Your Shameless Persistence

Friday, August 02, 2013             Your Shameless Persistence

“But I tell you this—though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence” (Luke 11:8).

Parable of Perseverance in Prayer - Luke 11: 5-13

The NLT includes a helpful phrase in verse 5: “Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this story:” (Luke 11:5). In verses 1-4 the disciples had asked Jesus to teach them to pray and in response to their request, he taught them The Lord’s Prayer. Then Jesus added a parable to help them understand how to pray.

In Israel’s covenant relationship with God, the people were taught that it was an honor to help their neighbors. Israel’s covenant responsibility to serve one another applied even to strangers, and it applied even if they knocked on your door at midnight. Jesus says that while a neighbor may not open his door at night, even for a friend, he would open his door when his neighbor came seeking assistance in fulfilling their covenant responsibility. Within this covenant relationship, there is no shame in asking for help. Because the man in Jesus’ parable is without shame, he has no difficulty persistently asking his neighbor for help.

Jesus says we have this same relationship with God. We have no shame as we go to God in prayer. We are not imposing upon God. The foundation of our relationship with God is not based on our tithe or perfect attendance or praying every day or reading the Bible every day. None of this improves our right-standing with God. Our right-standing before God is not helped by saying, “God if you'll just do this, I'll be good. I'll give more, I'll pray more, and I’ll do more if you'll just hear my request.” The man in the parable did not condition his request by saying, "If you will just give me some bread this one time, I will never ask you again."

The basis of our relationship with God is rooted in grace. God longs for us and desires a relationship with us, more than we could ever dream of longing and desiring a relationship with Him. Jesus says God delights in fulfilling our needs: “For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (Luke 11:10).

As we learned in the Parable of the Persistent Widow (How Much More), Jesus is not saying that we will win more from God through persistence. The focus of the parable of Persistence in Prayer is not the neighbor who was so reluctant to open his door. God is not reluctant to open His heart, His hands to us. The focus of the parable is the shamelessness of the neighbor’s request. He was so persuaded of his right standing in his covenant with God, he boldly pounded on his neighbor’s door. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews has a word for us as we consider the attitude of our heart when we approach God in prayer:

“So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most” (Hebrews 4:16).

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  In addition to this BLOG they are distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com. The Kindle version will follow soon.

·        The second edition First Think – Then Pray has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.