Pray First by Our Daily Bread Ministries

PRAY FIRST! The Power of Prayer in Sharing the Gospel

James Banks

introduction

Pray First The Power of Prayer in Evangelism

fter our son had left home and set out on his own, he visited Mardi Gras in New Orleans with friends. He had been struggling with substance abuse, and my wife, Cari, and I worried about the trip and choices he might make. We prayed for him constantly. The first night he was there, our phone rang. His number popped up on the caller ID. Our 1

worst fears rushed in. Was he in trouble? Had something happened to him? But when we answered the phone, his voice was clear and cheerful. “Dad,” he said, “the coolest thing just happened. We were walking through the French Quarter and came to one corner where some religious people were holding up signs and shouting at us. We kept on walking. Then we got to the next corner when another group from a church came up to us. They were really nice. They welcomed us and asked if there was anything they could pray for us about. Then we prayed together right there on the street. It was pretty cool. I thought you might like to know.” Although it would be two years before God set our son free from drug addiction, that night marked a special moment for Cari and me. We caught a glimpse of the power of God to move in our son’s heart and were reminded of something the prophet Isaiah wrote: “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear” (isaiah 59:1). Even when our son was on a prodigal path in “a far country” (luke 15:13 nkjv), through our prayers, God mercifully met him there in the kindness of others. James Banks

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contents one

Opening the Line of Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 two

Loving Your Neighbor through Prayer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 three

Going the Distance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

EDITORS: Tim Gustafson, J.R. Hudberg, Peggy Willison COVER IMAGE: © Shutterstock COVER DESIGN: Stan Myers INTERIOR DESIGN: Steve Gier INTERIOR IMAGES: (p.1) © Shutterstock; (p.5) Mabel Amber via Pixabay.com; (p.9) rawpixel.com; (p.27) Jack Moreh via Freerangestockcom All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. © 2018 Our Daily Bread Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI All rights reserved. Printed in Indonesia.

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Opening the Line of Communication

e must never underestimate the importance of our prayers in reaching those far from God. One particular incident from Luke’s gospel makes this clear. On the day Jesus sent out seventy-two of His followers to the towns He was about to visit, He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Then He said, “Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves” (luke 10:2–3, italics added). Jesus’s instructions to ask God for help before they 5

took one step on their journey show the strategic role prayer plays in sharing the Christian faith. That day Jesus sent His followers without money or a travel bag or even an extra pair of sandals (see luke 10:4), but He made certain they were praying. They were “lambs among wolves”—inexperienced, vulnerable, and in need of all the help they could get. Yet, as Jesus sent them, He didn’t equip them with materials or methods for reaching others. He only told them to pray. It makes sense if you think about it. Jesus is sending His followers to share the news that the kingdom of God is coming, a kingdom inhabited by people who have a new relationship with God (see jeremiah 31:33– 34). This was the kind of relationship with the Father that Jesus demonstrated throughout His life. Here He is encouraging His followers to actively live in that relationship as they go out to tell others about it. This section is a part of the longest portion of the Old Testament to be quoted in the New Testament. Hebrews 8:8–12 quotes Jeremiah 31:31–34, and then quotes verses 33–34 a second time in Hebrews 10:16–17. We anticipate the day that everyone will live in this right relationship to God.

Jesus declared His dependence on God in everything He did. He told His disciples, “By myself I can do nothing” (john 5:30). Then He demonstrated that dependence in a practical way by keeping the lines of communication constantly open through 6

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prayer, confident that the Father “always” heard Him (john 11:42). The New Testament makes clear that “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one “There are three who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his things necessary for a successful reverent submission” (hebrews 5:7). Jesus prayed continually, crusade. The submitting His life to the Father first is prayer, moment by moment and drawing the second is every strength from Him. prayer, and the Jesus also told His followers that we are to be continually third is prayer.” dependent on Him. He told the BILLY GRAHAM disciples, “Apart from me you can do nothing,” saying that if they “remain” in Him, they would “bear much fruit” (john 15:5). It is through prayer that we stay close to Jesus in the moment, and so God’s Word encourages us to “pray continually” (1 thessalonians 5:17). Through prayer we receive the direction and wisdom we need to do the work God has given us. It has been said that “prayer is the talking part of a love relationship with God.”1 1

VanderGriend, Alvin J. Love to Pray, p. 8

Opening the Line of Communication

Just like the first followers Jesus sent out, if we’re going to be effective in encouraging others to enter into a new relationship with God, we too need to begin with faithful and dependent prayer. Billy Graham, one of the most effective evangelists of the 20th century, affirmed this connection between dependent prayer and sharing the good news of Jesus: “There are three things necessary for a successful crusade. The first is prayer, the second is prayer, and the third is prayer.”2 Through humble, believing prayer we discover true power to reach others—God’s power to mercifully and faithfully move in response to our heartfelt pleas for those we love.

2 Quoted by Robert O. Bakke in The Power of Extraordinary Prayer (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2000), 129.

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Loving Your Neighbor through Prayer

ecently, a neighbor across the street from our home moved away. Cari and I began to pray for the next neighbors who would arrive. Once they moved in, we prayed for opportunities to share God’s love with them. A couple of months later my new neighbor Tom and I were talking in the front yard when he mentioned that he was painting murals in his children’s rooms. He told me he had some community service hours to complete, and asked if there was any work he could do for our church. Not long afterward, we would 9

be working together designing a mural depicting children running into Jesus’s open arms. While Tom painted the mural at the church, we had several candid conversations about life and faith, and I had the opportunity to share from my heart about the difference a relationship with Jesus had made in my life and the lives of those I love. When we pray for others, God invites us on an adventure into the wonder of what He alone can do. He “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (ephesians 3:20) and has infinitely creative ways of moving in the hearts of those we long to reach. We truly love our neighbors when we pray for them, because through our prayers we welcome God’s loving God works presence to move in fresh and vital ways in their lives. strategically God works strategically through our through our prayers to open prayers to open doors in others’ hearts for the doors in others’ good news of Jesus. You see this throughout the life of the hearts for the apostle Paul, the most effective Good News Christian missionary in history. of Jesus. Paul and his companions were at “a place of prayer” in Philippi when they encountered Lydia. “The Lord opened her heart 10

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to respond to Paul’s message,” and “she and the members of her household were baptized” (acts 16:13–15). Paul and Timothy told the Christians in Colosse, “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ” (colossians 4:2–3, italics added). They also told the believers in Thessalonica: “Pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly” (2 thessalonians 3:1, italics added). And in a revealing way, Paul elsewhere instructed Timothy about what our prayers for others mean to God, who places a high priority on our need to pray for their salvation: “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. . . . This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth” (1 timothy 2:1,3–4 nlt, italics added). God loves it when we pray for others to turn to Christ for forgiveness. Scripture makes clear that we have a God-given responsibility to love others with our prayers. We can learn from the prophet Samuel’s example. He told the entire nation of Israel, “Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you” (1 samuel 12:23). Now we’ll take a look at several Scripture-based ways to reach out to others through our prayers, in the hope that they will embrace the good news Loving Your Neighbor through Prayer

and receive Jesus as their Savior. First we’ll examine biblical examples of what to pray, then we’ll look at a prayerful way to gently share our faith and how to persevere in prayer. May God deeply bless you—and especially those you long to see come to Him—as you pray and go!

“Please Draw Him Near!” Jesus said, “No one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of. . . the Spirit” (john 3:5). It is through the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts that we receive the Lord as our Savior and are born again. Before the Holy Spirit can live in us as followers of Jesus, He must convict us of our sinfulness and our desperate need to receive God’s mercy. When we come to Jesus for salvation, it is because the Holy Spirit has made us aware of “the privilege of repenting” of our sins and “receiving eternal life” (acts 11:18, nlt). Scripture tells us, “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 corinthians 12:3). Jesus also made clear to His followers that “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them” (john 6:44). So we pray strategically when we ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit to draw others near. When we have tried and tried to persuade someone we care about to become a Christian and our words seem to have little effect, how encouraging it is to know that through God’s power and kindness we can still reach them through our prayers! Just as the earliest believers “all joined together constantly in 12

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prayer” before the Holy Spirit moved in many hearts on the day of Pentecost (acts 1:14), our prayers for God to draw others near can have a powerful impact in their lives. Pentecost is celebrated on the seventh Sunday after Easter and commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus’s disciples.

Jack was a plumber who worked on the construction of our church building project several years ago. He said some of the “choicest” words ever uttered in the building when a city inspector required him to relocate a drain in a concrete floor—earning him a prominent spot on my daily prayer list. When Jack learned I was praying for him, he sometimes would ask me to pray for friends who were sick or in the hospital. I continued to pray daily for seven years for God to draw Jack near and save him. One Saturday I was out of town at a hotel having a morning devotional time when I was convicted about a need for more baptisms at our church, and I began to pray. It was a simple and direct cry from the heart: “Please, Lord, just give us one!” At 1:17 that afternoon my cell phone rang. It was Jack. “James, we need to talk,” he said with a serious tone to his voice. “I’ve just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and I’m not ready.” We agreed to meet after his doctor’s appointment the following Wednesday, and he consented to my asking others to Loving Your Neighbor through Prayer

pray for him. At the prayer meeting at our church that Sunday evening we prayed for Jack’s healing and asked for God’s Spirit to make him sensitive to his need for salvation. The following Wednesday afternoon, after a heartfelt conversation, Jack knelt in our prayer room at the church and received Jesus as his Lord and Savior. When he was baptized the following Sunday, I was able to share with the congregation the ways that God had moved in answer to all of our fervent prayers. One of the most compelling things about prayer is how it emphasizes God’s ability to make things happen instead of our own. When we humbly admit that we can’t force others to come to Him through our own strength or cleverness, we open the door for God to accomplish One of the most what we could never do. As compelling Jim Cymbala observed, “God is attracted to weakness. He can’t things about resist those who humbly and prayer is how honestly admit how desperately it emphasizes they need Him. Our weakness 3 God’s ability to . . . makes room for His power.” That’s why Paul reminded the make things church in Corinth that his happen instead message and preaching “were

of our own.

3 Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, p. 19

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not with wise and persuasive words . . . so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 corinthians 2:4–5). When we pray for God’s Spirit to draw others near we invite His power, and He is able to overcome odds that seem insurmountable to us. He is “the One who breaks open the way” (micah 2:13). Here’s an example of what a prayer for God to draw someone near might look like: Lord Jesus, You said that “no one” can come to You “unless the Father” who sent You “draws them.” I praise You because of what You did for me at the cross, and because of Your Spirit! Thank You that even I can “have access to the Father” through You! Father, please send the Holy Spirit to draw ____________________ (name) near! You can move in their mind and heart in ways I could never imagine, and I pray that You will! Holy Spirit, please touch ____________________ (name) so that they will to be open to Your love and truth unlike ever before. Lord Jesus, I pray that ____________________ will repent of their sins and “turn to” You, so that their “sins may be wiped away” (acts 3:19 nlt). I know that nothing “is too hard” for you. I pray ____________________ will receive You today!

“Open Her Eyes, Father!” At the beginning of his letter to the church in Ephesus, Paul tells the believers there how he is praying for them: “I pray that the eyes of your Loving Your Neighbor through Prayer

heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people” (ephesians 1:18). The heart, from a biblical perspective, is the center of our being, instrumental in all of our decisions and actions. God’s Word tells us that “the human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked” (jeremiah 17:9 nlt). Jesus said that “it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly” (mark 7:21–22). While Paul’s prayer for the church in Ephesus was for those who already believed in Jesus, it also gives us vital insight about how to pray for those who have yet to come to Him. Scripture tells us that our adversary, the devil, “has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 corinthians 4:4). So we pray for God to open the eyes of those we are trying to reach with His love, asking that their “hearts will be flooded with light” (ephesians 1:18 nlt). We pray that they may see who Jesus is in a way they never have before and respond to Him personally. I saw my mother pray effectively this way for a friend who had been living in the kind of spiritual darkness Paul talks about. Linda had been one of my mother’s best friends for years. They had sung 16

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together in a community chorus, and Linda was the music teacher at my elementary school. When I was a little boy our families spent time together in each others’ homes. When I was a little older, Mom asked me to pray for God’s light to shine into Linda’s heart so that she would come to know Jesus as her Savior. “I’ve been praying for her for a long time,” she said. She told me that Linda’s parents had been involved in occult practices when she was a child, and that We pray for this had an influence on the way Linda thought about God. God to open the eyes of those Whenever she talked to Linda her heart about matters we are trying to from of faith, she seemed to run reach with His into a wall. My mother’s faithful love, asking that prayers for Linda underscored their “hearts the biblical truth that “our will be flooded struggle is not against flesh with light.” and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (ephesians 6:12). Prayer is a vital and powerful weapon in that struggle, one that through God’s mercy has “divine power to Loving Your Neighbor through Prayer

demolish strongholds” (2 corinthians 10:4) and let His light shine in. I was still in sixth grade when Linda responded to one of my mother’s invitations to attend our church. Soon afterwards she received Jesus there. A little while later her husband believed, and her daughters and sons as well. In years to follow Linda would become a faithful Christian and teacher in the same church, and God used her to deeply influence many others. My mother had no way of knowing it at the time, but her loving prayers for God to open Linda’s eyes would have a powerful, exponential effect that would ripple through generations. The Bible tells us that God “has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves” (colossians 1:13). When we fervently pray for His light to shine in others’ hearts, we join in His search and rescue mission. Our prayers send a searchlight into the darkness that holds them in its grip so that they may see the gospel in a fresh new way, take it to heart, and God may “grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth” (2 timothy 2:25). When Jesus first called Saul (Paul) he told him, “I am sending you . . . to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (acts 26:17–18, emphasis added). We’ve already seen how prayer mattered to Paul on his mission 18

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into a world lost in darkness. Following his example, here’s a model of a prayer for God to open others’ eyes: Let your light shine in ____________________’s (name) heart, God. Lord Jesus, you came “to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind” (luke 4:18). Open their eyes, Lord! “Send out your light and your truth. Let them guide” ____________________ (name). Lead them to you, so that they may take to heart the wonder and beauty of all that you are. Remove any obstacles that hold them back, Lord, so that the they can say, “you have freed me from my chains” (psalm 116:16). Save ____________________ (name) and set them free, Lord! Turn them “from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith” (acts 26:18). Please bring them out of “the dominion of darkness” and into Your kingdom (colossians 1:13), so that they may one day stand in the city where Your glory “gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp” (revelation 21:23), and praise You forever and ever!

“Send a Friend, Lord” Jesus’s instructions to “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (luke 10:2) emphasize two things. First Jesus tells His Loving Your Neighbor through Prayer

disciples to pray (“ask”), and then He tells them what to pray for (that workers will be sent). There’s an urgency about His words. Listeners in Israel’s first-century agrarian culture understood how life depended on the harvest. There’s only so much time to bring in a plentiful harvest, and if workers are scarce, something of great value will be lost. Jesus’s instructions point us to a basic and indispensable truth: there’s a direct connection between asking and more help being sent. God wouldn’t tell us to ask for something that He isn’t willing to give. God wants to send workers, and our asking for them is an important part of His plan to reach others with the good news. When we pray for God to send friends into the lives of those we love, we are praying a prayer God loves to answer! At first blush, this might appear to be a divine “wish.” But there is a substantial difference in suggesting that God “needs” our help and understanding that God wants our help. Our heavenly Father wants to work in partnership with us, and prayer always enhances the strength of our relationship with Him.

The early church understood this vital connection between our prayers and sending others to share the good news. The first believers were “worshiping the Lord and fasting” when the Holy Spirit instructed them to “set apart for me Barnabas and Saul (Paul) 20

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for the work to which I have called them.” Then they “fasted and prayed” and “placed their hands on them” and prayed again, and “sent them off” (see acts 13:2–3). The first missionaries were sent because the church was listening to God’s instructions, given to them as they prayed. Praying for God to send others isn’t a way of evading the responsibility of sharing the gospel ourselves; it’s simply a way of maximizing God’s infinite resources and recognizing that He has ways to reach people that we’ve never thought of. My wife and I learned the power of asking God to send other believers into the lives of those we love when our son was in rehab for heroin addiction. Even though he had grown up in church and Sunday school, after he left home and addiction took hold, it was as if he was unable to hear us when we tried to encourage him to turn to God. Try as we may, sometimes those we love need to hear the same truth in fresh ways from others so they can discover it for themselves. We began to pray that God would send a believing friend into his life who would be an example to him in faith and life. God answered our prayer in the person of Joel, a young man who had once struggled in the same way but was now blessed with a successful career and beautiful family. Joel and his wife took a special interest in our son, welcoming him into their home and their lives as if he were their own. As they shared their faith with him in practical and loving Loving Your Neighbor through Prayer

ways, our son discovered his new identity in Christ and was set free to live. The apostle Paul discusses our new identity in Christ. He notes that at one time we “were alienated from God” (COLOSSIANS 1:21). Now, however, “he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight” (V. 22).

Today our son serves others who struggle in the ways he once did. He’s faithfully involved in a recovery ministry in a church in the same city where he once abused drugs. God is now using him to help mend broken lives in a beautiful way. The difference Jesus has made in his life serves as a continual reminder to us of God’s mercy in answer to our simple prayer to “send a friend.” Here’s a prayer for that to happen in the life of someone you love: Father, I pray that You will send someone to ____________________ (name). Send a friend into their life who will share the good news about Jesus in a way that they will genuinely hear, so they may take it to heart with deep conviction. Please put your people in their path, Lord. Let them notice ____________________, and have compassion for them. Send those who will love him/her “so much” that they will be “delighted” to share “not only the gospel,” but their “lives as well” (1 thessalonians 2:8). You know exactly what it will take to reach ____________________ (name), Lord. Nothing is too 22

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hard for You! (jeremiah 32:27). Please, send a friend to share the good news with ____________________ (name), so that they may believe the truth, call on Your name, and be saved! (romans 10:13).

“How Can I Pray for You Today?” People are often reluctant to open their hearts about matters of faith with someone they’ve never met, but they are sometimes open to prayer. Right after Paul instructed the Christians in Colosse to “devote” themselves to prayer, he told them, “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (colossians 4:5–6, emphasis added). At the church I serve (Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina) we encourage our members to “make the most of every opportunity” and have grace-filled conversations with others by asking a simple question: “Is there anything I can pray for you about today?” We’ve found that people we’ve never met previously will frequently open up about personal needs in their lives, and this often becomes a springboard for future conversations about our faith. We’ve also been surprised that apart from the occasional unknowing shrug or “Not really,” we’ve never had a hostile response to the question. Instead, people are often visibly touched that someone cares enough about them to ask. We encourage our members to ask the question Loving Your Neighbor through Prayer

in gentle and natural ways. For example, if someone is out to eat and their meal has just been brought to the table, they might casually tell their server, “We’re about to thank God for our food. Is there anything we can pray for you about?” They’ll listen carefully to their response, and then pray after the server has left the table. We encourage them to ask quietly and with a humble spirit, so as not to call attention to themselves and to avoid the appearance of practicing “righteousness in front of others to be seen by them” (matthew 6:1). We also remind our people to tip generously after the meal—even if the service could have been better—as a way of representing God’s undeserved love and grace. Stories of church-attenders and even clergy undertipping waitstaff are common. Even anecdotal evidence of this does harm to the cause of Christ. We can’t stop the poor behavior of other Christians, but our own interactions with those who serve us bring the opportunity to show the generosity of the Savior.

If you’re not used to asking others if there’s anything you can pray for them about, you may feel a little nervous the first time you do it. This was the case for Bob and Pam, a couple who were new to our church. One Sunday I challenged the congregation to take a step of faith and ask others in the community for prayer needs, and Bob and Pam decided to give it a try. They were out for dinner 24

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that evening when they said to their server, “We’re on the way to a prayer meeting tonight at our church. Is there anything you would like us to pray about for you when we’re there?” Have grace-filled The young woman was visibly moved by their interest in her. conversations “You know,” she responded with others by thoughtfully, “I’ve never asking a simple been to church in my life. My family never went, but I had question: “Is a grandmother who did.” In there anything the ensuing conversation she I can pray for wanted to know more about Bob and Pam’s church, and you about about their faith. Bob told today?” me later, “It was one of those opportunities where you sensed that God was at work in a special way. That night I went to bed thinking about the verse, “In your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 peter 3:15). All around us are people who need to hear the good news about Jesus and come to Him for salvation. He told us, “Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest” (john 4:35). By Loving Your Neighbor through Prayer

their genuine desire to help others through their prayers, God gently prepared a way for Bob and Pam to have future conversations with their new friend. “The next time we see her,” Bob said, “I’m going to ask her about what we prayed for, talk to her about Jesus, and invite her to church.”

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Going the Distance

esus encouraged His disciples to “always pray and not give up” (luke 18:1). Persevering in prayer isn’t easy, but Scripture and history are full of examples that show how much it matters. Hannah prayed year after year that God would bless her with a baby (1 samuel 1:7), and Israel’s history was forever altered because of Samuel’s birth. Paul, Silas, and Timothy told the Christians in Thessalonica that they prayed “night and day” for them (1 thessalonians 3:10). Paul also told the church in Colosse about how Epaphras was “always wrestling in prayer” for them (colossians 4:12). 27

God’s Word underscores again and again that we are to go the distance and “always keep on praying” (ephesians 6:18). Still, sometimes we get discouraged. Especially if we’ve been praying for a number of years for someone to come to Christ and have seen little change. But don’t give up! It was in the middle of discouragement that Jeremiah was reminded that God’s “compassions never fail” and are “new every morning” (lamentations 3:22–23). If each day is filled with fresh new mercy from God, any day may be the day that darkness flees and “Christ the Morning Star shines” (2 peter 1:19 nlt) in the heart of someone you love as you persevere in prayer. It is “God’s kindness” that leads us to repentance (romans 2:4). Jeremiah wasn’t merely discouraged; he was in the process of witnessing the desolation of his city and the commission of war crimes against his people.

We have the assurance that we are asking for the best of all possible gifts when we pray for others to receive Jesus, and Jesus reminds us that our “Father in heaven” will “give good gifts to those who ask him” (matthew 7:11). The Bible also affirms that God is “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 peter 3:9 ). So we can pray expectantly with faith, knowing we are asking for something after the Father’s heart, even if it takes a long time. George Müller told of encountering a missionary 28

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who was concerned for the salvation of each of his six sons. The man had prayed for many years without seeing a change and asked Müller for advice. Müller responded, “Continue to pray for your sons, and expect We must pray an answer to your prayer, and you will have to praise God.” Six boldly and faithfully, even years later Müller encountered the man again, who told him though we may that five of the six came to the sometimes wait Lord within an eight day period for years for an two months after they had first 4 met. The man was now praying answer to our confidently for his sixth son. prayers. What a difference it makes when we pray with faith! We must pray boldly and faithfully, even though we may sometimes wait for years for an answer to our prayers. Müller confided on another occasion, “I have been praying every day for 52 years for two men, sons of a friend of my youth. They are not converted yet, but they will be!”5 Both of the men came to Christ shortly after Müller’s death. 4 George Müller, Answers to Prayer, p. 54, GeorgeMuller.org, http://www.georgemuller .org/uploads/4/8/6/5/48652749/_answers_to_prayer_book.pdf, accessed on July 30, 2016 5 An Hour with George Müller, by Charles R. Parsons. Kindle Edition, location 73. Pensacola FL, 1998, Chapel Library

Going the Distance

We must humbly submit ourselves to God as we pray, seeking His will above our own and His purpose above all others. God’s Word assures us that “the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (james 5:16). Faithful prayer, including prayer with fasting, leaves a legacy of love and blessing in others’ lives as we intercede for them, whether we see it right away or not. Jesus told two parables on prayer in which boldness and persistence were the reason for the answer given (see the parable of the persistent friend in Luke 11:5–13 and the persistent widow in Luke 18:1–8). And when he taught on fasting, Jesus did not say “if you fast,” but “when you fast” (matthew 6:16, emphasis added). Clearly Jesus intends for us to pray passionately and with deep commitment, seeking His kingdom above all. How can we not, when so much is at stake? With these parables, Jesus is not teaching us to be shamelessly audacious in our prayers, nor are we to “nag” God. Rather, He is showing us that if we sinful humans will respond affirmatively when asked to provide something, how much more will our heavenly Father give us good things? We can pray expectantly.

Because of God’s kindness to us through Jesus, we can “approach God’s throne of grace with confidence” (hebrews 4:16), lifting up God’s “great and precious promises” (2 peter 1:4) as we cry out with compassion for those who are lost in darkness and facing eternity apart from Him. And as we love others with our prayers, we can be assured that our Savior “is 30

PRAY FIRST

also interceding for us” (romans 8:34) to help us in every way. When Peter told the crowd on the day of Pentecost to “repent and be baptized,” he added, “The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call” (acts 2:38–39). Jesus is calling, calling lost souls out of darkness and into His everlasting love and light. He is also calling us to follow Him into a world which desperately needs the salvation only He can give. Pray and go! The “Lord of the harvest” (luke 10:2) is waiting. He has promised, “We will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (galatians 6:9).

Going the Distance

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Pray Faithfully for God to Open Hearts We all know people who need a relationship with Jesus. But we may secretly doubt that it will ever happen. Don’t give up hope. And never underestimate the importance of our prayers in reaching those far from God. Through humble, believing prayer we discover true power to reach others—God’s power to mercifully and faithfully move in response to our heartfelt pleas for those we love. In Pray First! you’ll find specific ways to pray as well as encouragement to continue to kneel before your Father on behalf of others. Dr. James Banks is the author of Prayers for Prodigals, Prayers for Your Children, Praying the Prayers of the Bible, Praying Together, and Praying with Jesus. Dr. Banks has been a pastor and church planter for more than twenty-five years and lives with his wife, Cari, in Durham, North Carolina. They have two adult children.

Discovery Series presents biblical insights for all areas of life. To read any of over 100 titles, visit discoveryseries.org.

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Going the Distance