The Roll of Persistence in Prayer and Intercession

Provided below are several passages that relate to being persistent in prayer.  Before we start dropping more dots on prayer and intercession, please consider practicing a close reading (like you may have done last week) on one or more of the passages below.  As before, I recommend that you read through all of the passages at normal speed at least once.  After that, pick your passage/s and then read through it/them S L O W L Y at least twice

God’s peace on all’y’all.

Love in Him,

Dave

CLOSE READING EXERCISE #3

Genesis 32:22-31

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.  After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.  So Jacob was left alone, and a Man wrestled with him till daybreak.  When the Man saw that He could not overpower him, He touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the Man.  Then the Man said, “Let Me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let You go unless You bless me.”

The Man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the Man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”

Jacob said, “Please tell me Your Name.”

But He replied, “Why do you ask My Name?”  Then He blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.  Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.

Daniel 10:1-14

In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia, a revelation was given to Daniel (who was called Belteshazzar).  Its message was true and it concerned a great war.  The understanding of the message came to him in a vision.

At that time I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks.  I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips; and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over.

On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river, the Tigris, I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of the finest gold around his waist.  His body was like chrysolite, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude.

I, Daniel, was the only one who saw the vision; the men with me did not see it, but such terror overwhelmed them that they fled and hid themselves.  So I was left alone, gazing at this great vision; I had no strength left, my face turned deathly pale, and I was helpless.  Then I heard him speaking, and as I listened to him, I fell into a deep sleep, my face to the ground.

A hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees.  He said, “Daniel, you who are highly esteemed, consider carefully the words I am about to speak to you, and stand up, for I have now been sent to you.”  And when he said this to me, I stood up trembling.

Then he continued, “Do not be afraid, Daniel.  Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.  But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days.  Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia.  Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.”

Matthew 7:7-12

“’Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

‘Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!  So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.’”

Mark 5:25-29

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.   She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.  When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch His clothes, I will be healed.”  Immediately her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

Luke 18:1-8

Then Jesus told His disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.  He said:  “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men.  And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

“For some time he refused.  But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’”

And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.  And will not God bring about justice for His chosen ones, who cry out to Him day and night? Will He keep putting them off?  I tell you, He will see that they get justice, and quickly.  However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”

James 4:1-10

What causes fights and quarrels among you?  Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?  You desire but do not have, so you kill.  You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.  You do not have because you do not ask God.  When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God?  Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  Or do you think Scripture says without reason that He jealously longs for the Spirit He has caused to dwell in us?  But He gives us more grace.  That is why Scripture says:

“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”

Submit yourselves, then, to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  Come near to God, and He will come near to you.  Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.