He points to the character of God to reveal how, like a loving father, God is moved by the requests of his children. Following is an expert: In Jesus' Name James says a prerequisite to powerful prayers is that they be "in the name of the Lord" James Jesus said, "The Father will give you whatever you ask in my name" John There is power in the name of Jesus. When you pray in Jesus' name, the Holy Spirit intercedes for you.
He knows you better than you know yourself. He also knows the will of God because he is one with God. Only the Spirit of God can bring your heart and God's heart together to make something happen that is agreeable to both parties! Nothing will be impossible for you" Matthew If you want God to answer your prayer, begin with the confidence that there is a God who created you, loves you and wants to respond to your prayer.
God wants you to come to him with a genuine heart, believing that he is good and has the power to answer your prayer. Right Relationship With Others The Bible in 1 John makes it clear that we cannot have a right relationship with God if we're full of hatred for our brother. If we can learn to be patient, God can teach us everything else we need to learn. It is not that patience is the only thing that we need, but we must have patience for God to be able to work effectively with us.
If we do not have patience, He will definitely develop it in us. James explains how to gain from trials. James My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. I saw a few minutes of it years ago, and probably will never watch it again, because it has a lot of immorality that was used for humor.
From what I gathered, the sitcom was named for the attitude of the elderly people in this retirement community, who were going through their later years without spiritual purpose or goals. They were just hopelessly "waiting for God" to take their lives. It had quite a sad scenario, but, as I said, it was a very immoral show. Isaiah For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen any God besides You, who acts for the one who waits for Him.
The true God is totally different from all other gods, obviously. He does respond to our needs. But, He does it at the best time possible. Some Christians lose faith, because they fail to understand exactly what God has promised for this life. Psalm "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
But God does not promise when He will do so. Sometimes, He does it right away. Sometimes He does not. Whether God intervenes immediately, or makes us wait, He has specifically promised that we will not be tested with more than we can take and that all things eventually work out for good.
We have that as His promise. I Corinthians No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. Exactly how and when is up to God to decide. After all, the principal goal of our faith is not that we be totally free of every physical material problem and difficulty in this life.
The main goal is salvation and eternal life, and for us to have the proper character to receive that. God says that we should make all our requests known to Him.
Although He does not promise that He will intervene in them all immediately, He does promise us peace of mind. He promises us help from His Holy Spirit. He promises us joy, peace, and hope. He promises us "strength with all might according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy " as Paul writes in Colossians This does not mean that when we pray we should not expect God to answer immediately.
We should never assume we have to wait for a long time, but we should understand that it may be God's will that we do. We should commit the matter to God in faith that He will intervene, and we must do our part. We should be sure we are obeying God's law and doing all that we can in gathering research and advice on what we may need to do to remedy the problem. That is in no way saying that we should lessen the value of prayer.
Prayer is ultimately very important. We can ask Him to answer soon, and we should expect Him to answer soon, as He often does. But, in case He does not answer right away for some reason, we should not get depressed.
We must continue asking, believing, and patiently waiting until He does answer. The writers of the Old and New Testament have emphasized waiting quite often—waiting on God to intervene on our behalf. The Parable of the Persistent Widow in Luke teaches the necessity of patient, persistent, and persevering prayer, and is much like the Parable of the Persistent Friend in Luke Both parables are preceded by the mention of prayer. Although delivered under different situations, they both show the absolute and immeasurable contrast between God and human beings, and the evidence that God yields to the saints' pleading and urging.
Both parables show a person granting a request because of their selfish motives. I want to go over aspects of this parable, and although there will be some similarities, it will be somewhat different to what the Bible study itself covers.
In the Parable of the Persistent Friend, the persevering prayer was for necessities, but in the Parable of the Persistent Widow, the persevering prayer is for protection. Both parables conclude that God will not fail us as friends and acquaintances often do.
The Parable of the Persistent Widow is especially linked with the last days, the final great crisis, and painful circumstances that the faithful remnant must face. A major resource, for those who remain true to God at this time of great apostasy, is prayer. Vengeance is God's alone, and He will punish all who persecute His elect. He will judge our oppressors, but as we wait for deliverance, persevering prayer is our supply of patience.
This parable is preceded by an exhortation from Christ, showing our duty of praying, our dedication to praying, and our resistance against the discontinuation of praying. It ends by indicating that prayer is a matter of faith. Luke Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, saying: "There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?
Luke "Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart To "not lose heart" or "faint" means to grow weary, to give in to evil, and even to turn coward.
The common human tendency of growing weary in prayer is an easy trap to fall into, but still must be resisted. We know that it is our Christian duty, as the elect of God, to pray and to pray fervently. There are several major causes of losing heart in praying: defilement, doubt, danger, distractions, and delay.
What do I mean by those? The defilement that sin causes kills interest in spiritual exercises such as prayer. Sin does not promote effective and sincere prayer.
In fact, it will stop it dead. Psalm - "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear. Praying with doubt is faithless, making the prayer useless. Doubting the inspiration of Scripture, and the power of God, hinders prayer, according to Paul in I Timothy Just as prayer and faith go hand in hand, so do unbelief and lack of prayer.
At times, prayer must be done at dangerous times. This danger weeds out the cowards from the courageous. Daniel faced real danger in praying, but kept on praying, even though it led to the lion's den.
Today, these dangers come in various ways. The danger of embarrassment often affects people more than the danger of physical harm. Satan is the master of causing distractions, especially during our prayer time. Probably everyone, while praying, has experienced his mind wandering off in any number of directions, thinking about everything except what he should be praying about.
Few things cause us to lose heart more often in our praying than delays in answer to our requests. Delays are such great causes of losing heart. Jesus uses this parable to especially teach us that though the answers to our prayers often appear to take a long time in coming, we should persevere, and not grow weary in praying to God. Christ begins the application of the Parable of the Persistent Widow with the word "hear" in Luke Luke " Then the Lord said, "Hear what the unjust judge said.
We will learn little or nothing in any area, if we do not listen when lessons are being taught. This is an obvious and fundamental truth, but is very often ignored. Developing a good listening ear will advance our ability to learn. It is our ears, not our mouth, that bring us knowledge. If we do not listen well to the truth, our mouth will not speak truth well. And so, in examining Jesus' encouragement to pray persistently, we find the comparison that He makes between God and the unjust judge profoundly revealing.
Luke Then the Lord said, "Hear what the unjust judge said. In the parable, Jesus did not compare God with a good man, but a godless man to give emphasis to the vast difference between what this unjust judge was and the righteous God is not. The characters of each is at opposite ends of the spiritual spectrum. The conduct of this unjust judge gives evidence of his chaotic and corrupt judgments.
The judge saw himself as Christ saw him, as a man who did not fear God, nor having any concern for anyone else. This judge was not concerned with God or the widow, but only himself, and how he may advance from or what he may get out of it.
He could not be compelled to do anything. He had prostituted himself in unrighteous judgments, meaning he had received payment in the past for passing judgments in favor of the person who gave him the money.
That is part of the injustice. If this unjust judge could avenge this widow, who he disdained, how much more does the righteous God do to avenge His elect?
We see in this parable God's willingness to hear and answer the supplications of His own elect. He answers our prayers when offered according to His will. In verses 5, 7, and 8 the word " avenge " used of the unrighteous judge, and of God, means, "the working out of His vengeance," not in the sense of retaliation, but of justice. If God's elect are wrongly treated, we can be sure of His vindication.
If a mere selfish feeling exists with the unjust judge who avenges the widow, how much more will the selfless God come to our aid.
We can expect substantially better treatment from a God of loving kindness than a heartless judge. That is the emphasis here in this parable. The widow did not prevail because her plea was so persuasive.
She only spoke eight explicit words. Sometimes too many words reveal a scarcity of desire or a lack of purpose. It has to be effective, in a humble way, according to God's will, in faith. God has assured us that He hears and answers prayer. We must have the faith of Christ that He has what we need. He enjoys hearing us ask according to His will, and He desires to give us abundantly what we should have. I would like to take a look at the comparisons between the unjust judge and God.
In the Parable of the Persistent Widow, Christ compares His own response of what God would do, to that of the judge's response to the widow's plea.
There are three main comparisons here. In each case, Christ shows that God's response will be far superior to that of the judge. Luke "And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? If the unjust judge finally granted the widow her request, would not a just God do the same for His saints? The answer here implies an absolute "Yes! I cannot be so sure if He wants me restored to perfect physical health if I am sick.
There may be quite a few things He wants me to learn through the experience and may glorify Himself better through my being weak rather than being strong. My trust is in God and not in getting the specific request I may be making.
I am to have no doubts about God, His power, goodness or love. I then have to be content with that without expectation that He will do what I want.
There maybe doubts about my request, but there is never any doubts about my God. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah is presented here as an example of effectual prayer and we are told that he was just like us.
What is effectual prayer? It was not just prayer, but earnest prayer, intense prayer, serious prayer. It is not an easy task. If we really want to see God at work, then we cannot be flippant or superficial in our prayers. It takes energy and intensity. Perhaps that is why so many people do not pray as they ought. It just takes too much work. Our last prerequisites expand on the energy and intensity that goes into prayer.
Prayer is a priority item in your life. You are not just ready to pray when a need comes up, but you are actively looking out for what may need to be brought before God. The idea of perseverance, which was also mentioned in Ephesians.
It is to continue on and persist regardless of current outcome. We can easily get wrapped up in our emotions and fail on this point. We get discouraged and want to give up, or we try to do it ourselves, or we get side tracked and forget about it. God wants us to steadfastly persist in our prayers. That brings up the final element found in 1 Thessalonians.
Certainly God knows we must sleep and give our attention to working to provide for ourselves and our families, but this phrase brings together many of the other elements and stresses the priority of prayer in our lives. It is to live life ready to pray at anytime. That is a good description of the relationship we are to have with God. It is not restricted to certain days, times and places, but is an active relationship that is always on going.
An effective prayer life has everything to do with your daily walk with God. Prayer is much more than saying grace before meals or spending a few quite moments with God before going to bed. It is also far beyond going to any designated time of prayer with other people.
Sermon Study Sheets. Here is some help. Young Children — draw a picture about something you hear during the sermon. Explain your picture s to your parents at lunch. Older Children — Do one or more of the following: 1 Write down all the Scripture references made. How are you doing at keeping the priority of prayer in your life? What could help it be better? What is the proper purpose of prayer? What is the proper practice of prayer? Why must a person be in Christ in order to pray properly?
What do you say to those that criticize Christianity for being exclusive? Why is righteousness important in prayer? How is a person made righteous before God? What is the importance of confession relative to being righteous? What sort of things do you pray for? What is the relationship between praying in the Spirit and praying with the mind? What is the evidence that you are filled with the Holy Spirit?
The withered tree is the manifestation of a declaration of faith that was in agreement with the will, design and order of God. This kind of faith is supernatural and progressive—faith in the power of God so much so that what you say is aligned with what you know to be His purpose will come to pass. Your faith must be evident by what you say and do.
Specifically, the tree was planted to bear fruit for food Genesis a. If there were leaves on the tree there should have been fruit. However, Jesus imparted this knowledge unto them—a key to prayers being answered is having faith in God and speaking.
Have you prayed for anything? Do you believe you will receive it, or do you believe you have already received it? This is why many of our prayers are not answered, or should I say not being manifested in the natural. At the moment Jesus spoke to the tree, he knew his prayer was heard and answered by God the Father and would be manifested in the natural. Another example is in John How do we know? Yes, I know You always hear and listen to Me, but I have said this on account of and for the benefit of the people standing around, so that they may believe that You did send Me [and You have made Me Your Messenger].
When you pray with confidence that your prayer is already answered, the manifestation of it is for the benefit of others so that they will believe. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. The second prerequisite is forgiveness. Jesus makes it clear to the disciples that forgiveness is a necessity for answered prayer. Forgiveness is a fundamental principle in the kingdom of God Matthew After all, forgiveness is central to the plan of salvation.
Because the Father forgives us, we must forgive others. Forgiveness is a matter of the heart, and the condition of our heart determines the truth about our relationship with the Lord as well as others. Basically, our relationship with others is just as important as our relationship with the Lord when it comes to answered prayer.
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