Pray, Pray, Pray
As Jesus nears the end of his Sermon on the Mount, he comes back to prayer, and he calls us to pray with persistence and with confidence because prayer is the only way we can live the kingdom life. Pray, pray, pray, and God will give us all we need to live the kingdom life.
1. Why pray?
But, why pray? If our Heavenly Father already knows what we need before we ask him (Mt 6:8), why ask? God feeds and clothes the birds and flowers of the field (Mt 6:24-30), and they don’t pray. If we should not worry because God knows that we need these things, and he will give them to us as well, why pray? If God is the all-knowing God, why pray? Many people do not pray and still receive God’s good gifts because God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Mt 5:45). Some say prayer does not work. Just look at the many unanswered prayers. Answered prayer is just a coincidence. Why pray?
Prayer is not for God but for us. Through prayer we remain poor in the spirit. We are meek and humble. Through prayer, in humility, we submit ourselves and surrender our lives to God. Through prayer we recognize and acknowledge that he alone is Lord and that He alone saves us and provides for us. Therefore, we ask daily for our daily bread, our material needs, because we know and acknowledge that they come from God. We declare our physical dependence on God. The more we pray the more we live in submission and dependence on God, the more we are aware of his presence in our lives and all around us.
Through prayer we mourn. We repent and confess our sins. We pray for forgiveness and deliverance. Through prayer we express our faith. We believe, and we call on the Lord because “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Ro 10:13).
Through prayer we hunger and thirst for righteousness. We want the kingdom life, so we pray for the kingdom life. We pray for spiritual growth asking God to make us more like Jesus. And our Father in heaven gives to us the good gifts. These good gifts are all that we need to live the kingdom life as children of God. The good gifts are all the material and spiritual blessings that enable us to live the kingdom life in this world. It includes the Holy Spirit. “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Lk 11:13). The Holy Spirit gives us and enables in us the qualities of the kingdom character, the heart-habits of the kingdom. The Holy Spirit empowers us to obey our Lord.
In verse 12 Jesus summarizes his sermon, and again commands us to love — “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” And then he warns us, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Mt 7:13-14)
Living the kingdom life is hard. We cannot do it alone. It is beyond human achievement. It seems impossible, and for us it is. But nothing is impossible with God. To live the kingdom life is to obey our Lord’s commands and practice a surpassing righteousness. To live the kingdom life is to be meek, humble, pure in heart, and peacemakers. It is to forgive and to love. To live the kingdom life is to be holy as God is holy, to be perfect as our Father is perfect.
When we know and see God’s perfect standards for kingdom living, we realize that we need grace. There is no hope for us apart from God’s love and mercy. There is no hope apart from the good gifts that God will give us when we ask. Therefore, knowing God’s perfect requirements drives us to our knees and God’s throne of grace. We ask, we seek, we knock — we pray, and God will give us all we need to live the kingdom life. The kingdom life then becomes possible and real.
2. Pray with persistence
We must pray with persistence. Ask, seek, and knock. Asking requires humility, to be meek. Seeking requires of us to take action, to seek help. Knocking requires perseverance. The Greek grammar here actually says that we must keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. Pray with persistence. Keep on praying.
When a loved one is sick, or when we experience a crisis, we pray with great persistence. It’s easy then to pray without ceasing. But do we pray with equal persistence for our own spiritual growth and for the spiritual growth of others?
When was the last time you prayed for your own spiritual growth? Are you praying for the kingdom life to be real in your life? Are you praying daily, persistently, specifically? We all know where we fall short. And if we don’t know, ask the Holy Spirit and he will show you. Pray then specifically for those qualities and heart-habits of the kingdom that we lack or those that need more growth
Perhaps we know a brother and sister in Christ who is struggling in their faith, struggling with living the kingdom life — are we praying for their spiritual growth? When was the last time you prayed for an unbeliever? We all know people in our community who do not know and follow Jesus. Are we praying for them? With persistence, without ceasing?
We must persevere in asking for God’s good gifts, for his heavenly treasures. He will give them, and we will be able to live the kingdom life here and now for his glory.
3. Pray with confidence
We can pray with confidence. Because of Jesus Christ, and “in him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence” (Eph 3;12). “We have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask … This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.” (1 Jn 3:21-22; 5:14-15) Jesus opened the way for us to enter freely and boldly into God’s presence.
We can pray with confidence because in Jesus Christ we are children of God, and God is our Father. We human beings, who are sinners and evil, know how to give good things to our children and even to other people. How much more will our Heavenly Father, who knows what we need, give us the good gifts that will enable us to live the kingdom life.
We can pray with confidence because God promises us that if we seek him, we will find him. “But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deut. 4:29). Jeremiah 29:12-14 — “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord.”
When we pray with confidence we must have faith. We should believe and not doubt. “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” (Mt. 21:21-22) James 1:5-8 — “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.”
4. Not carte blanche for our desires
However, Jesus’ promises are not carte blanche, a blank check, for our material desires and selfish wishes. Many have taken these verses out of its context, its place, in the Sermon on the Mount. With James 4:2, “You do not have because you do not ask,” they teach a name it and claim it theology. All you have to do is ask with faith and persistence, and you will get it. This turns prayer into magic. By waving a prayer wand any wish will be granted and every dream will come true. We turn prayer into Alladin’s lamp with a genie. We turn God into our servant that abides by our every wish. Or perhaps we use prayer as a heavenly slot machine. You keep on pulling the handle, and hopefully one day you will hit the jackpot, and God will give you what you want. The Bible's teachings on prayer and Jesus’ promises here are not unconditional.
We must pray with the right motives, with the right heart, and ask for the right things. Jam 4:2-3 — “You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” What are our real, true motives and reasons when we pray?
God answers our prayers when we pray according to his will. “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us” (1 Jn 5:14). God answers our prayers when we obey his will. “Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.” (1 Jn 3:21-23)
We pray to bear fruit, and we bear fruit when we abide in Christ and his words in us. Then we can “ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (Jn 15:7-8). Jesus chose us, called us, and appointed us so that we might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and “so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.” (Jn 15:16-17) We pray for love.
We pray to seek and know God’s will. We want to obey and do what pleases Him. We want to abide in Christ. We want to bear fruit and glorify Him. Therefore, Jesus promises us, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (Jn 14:13-14)
So, there are qualifications to God answering our prayers — the right hearts, God’s will, our obedience, our bearing fruit, and God’s glory. When we are truly seeking and knowing God’s will, wanting to live the kingdom life, there are some requests we will not make. And if we should make wrong requests, by accident, or intentionally because of selfish desires, God knows what is best for us and will answer accordingly.
Pray with persistence. Pray with confidence. Let us make prayer our life, and our life a prayer. A kingdom life is a life defined by prayer, founded in prayer, rooted in prayer, energized and enabled by prayer. Pray, pray, pray. And God will give us the good gifts, and we will live the kingdom life here and now in this life and in this world.