Luke 18:1

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.

I was recently challenged as I read: “If it’s true that “prayer is the barometer of a Christian’s spiritual condition”, how does your barometer read today?”

In Luke 18, Jesus tells his disciples and it’s one of those times when we are told what His reason for telling the parable was – “to show them that they should always pray and not give up”. Why would Jesus want to show anyone that? Well, because it’s so easy to give up on prayer. Jesus knew they were in danger of giving up on prayer and so He told them this parable.

And Jesus knows that we too are in the same danger. Prayer takes discipline. I wish prayer was like eating chocolate, watching football, reading a magazine – things that we do with such ease, that we don’t need discipline to do (ahem, maybe to not do – but that’s for another post). Isn’t it amazing that the things that have little, temporal or no benefit, we do with such ease and yet the things that really matter and that count for eternity we find it difficult to do? Well, that’s because we have an enemy, the devil and he knows that prayer, for example, is one of the Christian’s most powerful weapons, something that he has no defence against. So he will do everything he can to make you give up on prayer, to make you not feel like praying, to make it so difficult.

At another time his disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. Maybe you can pray that simple prayer right now, “Jesus, teach me to pray. Holy Spirit, help me to pray and never give up”.

The Bible teaches us to pray without ceasing. May this be true for you. Brothers and sisters, let us pray!

Comments

comments