Jesus Teaches His Disciples to Pray

Luke 11:1-13

GOLDEN TEXT: “Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and ye shall find: knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”—Luke 11:9

IN PROPORTION as the Lord’s people grow in grace, knowledge and love, they will grow in appreciation of the great privilege of prayer. Not that prayer will take the place of the study of the divine Word, but that realizing more and more from the Word something of the length and. breadth and height and depth of divine mercy and provision, the true children of God have comfort of heart and joy in going to the throne of grace to give thanks unto the Lord for all His mercies, to commune with Him respecting their trials and difficulties, and to assure Him of their loving confidence in the gracious promises of His Word, in the exceeding riches of His grace, and in His wisdom, love and power to fulfill toward them and in them all His gracious promises.

“Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks.” (I Thess. 5:17,18) The advanced Christian is to be so fully in accord with the Father and with the Son and the divine program, the plan of the ages, that his entire life will be a prayer and a song in respect to every affair of life. He will have in his mind primarily, what is the will of God in this matter? “Whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, let us do all to the glory of God.” The heart that is continually in all of life’s affairs looking for divine direction is thus continuously in a prayer attitude, and no other condition is proper to the Christian—“In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths”; “Delight thyself also in the Lord and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”—Prov. 3:6; Psa. 37:4

Although our Lord did not teach His disciples to pray until they requested instruction, this was evidently not because He was unwilling to assist them, but because He wished them to realize and desire further teaching. Our lesson contains the Lord’s outline respecting a proper form of prayer, beginning with ascription of praise and thanks, and proceeding to expressions of confidence in God and the promises of His Kingdom, continuing with acknowledgment of our dependence upon His provisions day by day, and ending with expressions of confidence in His power and goodness to protect us and ultimately deliver us. This is the general form that the Lord commends to us as proper in approaching the throne of grace.

Why should the Lord wish us to ask before He would give His blessing? For a wise purpose, we may be sure! He would have us feel our need, He would have us appreciate the privilege, He would have us look for the result, and in all these experiences He would develop us as His sons of the New Creation. Therefore we are to ask and seek and knock if we would find the riches of God’s grace, and have opened to us more and more the wonderful privileges and mercies and blessings which He is so willing to give to us as we develop in character and in preparation for His mercies.

It was to illustrate this that the Lord gave the parable of this lesson respecting the householder who was short of food for the entertainment of his visitor. Our Lord instructs us that we should be so earnest for the Kingdom, for the honor of the Father’s name, for the daily portion of the bread of life, for deliverance from the Evil One, and for God’s keeping power in every trouble, and in all of life’s affairs His supervision, that we continually go to Him day by day, hourly and momentarily, watching and praying without ceasing, and in everything giving thanks, accepting by faith the promises of His Word that all things shall work together for our good. To such the blessings are on the way, sometimes coming in one form, and sometimes in another, but generally in ways not anticipated and usually larger by far than anything we had asked.

Choosing an illustration from life, our Lord reminded the disciples that few if any earthly parents if their children cried to them for blessings, would give them injurious things instead. His words are, If ye being evil, being imperfect through the fall, more or less selfish in all of your thoughts and words and dealings, still would be disposed to give good gifts to your children, how much more would your Heavenly Father give the good gift of all gifts, the Holy Spirit, to them that ask Him for it.

The clear intimation is that this, the essence of our petitions to our Heavenly Father, should be for more of His Holy Spirit; and that we should look to the experiences of life, its trials, disappointments, discouragements, oppositions, not as being really injurious to us, not as being stones, scorpions, and serpents, but as being blessings in disguise, if we receive them in the proper spirit.

The Lord is able to make all things abound in the interest of His children, the New Creatures in Christ Jesus. These know from experience that some of their severest trials and disappointments of an earthly kind have worked out for them development of character, elements of the Holy Spirit, which they probably could not have so well received in any other manner.

Hence, when we pray to the Lord for His blessings, we are with patience to wait for them, and to seek them and to find them in the various circumstances of life which His providence will permit. Remembering that the Holy Spirit is the spirit of meekness, gentleness, patience, long-suffering, brotherly kindness, love, we may well ask ourselves how else could. the Lord work out for us these elements of character which we desire, did He not permit to come upon us the trials and difficulties of life necessary to their development.

QUESTIONS:

Can, or should prayer be used as a substitute for Bible study?

What does it mean to “Pray without ceasing”?

Why does the Lord wish us to ask for blessings which He already knows we need?

Is prayer merely the asking God for blessings and favors?

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