Key 8 & Key 9

Key 8: Be Persistent

If your son asks you just once for a bicycle and then seeming- ly forgets about it and never brings the subject up again, how deep is his desire for it? How much do you think he would appreciate it if he did get one? And so it is when we ask for something from our heavenly Father.  Before He supernaturally  intervenes,  God wants to know that  we deeply desire whatever we ask for, and that  we will respect and worship Him for answering our prayer.

In other words, God uses our need or desire as a “vehicle” to draw us closer to Him spiritually—to cause us to focus on His will and on what is really best for us and for any others who might be involved. If we carelessly ask for something, and then virtually for- get that we ever did, what would that indicate? It might tell God that we are not all that interested  in His doing what we ask! Or it could be that all our desires are shallow, perhaps constantly chang- ing, and that we would not feel a deep sense of appreciation and wor- ship even if He constantly answered such shallow prayers!

Perhaps  you are familiar with Jesus’ parable of the “unjust judge” (Luke 18:1–8). This is the story of a certain  widow who kept coming and kept coming to the “unjust” judge until he finally said: “Because this woman  troubles  me I will avenge her [thus honoring  her request],  lest by her continual  coming she weary me” (v. 5). Then Jesus said: “Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them?” (vv. 6–7). When you have a really deep desire for something, you should cry out to God day and night—never giving up.

God wants us to be persistent. He wants us to walk with Him, talk with Him and commune with Him continually—day after day in this age, and ultimately throughout eternity!  The Apostle Paul instructs us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

When  I was courting  my wife-to-be, I just could  not  spend enough  time with  her.  We talked  in person,  we talked  on the phone,  and I thought  and prayed about her until we finally mar- ried! The true Church  is pictured  as the affianced bride of Christ. We need to spend a lot of time with Him and with the Father  to become deeply acquainted. Remember, what we do in this life pre- pare s us  to  spe nd  eter nity toget her  wi th  these  two  divine Personalities. This is a real relationship  and, as with any other, it must be developed over time.

So learn to pray regularly to God—spending  enough time in prayer to become genuinely “acquainted” with Him. For He is the One in whom  “we live and  move and  have our  being” (Acts

17:28). According to the Scriptures,  Jesus often rose early in the morning and spent long, uninterrupted time praying to His Father (cf. Mark 1:35).

The prophet  Daniel rose to be one of the highest rulers of the greatest empire of his time—the Babylonian Empire. Nevertheless, he constantly  took time to pray to God on his knees—three times each day (Daniel 6:10). This relationship  with the Eternal  God was so important to Daniel that He finally risked death in order to continue this vital part of His spiritual life (vv. 5–10)!

King David also customarily  prayed three  times each day to his Creator: “As for me, I will call upon  God, and the LORD shall save me. Evening and morning  and at noon  I will pray, and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice” (Psalm 55:16–17).

So pray regularly. Spend plenty of time communing  with Jesus Christ and your Heavenly Father. And never—ever—stop praying to God! For, in more ways than  one, your very life depends upon this contact!

Key 9: Pray Fervently

I once knew an extremely dedicated  and zealous servant  of God who often said: “Brethren, one of the reasons we in our mod- ern society do not receive more answers to prayer is that  we do not put our hearts into our prayers!” One of the key Scriptures he would then cite was Hosea 7:14, which describes one reason that God did not hear the prayers of the ancient Israelites. The Moffatt translation  perhaps  renders  this  verse the  most clearly: “They never put their heart into their prayers.”

What about us? Do you and I pray with our entire being? Or do we just rattle off a memorized prayer like some pagan chant, or perhaps  sleepily mumble  a few half-hearted  requests  to God just before drifting off to sleep?

Again, remember Jesus’ example of getting up early to pray to the Father! For prayer was vitally important  to Christ. That is why He apparently  put  it first on His schedule—before  anything  else could interfere. And He probably came back to God repeatedly as the day progressed.  The book of Hebrews tells us about  Christ’s passionate, heartfelt prayers: “Who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications,  with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death…  was heard because of His godly fear” (5:7).

It is good to go to a “private place” to pray as Jesus instructed in Matthew 6. Alone, we can occasionally cry out to our Creator to help us, to chasten us, to deliver us from temptations  or difficulties where only the help of God Himself can fully take care of the situ- ation. The last night of Jesus’ human  life, when He knew He was about to be arrested and crucified, He poured out His being to the Father  in fervent prayer for help and deliverance: ‘And  being in agony, He prayed more earnestly.  Then  His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44).

Jesus was crying out to His Father in such an intense and pas- sionate  manner  that  some of His capillaries may have literally burst—filling certain sweat ducts with blood! In our modern, sec- ular,  hedonistic,  “laid-back” society, we need to grasp that  the truly  vital issues  of life are not  material!  Rather,  they  are spiritual—having to do with our  Creator  and with all eternity. They are certainly worthy of getting excited about!

So let us put our hearts into our prayers. Let us be fervent. Let us be passionate as we pour  out  our  hearts  to the  awesome Personality who wants to be our real Father: “the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity” (Isaiah 57:15).