Message #12 (of 20) from the PrayerPower radio series
"The Deeper Life of Prayer"

by Kaye Johns

In Luke 18:1 Jesus taught His disciples to "always pray and not give up," through the parable of the persistent widow. In this parable a widow kept coming to the judge with a plea for justice. At first he refused, but finally he said, "I will see that she gets justice so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!" [Luke 18:2-5]

Jesus had already taught His disciples about being persistent in prayer in Luke 11, with the parable of the friend at midnight. But in the order and sequence of His teaching on prayer, here in Luke 18 He added another dimension to that teaching. It is one thing to go to a neighbor in the middle of the night to seek bread for a hungry friend, but it requires quite another level of boldness to go time and again before a judge who has repeatedly turned us down.

Such a bold prayer must be well thought out. We wouldn’t take a case before a judge casually, and we certainly would not keep going back after we had been turned down, unless we felt sure we were on solid ground. No wonder Jesus didn’t give His disciples this teaching along with the first-step basics of prayer He taught in Matthew 6. We need to be ready. We need to be grounded in our daily prayer lives [Matthew 6:6-13], if we want to come so boldly--and effectively--before the throne.

Pray with me now -- Father, help us to pray always with such boldness. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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