1 John 5:14-15 - Prayer, Never Give Up

Today, Monday September 20 Prayer, Never Give Up 1 John 5:14-15 “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” In Luke 18:1 Jesus encouraged His disciples to be faithful to pray at all times. “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.”  Jesus is teaching us there that if we are praying like we should we will not give up on whatever we are facing and need His help with. Either we are praying or we are quitting! He told the story of a widow who had a problem with someone harassing her and she went to an unjust judge who wanted a bribe before he would help you. Since she was a widow and had no one else to help her, and she had no money to pay a bribe with, she kept going back to the judge anyway. After a while he was weary of her coming and he finally issued the judgement that took care of her adversary. Then Jesus made the point, that we have a Father in heaven who is a just God, and who always does what is right and best for His children. And if the unjust judge finally did the right thing, you can be assured that your just Father in heaven will answer your plead for help! In other words, don’t give up just because it appears that God doesn’t answer your prayer the first time you pray. God always answers prayer. Sometimes He says no. Sometimes He says yes.  And sometimes He says wait. I have many questions about prayer myself. Over the years I have prayed and prayed about a specific need and then just the opposite happened for what I was asking. I would fast, pray fervently, and consistently for someone to be heal of their cancer or sickness and then they would pass away. And the devil would then whisper in my ear, “See what good did it to pray?” And if I wasn’t careful, I would become discourage and maybe even disillusioned with God and think that He didn’t really care about me, or maybe something must be wrong with me. Honestly, I still can’t answer all your questions about this, but a long time ago I settled the question about does God care and really love me! I remember and consider the cross of Jesus Christ, where God gave His only Son to die in my place, for my sins, when I didn’t deserve it! And over the years, I have found out that even if it appeared that God didn’t answer my prayer the way I wanted Him to, my relationship with Him was more intimate and personal because of the time I spent with Him in prayer, and actually my faith was strengthen, believing that God knows best, and maybe when I get to heaven, He will allow me to see how, He in His grace and mercy, didn’t answer that specific prayer. Don’t ever give up on God. He never gives up on you! I love the old hymn that says, in the end “we will understand better by and by.” God bless!