years at his gold mine and found no gold whatsoever. In frustration, he sold it just to get it off his hands.
The new owners resumed work at the mine and within a month struck the richest gold mine ever found.
What if the old miner would not have quit but persevered? How many people have lost because they quit too soon?
No matter what you do, perseverance is the key. Jesus, in the passage before us today, is emphasizing this in our prayer life. How many people have given up on their prayer too soon?
Everybody prays but I wonder how many people really know how to pray effectively. One of the most important spiritual disciplines in the Christian’s life is prayer. Through prayer, we access the throne of God. What could be more important?
A few questions…
Is prayer really worth the effort?
Would your prayer track record inspire anyone to pray?
Can you name the last five prayers that God answered for you?
What I would like to do is lift us out of the doldrums of religiosity into a very intimate, dynamic relationship with Christ where our prayers are answered.
If you cannot reach God when you need him, what kind of Christian life are you living? My prayer life reveals my confidence in God and that confidence is based upon my relationship with God.
There is a right way to pray and there is a wrong way.
To understand the principles of prayer as outlined by Jesus is to inspire in me perseverance in my personal prayer life and ministry.
The basis of this teaching is on a question the disciples asked Jesus. “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples” (11:1).
Jesus responded by giving them what we call “The Lord’s Prayer.” Technically, it is really The Disciple’s Prayer. In the gospel of Matthew, we have a fuller version of this prayer. (Matthew 6:9-13).
Jesus then sets forth this parable revealing the principles of praying in the kingdom of God. Every religion has a form of prayer. Jesus sets forth the principles of praying for those who are living in the kingdom of God. Simply put, those who are Christians living under the authority of Jesus Christ. Here is how Jesus wants us to pray.
Keep in mind; this is what Jesus has to say about prayer and how we can be persevering in our prayer.
Jesus gives three basic principles associated with persevering prayer. The acronym of ASK.
Ask…
Seek…
Knock…
Let’s break these down and look at them.
I. Ask…
“Ask, and it will be given to you;” (9).
“For everyone who asks receives” (10).
This is the fundamental aspect of praying. Unfortunately, some people do not get much further than this. Even here, they are not asking rightly.
We need to verbalize our request clearly, so that we can understand what we are praying for. Most people really do not know what to pray for nor how to effectively pray.
Illustration…
Paris Reidhead, a woman came up to him and asked him if he would pray that her daughter gets married. He looked at her and responded very soberly, “No, I won’t.”
She looked at him as though he had slapped her in the face. “What do you mean you won’t pray for my daughter to get married?”
“First, does she really want to get married? Then after that, I need to know more information. Does she want to get married or do you want her to get married?”
That mother never really got what he was getting at. Most people do not.
Let us look at some scriptures along this line. There are five basic aspects involved in asking.
No selfless requests.
James 4:2-3 “Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: you fight in war, yet you have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lust.”
A boxer won a championship and the reporter was interviewing him on how he was able to win such a boxing match. He replied, “God helped me to win.”
Wait a minute. Isn’t there only supposed to be two men in the ring? If God was in the ring helping this man he needs to disqualify himself. Or at the least, give God half of the prize money.
God will never entertain a prayer that is selfish and carnal.
1. Ask in faith.
James 1:5-8 “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
2. Obedience.
1 John 3:22-23 “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.”
3. According to God’s will.
1 John 5:14-15 “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.”
4. Abiding in Christ. The “if” factor.
John 15:7-8 “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”
The primary principle of “asking” is meeting the conditions laid down by the Lord. If our prayers are going to have any kind of substance, it must begin with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
II. Seek…
“Seek, and you will find” (9).
“And the one who seeks finds” (10).
Seeking is the second level in persevering prayer. Once we have established the “asking” we move on to the seeking.
Let us look at a few Scriptures that emphasize this truth.
“Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near” (Isaiah 55:6).
We can never seek at our discretion.
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).
This is the next principle of persevering prayer. Once we have established the “asking” principle, we move on to the second part.
I want you to notice the focus of our seeking. It is the Lord. If I am going to have persevering prayer I need to seek the Lord in this area.
What is God saying to me about this?
It is at this point that I need to build a scriptural foundation to my prayer. I need to collect all of the Scripture God is laying upon my heart in this area. The Scriptures, of course, emphasize His promises. What is God promising to me to do in this area of my life?
This is very personal. Nobody can give you the Scriptures. As you daily, “seek the Lord” in your Bible reading the Holy Spirit will lay upon your heart Scripture. My job is to collect the Scriptures and meditate upon them and see what God is saying to me in this particular situation that I am praying about.
It is the Word of God that sets the priority in my praying. As I develop a scriptural foundation, I am establishing a promise from God that I can claim concerning a specific situation or circumstance. When I put God first, everything else begins to fall into place.
III. Knock…
“Knock, and it will be open to you” (9).
“And to the one who knocks it will be open” (10).
Here is where the action begins.
Once we have established the “asking” level and have moved on to the “seeking” level we are now at the place where we can do something about it. That is “knocking.”
This is very simply acting on God’s promise. Walking in the reality of the promises God has given you about a particular situation.
It is stepping out in faith, and faith is always based upon the Word of God. Your faith will never take you further than your reception of God’s Word.
“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).
Not a man’s voice or his interpretation, but God’s voice.
This is why it is essential to give ourselves to the disciplined reading and meditation on the Word of God. It is from the Word of God that the Holy Spirit begins to speak to us and create within us a level of faith enabling us to claim God’s promise.
Persevering prayer in this area depends upon me knowing what God wants me to do and then walking in the authority of God’s promise.
Conclusion…
Notice how Jesus concludes this parable.
“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (11:13).
God will always be faithful to His Word. He will never do anything contrary to the Word or in anyway compromise the Word. The focus of the Holy Spirit in my life is the Word.
Nothing is more gratifying than seeing my prayer answered to the glory of God. Perseverance in prayer comes from understanding and implementing these principles of prayer.
Praise God, He does not answer prayer according to my dictates but always in conformity to His Word.
