Demands of Jesus - Always Pray and Do Not Lose Heart - 2

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus

It has been a month since I last posted on the series on "Demands of Jesus". I had been busy with some personal matters and was also in the transfer process from Cochin to Pune in India on work related matters. We have been learning about the Demands made by Jesus of His followers for the past few months. In the previous session, we started to learn about Jesus' demand to keep on praying and we were learning on WHY should we pray. We learnt one of the reasons being that prayer glorifies our God - Prayer is designed by God to display His fullness and our need. Prayer glorifies God because it puts usin the position of the thirsty and God in the position of the all-supplying fountain.

Now let us look into the second reason why Jesus asked us to pray

WHY? For our Joy
The other purpose Jesus came to accomplish was our joy. Everything He taught was aimed to free us from eternal-joy-killers and fill us with the only joy that lasts - joy in God. "These things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves" (John 17:13). One of His most pervasive teachings for our joy was the teaching on prayer, and He made His motive explicit: Our joy. "Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full" (John 16:24). The most wonderful thing about prayer, as Jesus demands it, is that it is perfectly suited to secure God's glory and our joy.

These are great incentives for us to obey Jesus' demand that we "always... pray and not lose heart" (Luke 18:1). To these He adds other incentives, because He is so eager for us to feel hopeful in our praying. He says, for example, "Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him" (Matt. 6:8). The point is that we don't need to multiply pious phrases in prayer hoping that we might awaken God's attention or inclination. He is our caring Father, and He is all-knowing. He will answer. Then Jesus underlines God's readiness to answer by comparing Him to a human father, but pointing out that God is far more eager to answer than human fathers:

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you... which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in Heaven give good things to those who ask Him! (Matt. 7:7-11)

So in answer to the question why we should pray, Jesus says: because God is inclined to hear and answer our prayers - which is not surprising, since prayer is designed to magnify God's glory while sustaining our joy in Him.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, we have now understood on 'WHY' Jesus asks us to pray without losing heart. In the following series, we will understand on How are we to pray and What are we to pray and For Whom are we to pray. 

May the love of our Heavenly Father, grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit guide us all to pray unceasingly to our Father. Please do keep this sinful servant in your prayers.

Your Brother in Christ Jesus

Jobin

Source: What Jesus Demands from the World - John Piper