Prayer and Faith

Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?” [Luke 18.6-8]

This is a powerful passage of scripture.

It is important to notice that Jesus starts off talking about persistence in prayer and ends up talking about faith. Why is that? Because prayer and faith are inseparable. 

Prayer is an act of faith. It is not the only act of faith, but it is the act of faith upon which all other acts of faith stand. Jesus' life is all the proof we need of this - He was known as a man of prayer and He often withdrew to pray.

I want to point out a subtle reference to the fact above in today's reading from John's gospel.

So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.” [John 11.41-42]

Jesus said, "Father, thank you for hearing me..." We must realize that Jesus did not pray anything to the Father at this time (other that to say thank you). So, when was He talking about? He could only have been referring to the prayer foundation He had already firmly built regarding Lazarus' situation prior to His arrival!

The lesson to learn here is that "faith" is not where we are failing as much as "prayer." We need to adopt a mindset that we will persevere in prayer - even to our own discomfort (Jesus did say, "take up your cross..."). 

I am suggesting here that we need to pray more and pray more effectively.

Of course we don't have time, right? But that doesn't make it God's fault that we don't have miracles!

I think its no mistake that today's One Year Chronological Bible reading also includes this passage:

If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it. [Luke 17.33]

Oh yeah, God is dealing with me...

Father, help us to go "all-in" with You and stop all the nonsense of trying to run our own lives...