DAY 7

ASK and keep on asking!

As we draw this week to a close, it’s important to emphasise the power of being PERSISTENT in our asking. As we saw in the introduction, each of the exhortations to ‘ask, seek and knock’ are in the present continuous tense. This is brought out clearly in the Amplified Version, “So I say to you, “ask and keep on asking, and it will be given to you…For everyone who keeps on asking [persistently], receives.” Luke 11:9-10 (AMP). The Lord loves it when He sees tenacity in our prayers. Tenacity is seen as the ‘quality of being very determined’. Just as the cries of a child who relentlessly asks for something doesn’t go unnoticed by its parent, how much more will our persistent asking be heard by our Heavenly Father. This was such a key emphasis that a few chapters later Jesus tells another remarkable parable about a widow who persistently asks an unjust judge for justice and refuses to give up until he gives in to her pleas, ‘Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them they should always pray and not give up… “Will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.”’ Luke 18:1, 7-8. Unlike the reluctant, unjust judge, God is a good and just Father, who is ever-ready to intervene on behalf of His praying children, who audaciously cry out to Him day and night. The apostle Paul also summarises the call for us to constantly pray, ‘Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.’1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. So, let’s be determined and tenacious in our asking. Remember, ‘This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.’ 1 John 5:14