The Essentials of a Victorious Importunate Prayer Life (8)
We should persist in prayer not just for ourselves but also for others
In concluding our discussion on the essentials of victorious importunate praying, we should mention what we should be persistent about. As we have done throughout this series, we shall look at Luke 11:5-8 and Luke 18:2-5 as the basis for our discussion.
From the two parables told by the Lord Jesus, we see that the man who went to his friend at night wanted bread for a wayfaring friend of his and not for himself. On the other hand, the widow who kept going to the unjust judge wanted justice for herself. So, while the former was intercessory, the latter was personal.
We should be importunate when praying for our needs and the needs of others
When we pray, we should be importunate in asking for our personal needs and interceding for others. Importunity for our individual needs requires very little prodding from anyone. Whenever someone needs something badly, they can pray to God until He answers. But when it comes to interceding for others, prayer can very easily be seen as a burden—but this ought not to be so.
The parable of the man who went to his friend at night to ask for bread was narrated by the Lord to illustrate how we should pray the now commonly called, "The Lord's Prayer." By using this illustration and His remarks afterwards (Luke 11:9-10), the Lord intends that we do not take "The Lord's Prayer" for granted, reciting it by rote. Instead, He wants us to persist in praying the contents of the prayer consistently, constantly, and continually, until we receive the answer from our heavenly Father! Hence, when asking for sustenance, we should do so daily until the Lord fills us with every good thing He has for us for the day. Similarly, when we pray,
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10, KJV)
we should do so daily and without ceasing, until God's kingdom and will are established in our lives.
Speaking through Isaiah, God said,
I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence, And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. (Isaiah 62:6-7, KJV)
We also are to pray daily and without ceasing that God's kingdom and will, be established in the lives of others and on the earth until He does so.
In addition to praying for our needs, we must understand that we ought to intercede for others. Yes, we should be importunate when praying for our needs and when seeking the good of others. We must remember that Christianity is not self-centred but others-centred!
Basic requirements for intercession
Every intercessor must possess two basic qualities: love for humanity and credit with God.
It was love for humanity that put Jesus on the cross (John 3:16), and, to pray, while hanging on the cross:
"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." (Luke 23:34, NKJV)
If you hate someone, rather than intercede for them, you would want them severely punished. This was what happened when God sent Jonah to Nineveh. Rather than go to Nineveh, Jonah went in the opposite direction because he wanted God to destroy Nineveh. So, when God showed compassion on Nineveh when they fasted and repented after hearing Jonah's message from God, Jonah was angry. This prompted God to say,
should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock? (Jonah 4:11, NKJV)
If we must intercede for others, we must love them, regardless of skin colour, ethnicity, language, etc. We must see people as deserving of our prayers because "they know not what they do."
If someone has committed an offence and is to be punished, no one would listen to their accomplice's plea for mercy or leniency on their behalf. However, someone held in high esteem in society pleading on the offender's behalf, will be heard and considered. In the same way, a sinner cannot intercede for another sinner. Only a righteous man—one who has credit with God—can intercede for a sinner. A sinner can, however, plead for mercy for himself. After being forgiven, he is then qualified to intercede for other sinners, from a heart of love, having only recently been forgiven himself.
It was love for his wayfaring friend that made the man who went to a friend at night persist in knocking until the friend came to open the door to give him what he wanted. And as Jesus said,
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16, NKJV)
When God wanted to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, He told Abraham what he wanted to do because Abraham was His friend. The Bible reveals the mind of God before He told Abraham about His mission in Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:17-21). Thus, we see that Abraham had credit with God. Also, God wanted Abraham to intercede for Sodom and Gomorrah, which could only happen if Abraham loved them. Abraham had proven his love for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah when he and 318 trained men of his household, along with his allies, rescued them from King Chedorlaomer and his associates after taking them captive (Genesis 14:1-16).
Hence, when God told Abraham about His mission to Sodom and Gomorrah, he began interceding on behalf of those cities and the inhabitants. He asked if God would spare the cities for fifty righteous people in them. When God said He would, he lowered the number to forty-five, then forty, then thirty, then twenty, and finally ten! "Surely there must be at least ten righteous people in the two cities and their surrounding villages", Abraham must have thought. Unfortunately, only one person was found righteous—Lot (2 Peter 2:7)!
Yet, because of Abraham's intercession, Lot and his family were rescued from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:29)
We should be importunate in intercession
Importunity in prayer should not only be about our personal needs. We should also be importunate when praying for the needs of others. We ought to intercede for other people, whether we know them or not. We should pray for people of different nationalities. We should pray for people of other religions. We should even pray for people who want to kill us! The Bible says that we should pray for our enemies.
"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your friends, hate your enemies.' But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become the children of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil. Why should God reward you if you love only the people who love you? Even the tax collectors do that! And if you speak only to your friends, have you done anything out of the ordinary? Even the pagans do that! You must be perfect—just as your Father in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48, GNB)
Interceding only for those who love us has no eternal reward, but when we love and intercede for those who do not love us, therein lies the eternal reward and resemblance of our heavenly Father. The Bible says that we should leave vengeance to God and rather pray for, and take care of, those who hate and persecute us! (Romans 12:17-21)
See how God turned Saul of Tarsus—a one-time enemy of the church—into one of her foremost protagonists and propagator of the gospel of Christ. After Saul's conversion, he became a leading apostle, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the  New Testament (not including Hebrews)! Your enemy today can become your friend tomorrow if only you would intercede for them.
The church's responsibility is to pray God's will on the earth
Hear the Holy Spirit:
First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, requests, and thanksgivings be offered to God for all people; for kings and all others who are in authority, that we may live a quiet and peaceful life with all reverence toward God and with proper conduct. This is good and it pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to come to know the truth. (1 Timothy 2:1-4, GNB)
We are to pray for world leaders, whether we agree with them or not. If we do not pray for them, they could plunge the world into a crisis of epic proportion or even a World War, and then we cannot live peaceably on the earth. The church must take responsibility for the earth by recognising that, like Ezekiel in his day, she is God's watchman in the world (Ezekiel 3:17).
Our intercession cannot be causal, half-hearted, and infrequent. We must be importunate daily in our intercession,
that we may live a quiet and peaceful life
Thus, when there is turmoil in any locality, city, country, continent, and worldwide, the church has failed in her primary responsibility of prayer, supplication, and intercession. We are not told to float an organisation to promote world peace but to pray for peace on our knees in our closets daily.
Conclusion
Importunity in prayer must not be about ourselves only, but also about other people. When God sees our importunity in praying, even for our enemies, He will do something on our behalf, as He did for Abraham when He rescued Lot and His family.
John Knox prayed, "Lord, give me Scotland ere I die"! The prayers of several people propelled the Welsh revival of the early 20th Century. Evans Robert, who prayed 13 years for revival, was one of the prominent ones. Revival does not come through planned programmes but through the persistent, consistent, and continuous pleadings of God's people burdened for the salvation of souls.
In the concluding part of the Lord's teaching on prayer and the parable of the man who went to his friend to ask for bread at night, Jesus noted that God would give the Holy Spirit to those who ask (importunately, implied). We must, therefore, keep on asking for the Holy Spirit if we are yet to receive Him, with the manifestation of the physical evidence of speaking in tongues. Who knows, God may cause a revival to break out as a result!
In the early 1900s, there was a man in America named William J. Seymour. He was a black man, blind in one eye, teaching people that they can receive the Holy Spirit with the manifestation of speaking in tongues, yet, he could not speak in tongues. But he believed God's word and continued to teach it. Many of those who heard his teaching received the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues when he prayed for them. Yet, Seymour could not speak in tongues. He, however, continued to teach and pray for the gift of speaking in tongues persistently and consistently for three years—one time, he prayed for seven hours daily—until God granted his request. In the interim, the famous Azusa Street Revival was in full swing bringing men and women to the Lord in Los Angeles, U.S.A. Â
So I say to you, Ask and keep on asking and it shall be given you; seek and keep on seeking and you shall find; knock and keep on knocking and the door shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks and keeps on asking receives; and he who seeks and keeps on seeking finds; and to him who knocks and keeps on knocking, the door shall be opened. (Luke 11:9-10, AMPC)
The Lord's words above apply not only to our needs, but also to our intercession for others. Therefore, keep on asking, seeking, and knocking, both for yourself and others (most of whom you would never know). May God richly bless you. Amen.