Unrelenting Prayer

Jesus said men should always pray and not lose heart!

“And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’ ” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? ^zWill he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Luke 18:1-8

Jesus said men should always pray and not lose heart!

Prayer is the conversational part of the Most important love relationship in our lives. In prayer we learn to keep company with him in the everyday stuff of life. We develop spiritual friendship with him. Prayer is not only a real relationship with the kindest person in the universe, but Jesus also invites us to partner with him in shifting history through our prayer and intercession, releasing justice, bringing forth awakening and revival in the nations and preparing the planet for his return. God releases his power, his truth and his love in response to the prayers of his people!

When we pray according to God’s will and for his renown his activity always increases. He always responds. As Hudson Taylor said, “When we work we work but when we pray, God works.”

How many of you want to take your place in history in your generation? I want to encourage you to first become a person of prayer – no matter what job you have, family you have – whatever you story looks like -everyone can be an intercessor. You can see massive impact in your generation as you learn to pray! He calls us to Always pray – just as he always prays for us –

“Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” Hebrews 7:25

Men should always pray and not loose heart. At the end of the parable Jesus writes,

“When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on the earth”

His point is that a lifestyle of unrelenting prayer is evidence of a person’s faith and we know that faith is the only thing that pleases God. We know that faith is the substance of things hoped for (Hebrews 11:1). As Jesus says, men should always pray and not loose heart, or in other words don’t loose HOPE!

Hope is future orientated. It is the joyful expectation of something good from God coming our way! It is a vision of God’s good future before us, meaning where you are going is better than where you are and where you are coming from.

Our ultimate hope is discovered in seeing and savoring, prizing and praising, recognizing and relishing the glory of God in the face of Christ. Christ is our HOPE! He is the summation of all the promises of God, the source of all the riches of God, now and forevermore. In Christ we have been given an inheritance of HOPE.

Fostering a culture of Hope is critical to effective and sustainable intercession!

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

As Paul declares to us in 1 Cor 13:13,

“Now these three remain, faith, hope and love but the greatest of these is love.”

The greatest of these three is love, however I believe hope comes first. Hebrews tells us that faith is the substance of things hoped for. And of course we know that faith needs to work itself out in love (Gal. 5:6).

So we could look at this way: our hope is in hearing the music of the future, our faith is dancing to that music NOW! And our love is brining others into the dance with you! The song being sung is the beauty, majesty, and supremacy of Jesus Christ.

I want to encourage us to create a culture of Hope through our IPC Global Family!

When our prayers are shaped by the Word, we are building on solid ground. We are responding to who God is and what he is doing. When we are claiming his promises, and obeying his commands, there is no better way to pray! The Scriptures declare to us that God is much better than we think he is, and is doing much more than we think he is doing in response to our prayers. As Paul prays in Ephesians 3:20-21,

“Now to him wo is able to do far more abundantly that all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

As we pray the Word, we are pleading the good promises of God! Promises predict the answers by foretelling what to expect! They are the molds into which we pour our prayers. Promises like these, “call unto me and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things which you do not know” (Jer. 33:3). Promises like, “whatever things you ask for in prayer, believing, you will receive” (Matt. 21:22). Promises like, “if you ask me anything in my name I will do it” (John 14:14). This next year 2025, lets’ pray BIG Prayers of HOPE in the glorious promise of God’s Word that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14).

When we pray God’s word we pray from the answer … with the answer in mind! When we plead God’s promises we are praying from the answer to the answer! In intercession we are asking him what he asks us to ask him! As we ask according to his will and for his renown, his activity always increases, releasing his power, his love, and his truth on the earth!

Together let’s Ignite Hope in our generation as we pray God’s word in 2025!

This parable gives us HOPE. It points to persistent, on-going night and day prayer as the vehicle for releasing justice.

During the past several decades, the Holy Spirit has taken the realities of intercessory prayer and branded them on the hearts of his people in every culture, tribe, tongue and nation. I believe a new day has dawned in the ministry of intercessory prayer and the Holy Spirit is intent on spreading the news. Our God is a God of deep love and desire. His passion is for his people to know his goodness and to come to seek him based on the confidence that he has heard and will act on the prayers He himself has birthed in our hearts!

This parable starts in the context of a city, ‘in a certain city.’ How many of our cities today need justice?

Often a common interpretation of the parable is a misperception of Jesus’s objective. It concerns a widow who had a problem for which she needed Justice to be invoked by someone with the authority to do so. She was desperate and hopelessness for her situation and her inability to bring about Justice in any other way and her only recourse was to go to the judge.

Now in the Middle Eastern culture of that day it was difficult at best to be a widow. If she had no living son she could only survive by begging or prostitution, redeemed by a Kinsman, or becoming a slave of the Temple.

The widow in the story was alone with no Defender and to make matters worse she was stuck with a judge who in the chilling words of Jesus ‘did not fear God nor regard man.’

Jesus is building tension to focus our awareness on the critical nature of the plight of widow. Her only hope was for the intervention from the one who was supposed to be a representative of righteousness and yet was anything but that. In the Roman dominated society of the day many government officials obtained their positions by fraud, deception or treachery with the aim of gaining wealth and power. This widow meant nothing to him.

She chooses the only weapon she had left at her disposal – tenacious, unrelenting appeal day after day…

The text states that ‘she came to him’ but the verb tense in the original language indicates a repeated action that she ‘kept’ coming to the judge, relentlessly asking for her needs to be met, for justice against her adversary. The judge used the phrase ‘ she troubles me with her continual coming.’

She was a thorn in his flesh. She would not be denied until he finally relented and avenged her simply because she was wearing him out. He finally caves in and gives her what she wants.

The reality of the story in Luke 18 is that Jesus was building tension for the purpose of contrast - his intent was not to say, I want you to pray like this widow. He was saying, “if that kind of appeal by one widow with no rights or standing is effective … even before an unjust judge … how much more will the prayers of God’s beloved bride be effective with him whose heart is ravished with love for her? Will he not hear the cry of his elect ones and answer quickly when they call out to him night and day?

Jesus was speaking about a widow because the people of God in that day were living as widows – and yet the bridegroom was standing in their midst unrecognized and ignored. They were living like the widow – abandoned, lonely and without hope.

And yet God himself was proclaiming through the presence of his glorious Son, that the day of restoration had arrived. The bridegroom had come – and the abandonment and isolation of the people could end if only they would turn and hear the good news!

“Did you hear what the unjust judge says? And will not God bring out justice for his elect who cry out to him night and day?” Luke 18:7

He is saying, ‘did you get the gist of it?’ If an unrighteous reluctant judge who hates the lady and doesn’t like people says yes, how much more will God grant justice to those whom he loves!

The contrast is this - Our judge is a righteous judge and as the elect, we are not widowed but ‘betrothed to this Judge as our Bridegroom King!

And the principle is this – effective prayer is not just about persistence – it’s about persistence with intimacy that moves the heart of God to grant to us justice against our adversary!

Justice in simple terms is making wrong things right!

What wrong things need to be made right in your city?

When justice comes to sickness there is healing, when Justice comes to torn relationships there is reconciliation, when Justice comes to loss there is restoration, when Justice comes to rejection there is acceptance, when justice comes to oppression there is liberty, when justice comes to weariness there is rest, when justice comes to fear there is peace, when justice comes to barrenness, there is fruitfulness, when justice comes to loneliness, there is companionship, when justice comes to depression there is JOY, and when Justice comes to Sin there is forgiveness, when justice comes to the lost and broken of your city or your nation there is REVIVAL!

However the condition is night and day prayer!

What would a canopy of night and day prayer motivated in the love of God look like in your city?

Here is our story and some of the results of justice that we experienced firsthand to the Glory of God! City Wide Transformation Story

Conclusion

Beloved you are the elect of God! You are his favored ones, his chosen people, meaning you have been hand-picked. It’s like Jesus looking to and fro across the earth and saying I want you and you and you! His affections run so strong, and deep for you that words fail to describe it. His love for you is beyond your wildest dreams, more than you could think or imagine, in fact you are his Dream come true!

Given his profound affection for you and given your unrelenting prayer, there can be no mistaking the outcome! God will answer prayer! But it takes both intimacy, and persistence!

The fact of the matter is we do have an adversary, and his name is the devil. The devil wants you to give up. He wants to convince you that God has ignored your prayer and is refusing to act on your behalf.

I truly believe the greatest warfare in our lives revolves around our prayer life. Nothing threatens hell more than the praying saint. The devil knows that if you become a person engaged in unrelenting prayer, bathed in the love of God, you are a dangerous weapon in the hand of your God and your adversary the devil is enraged.

If you can learn to kneel before God in prayer, then you can stand before anything in your life…

When you are abiding in His presence, clinging to his love, living in His Word, holding to his Promise, remaining fervent in spirit and believing for His visitation, you’re an explosion waiting to happen! As you pray you are standing on the platform that rewrites human history, the very hinge of history … little keys open big doors called awakening and revival! He will match your weak prayer with His Power, for His Glory, and for your joy!