By Not Known
Prayer arises from our relationship with God. When we believe in God’s Son Jesus, we become God’s adopted children (Jn 1: 12). Amongst other things, this gives us the privilege of prayer. As God’s children, Christian believers are entitled to call God ‘Father‘ and to talk with him as a child to a parent.
But, what kind of a father is this God to whom we pray? Some has experiences of poor earthly fathers. Perhaps they were distant and forbidding, or cruel and harsh, or never bothered to listen. Or perhaps our earthly fathers were well meaning, but lacked strength or wisdom to help us with our problems. If God is like this, our prayers lack confidence.
Jesus told a story to help us have confidence in the God to who we pray (Lk 18:1- 8). It is a story about a judge who only responded to a widow’s cry for justice after much delay and only because her persistence was wearing him down.
God is not like this. Jesus’ story teaches us that God’s people can have confidence in his character. He will hear and answer their prayers, because this is his nature.
God is wiser, kinder, stronger and more generous than any earthly father. Unlike any earthly father, he deserves our total trust and will never let us down. Because he is God, what he wants to do is alway good, and he can do whatever he wants to do.
The quality of God’s fatherhood is shown in what he has already done for his children. Before creation, he chose them to be his. He sent Jesus to die for his sins. He called them into faith through the Holy Spirit and gives the same Spirit as the security of their eternal future. Such is God’s combination of love and power that he chose, called, justified and glorified those whom he loved (Rom 8:30).
Are we persuaded? God’s deeds for us and in us show what kind of father he is. They motivate us to prayer and justify our confidence in prayer.
But, do we continue to trust in our heavenly father and show it by persistence in prayer? That is the punch line of Jesus’ story about the judge (Lk 18: 1, 8). God an be relied on in our prayers. But do we reply on him and show it by continuing in prayer?