Persevere in Prayer

by Alexandra Copeland

The speed in which life moves these days seems unprecedented. Technological and intellectual advances are happening very rapidly, so much so that many are not able to keep up. Believe it or not, there are those who refuse to use cell phones or things like online banking because they are afraid of the ramifications. Some people are under the illusion that it is still possible to live off the grid. Satellites make this notion obsolete. The hankering for simpler times will not slow progression, and our Heavenly Father made the advancements we're witnessing in real time available through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The train will not slow down and wait for us to get on board. In fact, as God’s children, we should be driving the trains of progress, and prayer will steer us in a direction that far exceeds any other locomotive on the track. 

We can accomplish infinitely more with prayer than anyone can accomplish without it. Heavenly Father has given us this wonderful spiritual practice to exercise our faith, commune with Him, and to request what we desire from Him. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Romans 1:9(NLT), “God knows how often I pray for you. Day and night I bring you and your needs in prayer to God, whom I serve with all my heart by spreading the Good News about his Son.” Paul is teaching us about the significance of prayer in his life. His love for Jesus Christ had also given him a love for the church. He prayed for them day and night, taking their needs before Heavenly Father. 

God instructs us through Paul in 1Timothy 2:1(NLT), “I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them.” God wants us to become proficient at prayer, so that we can intercede before His throne on behalf of others. He tells us also to give thanks for them; to thank Him for what He has done, is doing now, and will do in the future. Even though our physical eyes may not have witnessed the answers to our prayers, our confidence in His love, power, and strength should cause us to be thankful for the answers even though they haven’t yet manifested. We can rejoice right now because we are fully persuaded that God will answer our prayers.

Learning to pray
Before we came to God through the Lord Jesus Christ, and invited him to live in our hearts, many of us had no idea how to pray. We had not made prayer a habit pattern in our lives. God doesn’t expect us to automatically know the right way to pray, but He does have an expectation that we will seek His Word and seek the help of the indwelling Holy Spirit to learn how to pray well. 2Corinthians 5:20 tells us that we are ambassadors for Christ. As we continue to grow in Christ, we should view ourselves as his apprentices, learning the art and skill of praying effectively the way that he did.

The attitude of an apprentice involves persistence and consistency. Romans 12:12(NLT) tells us, “Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.” In this verse, God is not requiring us to pray 24/7. He knows we have responsibilities and that we need rest. When He tells us to keep on praying, He is conveying the importance of giving persistent attention to the practice of prayer. It is not something to take lightly. Our faith is demonstrated through our diligence to pray, because if we truly believe in what prayer accomplishes, we will do it as often as possible.

 

Persistent in prayer
We can get a visual of what it means to persevere in prayer in Psalm 123:1-3(NLT). This passage states, “1 A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem. I lift my eyes to you, O God, enthroned in heaven. 2 We keep looking to the LORD our God for his mercy, just as servants keep their eyes on their master, as a slave girl watches her mistress for the slightest signal. 3 Have mercy on us, LORD, have mercy, for we have had our fill of contempt.” In earlier biblical periods, persevering with due diligence could mean the difference between life and death for a servant. In modern terms, we would refer to a servant as an employee of a company, but in those times, they were servants and looked upon as property. They had no other choice but to take their jobs extremely serious, because their lives, and the lives of their families, depended on pleasing their employers or masters.  

It’s plain to see that the continuance of good service was paramount, and this gives us a backdrop for understanding these verses in Psalm 123. A servant would be very motivated to serve their employers well. They had to be persistent and consistent. Our prayer lives call for this same attention to detail and attitude of perseverance as well.

There would be hand signs and signals between the Master and the servant, and these were queues for the servant to perform certain tasks. If the master hosted a large dinner, he or she might signal the servant by a small, unassuming gesture that it was time to serve the drinks or time to serve the main course. It would be of the utmost importance for the servant to pay attention and be on the lookout for such gestures. He or she always had to keep their eyes on their masters and be observant to what was happening in the environment as well. Infractions would be extremely costly, and servants could not afford to make them. This is the diligence to which God refers when He tells us to persevere in prayer in Romans 12:12.

Ephesians 6:18(NKJV) states, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.” God has provided us with all the spiritual armor we will ever need. The greatest of them is the spiritual force of prayer. It is our chief spiritual weapon, and we will need to use it often against the strategies of the devil. God has told us in Ephesians 6:18 to be watchful with all perseverance as we make our prayer requests for ourselves and for other believers as well. It is through prayer that we can pull down strongholds of the devil. It is also through prayer that we stay alert and develop spiritual strength, so we can continue to climb higher and progress forward as ambassadors for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. 

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.