Art of Living #18

Åґ☂ ◎ḟ ʟ☤√ḯη❡ #18 : "Pray without ceasing." (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Ѧ℘☺﹩☂◎łḯ¢ €ϰ℘øüηḓ : To pray without ceasing is to pray without stopping. In other words it means to pray always. Many times when we ask for the souls of our loved ones, community of people, our city, state, nation and nations to be saved, as we see no tangible change in them for a long time we become discouraged and stop praying for them. But here is God's encouragement that He will aswer us without fail if we persist to pray for them. Jesus spoke about a man going to his friend's house at midnight to ask for bread to be set before his guest who have come to his house. The friend's answer was very discouraging to hear as he said that he is sleeping along with his children in the bed and that he refused to get up and provide for him the bread that he asked for. But because he persistently kept asking, seeking and knocking, his friend could not sleep properly because of his great disturbance. In other words, his persistence showed that he was serious enough not to go without receiving the bread that was needed to be set before the friend who had come to him on his journey (Luke 11:5-8).

What can we learn from this? The bread is the life of Jesus that we are asking for someone we know in our lives journey (John 6:33, 47-48). If we ask to God persistently for all the unsaved loved ones and people to be saved without getting discouraged, God who finds us that we are serious enough of what we are asking for, will surely give His answer positively by saving them at the right time in which He visits them.

Here is a glorious Testimony of persistence in prayer that saved the friends of George Mueller, even to the last one who was saved after he was dead. One day George Mueller began praying for five of his friends. After many months, one of them came to the Lord. Ten years later, two others were converted. It took 25 years before the fourth man was saved. Mueller persevered in prayer until his death for the fifth friend, and throughout those 52 years he never gave up hoping that he would accept Christ! His faith was rewarded, for soon after Mueller’s funeral the last one was saved. I pray that God might give us such faith and persistence to pray for our unsaved loves ones and people around the world, so that we might joyfully see them receive us in our heavenly home for eternity ahead. The man who saves people through persistent prayer is a wise son who gathers great riches for eternity (Prov 11:30; Matt 6:20-21; Luke 16:9). Blessings....