Bible reading
5 Then He said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to him at midnight and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; 6 for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and from inside he answers and says, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his [c]persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened. 11 Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? 12 Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”
Source: Luke 11:5-13 (New American Standard Bible)
Bible Study summary
How is our prayer life? What attitude should we have when we pray to God?
After Jesus taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus furthers his teaching with this Parable of the Persistent Friend to show us a picture of persistence in prayer. In this parable, we see a sleeping friend awakened by a persistent friend asking for bread for his visiting friend who traveled a long journey. The sleeping friend was annoyed and refused to give him bread. However, the persistent friend did not give up. He continued knocking. Finally, the sleeping friend answered not because of their friendship, but because of the persistence of his friend.
Persist until we receive
When we pray, do we easily give up if our prayers go unanswered? The friend’s request was answered because of his shameless persistence. Without any self consciousness, he shamelessly kept on asking on his friend’s behalf. He persisted until he received the bread. If we can go to God in prayer with such an attitude, there may be results. God loves that we keep asking him and depending on him. He’s not like the sleeping friend who finds it annoying that we keep asking. Prayer is a process of transformation. In the process of being persistent, we are being changed to be more like God. God wants to teach us to have this character of being persistent, because God himself has the character of being persistent.
Persist for others
This friend was not asking for bread for himself, but for his visiting friend. Do we have the persistence to pray through for someone else’s sake? More often than not, we are the sleeping friend in the house, and God is knocking on our doors asking us to take care of those in need. When we pray to God to help our friends, are we ready for God’s answer that involves us to help? We need to be shameless in helping our friends.
Persist after spiritual things
When we come to God, what do we ask? What do we persist about? Do we persist just about physical things? Sometimes our prayers go unanswered because we are asking for the wrong things. In verse 13, Jesus leads us away from the physical all the way upwards to the spiritual. Do we persist in spiritual things? When we make a request to God, we shouldn’t treat him like our physical father asking for physical things, we ought to ask God our heavenly father for spiritual things only he can give. If we are to persist, we need to persist on the right thing. Notice how the persistent friend doesn’t turn to any other person. This means that he knows that this is the only friend who can give him what he needs. When we come to God, do we also have the same sentiment that God is the only who we can turn to?
Bible study by Joanna
Summary by Sonya