(Secrets of Effective Prayer (6)) PERSISTENCE IN PRAYING
Study Luke 11:5-8, and the other in Luke 18:1-8.
- Why Persistence?
- God does not always let us get things at our first effort. He would train us and make us strong men of prayer by compelling us to pray hard for the best things. He makes us PRAYTHROUGH. Even Jesus prayed more than once. Persistence is God’s training ground for believers. Mark 8:24
- Spiritual Warfare: There is a devil whose intent is to cause you pain and deny God honor. See John 10v10. Study Daniel 10:12,Matthew 11:12, Mat 26:44.
- Different needs requires different prayer. The confusion about asking more than once comes from understanding there are different types of needs and different types of request. E.G. asking for the Holy Spirit. Is different from asking for a child’s healing or salvation. In both cases the Father’s will is clear. But in the case of the Holy Spirit, He is given immediately whether you feel it or not. You are more likely to be persistent in the case of a child salvation because there is a process and you don’t want the process aborted for a lack of prayer support.
George Muller prayed for two men daily for upwards of sixty years. One of these men was converted shortly before his death, I think at the last service that George Muller held, the other was converted within a year after his death. One of the great needs of the present day is men and women who will not only start out to pray for things, but pray on and on and on until they obtain that which they seek from the Lord.
- SUBMISSION VS LAZYNESS: Many people call it submission to the will of God when God does not grant them their requests at the first or second asking, and they say IF ITS YOUR WILL:🡺but spiritual LAZINESS/lack of strength of character
- SETTLE WILL: When you set out to pray, settle it in your heart whether what you desire is the will of God or not. This way, the temptation to chicken out on account of ‘maybe it’s not the will of God’ is dealt with from the beginning. One way to avoid this is through the word. God has said either Rhema or Logos. You can hold on to it and pray ceaselessly.
- God love Persistent people: Because of his importunity. God loves people who will not take no for an answer
Persistence opens us to a new realm. Study Luke 11:8, Luke 18
CONCLUSION
Many of life’s failures are people who never realized how close they were when they gave up.
Luke 18:1-5 verse 1 which says …that men ought always to pray, and not to faint. Eph. 6:13, 14). Paul also said, …let us not be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not (Gal. 6:9). If you and I exercise faith long enough and “faint not,” then sooner or later “due season” always come.
