I tell you this – though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence. (Luke 11:8)
Have you ever read something that literally made you spontaneously laugh out loud? That happened to me this week as I was reading Luke chapter 11 in preparation for Sunday morning. I got to verse 8 and the translation I was reading (NLT) rendered the last two words as “shameless persistence.” For some reason that struck me as funny, that Jesus would say it like that. I looked up the Greek and, sure enough, the word there is shamelessness, which takes on a slightly different nuance than mere persistence alone.
It’s important to note, however, that this shameless persistence is not the same thing as empty repetition. Jesus explicitly forbade that type of prayer like what the Pharisees did, where you drone on and on using big fancy words to try and impress other people. Our prayers should be simple, sincere, innocent – like a child’s. And, like a child, there should be a shamelessness – bordering on rude – and a boldness based in a lack of self-awareness. It is this type of prayer, one that is persistent and tenacious and borne out of both need and faith that it can only be met by God, that moves the heart of the Father for his children.
That’s the key to this whole thing: the Fatherhood of God. Jesus depicts the Father as one standing at the ready to supply your deepest and realest needs. “How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” (v. 13) He is merely a shamelessly persistent knock away.
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