And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.
– Luke 18:1
That’s how Luke begins this story. Jesus talks about a persistent widow who is longing for justice against her adversary. She keeps coming to this judge over and over and over again. And finally, this unrighteous judge says, “I’m going to give justice just so that she’ll stop coming to me asking for justice.”
Luke 18:1 explicitly calls us to pray and not lose heart.
Then Jesus makes a contrast saying, “Will not the perfectly just God to whom we come and cry out for justice, will he not answer those who cry out to him?” And Luke has told us the whole point of this story. He told them this parable to this effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.
So I want to encourage you today, straight from God’s Word: pray. Keep on praying and do not lose heart. Jesus tells this story because he knows we’re tempted to lose heart. We’re tempted to wonder, “Is God even hearing me when I’m praying for this over and over and over again? Is God going to answer me?” And obviously, part of the fundamental foundation of prayer is that we are not God. And so we are not all-wise, we are not all-powerful, we’re not in control. Only God is all-wise, all-powerful, and in control. And we can trust him when we cry out to him. He hears and will answer based on his wisdom, and his power. And not just his sovereignty, but his sovereign love, grace, and mercy toward all who trust in him. So pray and keep on praying.
To use language from Matthew 7, ask and keep on asking. Seek and keep on seeking. Knock and keep on knocking with trust that, as you pray, as you cry out to God, every single one of your prayers is being heard. And God is answering and will answer according to his perfect wisdom, power, and love. You can trust him. But don’t give up praying with confidence that he is hearing and confidence that he will answer according to his wisdom, power, and love.
Luke 18:1 is an invitation to come before God in confident prayer.
This is the heart of prayer, so don’t lose heart. Oh God, we praise you for the privilege of prayer. We praise you for the promise you have made to us that when we cry out to you… You, the perfect, just, holy, all-wise, all-powerful, all-loving God of the universe… You are listening to us. And you promise to answer us according to your wisdom, power, and love.
So we come to you with all kinds of prayers and petitions and intercessions today for our own lives and for others’ lives. And God, we pray that you would guard us from the adversary’s temptations for us to think that you are not listening, or that you don’t care, or that you won’t give justice. Oh God, help us when we don’t see answers to our prayers like we desire and the timing we desire.
God, help us to trust in you and not to lose heart. Help us to grow in our relationships with you, even when our prayers may seem unanswered to us. Oh God, we pray for this effect in our lives that we would learn to pray and not lose heart. And in light of this, oh God, we pray with all of our hearts for the spread of your love, your mercy, your grace, and your salvation to the ends of the earth.
Prayer for the Gujarati People
We pray specifically today for the Gujarati people of India and spread out in different places. 635,000 of them live in the UK. Oh God, we pray for these Hindu men, women, and children to hear and believe the truth about you and your love as the one true God revealed in Jesus, God in the flesh. God, we pray for the spread of the gospel to the Gujarati people and to all the peoples of the world. And we pray that you’d make us the people who keep praying and asking for your glory to spread among all the nations and not to lose heart at any point in that, that your purposes will be accomplished. Oh God, we trust in you and we pray that you would make us persistent in prayer without losing heart. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
