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’. Luke 18: 1-3
Am I hearing correctly? Is Jesus telling us that we have to keep on nagging God in prayer – like the widow in the parable who wore out a crooked magistrate by persistence until He finally found in her favour, just to get rid of her? How can that be a parable of persistence in prayer? God is not a crooked judge. We don’t have to nag Him. Our most persistent requests are not always right. Surely prayer is mostly learning to listen to God. Not keeping on battering his ears with our often ignorant requests …… ‘Lord make him love me…’ ‘Take the pain away Lord.’ ‘Lord give me money and power.’
How can we learn persistence in prayer from this story? Well, it’s not a parable of likeness, but of contrast. If a crooked little magistrate can be swayed by a persistent woman, how much more will God, who is not little, nor crooked, nor impatient, deal with us when we pray? God is not unjust. He does not have to be talked into doing what’s best for us. He likes us to ask, but He is able to do his part ….. the real problem is not whether or not God can do his part – it is rather, can we be trusted to do ours. The parable in Luke 18 ends with these verses: 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? Luke 18: 6-8
There’s the rub. When it comes to praying I don’t have to worry about God answering -only my asking.
A prayer: Lord I’m tired of saying my prayers.Teach me to pray.
Now read James Chapters 4 and 5.

We all pray – everyone prays – we can’t help it. Prayer is natural to us. It’s as natural as breathing, eating and learning to walk. Why then do we have to learn to pray? Because although we all breathe, we have to learn how to breathe deeply and well: the same with walking. We all had to learn how to walk and we also need to learn to walk with a good posture. So it is with prayer. The gift of prayer may come from natural roots, but it needs to be refined, trained, worked on. But people don’t or won’t do the training. ‘It doesn’t work – I asked for this and that but didn’t get it, so I stopped’, as if prayer were something like tasting a mouthful of food we didn’t like, and concluding that eating was a waste of time; or just stuffing our stomachs when we are hungry, and not learning to develop the sheer joy of sharing a meal together; or learning what is healthy for us to eat, and what is unhealthy. Muslims are taught to pray five times a day. Christians were given the model prayer by Jesus which set out in the areas of basic prayer and notice it is all about God:His nature: His name: His rule: His kingdom: His will. All that comes first. Then we are bidden to ask for enough for ourselves (not too much, not too little – enough to satisfy).We are to seek forgiveness from God and convey such mercy to others. Seek strength to resist temptation and avoid the evil one, and give glory to God. Now to pray like this takes some self-discipline, some practice, and not a little patience, but as in everything, the more we do it, the more we learn how to do it. Imagine the elation Paul experienced as he prayed:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. Ephesians 1: 3-6
Please don’t stop reading there …..Paul’s Prayer of Praise:To Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1: 3-6; 7-12; 13-14)
Now read I Corinthians 29: 6-20

‘The ocean is so vast, and my boat is so small’ is a feeling we all recognise. Part of being human is being aware of our vulnerability. We are never more insecure than when people reject us and dislike us. Whatever we say, we all like to be liked. ‘Acceptance is the atmosphere of our humanity’ said Jurgen Moultmann, which underlines that when we are rejected, attacked, criticised, disliked, even detested, we shrivel. Great actors confess that amid a thousand reviews of their performances which are good, the one bitingly critical review is the one they remember. It hurts for days and months, even for years.
When a minister of a church attempts to move the church on and some members object to any changes to anything that they have got used to, it is quite usual for the objectors to resign their membership in protest. The minister feels as if has been sentenced to death for walking on the grass.
When we feel hurt, insecure, wronged and rejected, what do we do? In the end the only place we can go is to God. Like a child who has hurt himself and runs crying to bury himself in his parent’s arms. God receives his children, but his comfort is always greater than soothing us down “there, there, let me kiss it better”. He speaks truth – He puts reality to our situation. The longer we stay hurt, the more we see that the hurting and the hurters are both wrong. Even a Christian under attack has to search his own heart only to become aware that the godless attitude of his enemies is matched by his own practical atheism. That’s when we profess selfless faith, but practise self- preservation and self direction. Our passions need to be harnessed under God’s control. Even the very ceremonies and duties of orthodoxy cannot prevent us from sliding into the dark pit of self pity, if we let them. When we do come to God and face Him, humbly and willing to be taught, He faces us, and when we’ve stopped kicking and screaming in pain and shock, peace begins to flow again, and we can sleep.
O Lord, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! Many are saying of me, “God will not deliver him”. But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head. To the Lord I cry aloud, and he answers me from his holy hill…..I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side…….I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. Psalms 3: 1-3, and 4:8
A Thought for Tonight: If He who watches over you neither slumbers or sleeps, there is no point in both of you staying awake all night – is there?
Now read Genesis 28: 6-22

The big difference between true goodness and average repectability is in resources. All humans need supplies of soul and mind, to feed their values and actions and attitudes, and these sources are not in our nature, not in our logic, our education, our psychology – in fact not anywhere in THIS world.
To stand amongst our peer groups and feed on what they urge us to be and to do, is like a tree whose roots simply go down to enmesh with the roots of other stunted trees.
To live amongst people of no resources does not mean that we have to abandon the deep resources well beneath the surface.
To draw from the word and values of God is like a tree flourishing besides a water course. No matter how dry the surface, no matter how rainless is the weather, the roots go down beneath our peer pressure, our present generations urgings to abandon the source beneath us. But the blind cannot lead the blind – the empty cannot fill one another -neither can the starving feed the world.
To confuse two things is deadly. One is to think that it is not truly humble or Christian to see the barrenness of normal shallow dry society. You are not being arrogant, nor Pharisaic, by rejecting the counsel of self centred people and the values of those whose roots only go down into their own egos.The other is to know that there are sources and resources of spiritual life in the word and will and ways of God.You may, whatever your environment, sink your roots into the water of life, below the arid surface of this world.
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Psalm 1
A Prayer:Father, thank you for your law, your word, and your deep reservoirs of resource for our lives. We delight in them, and draw from them now in the dry and thirsty landscape where we live.
Now read Luke 6: 37-49.

Today, just for a change, instead of ending with a Bible reading, we will begin with one. Here it is from 1 Kings, Chapter 14 v. 25-28. In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. He carried off the treasures of the temple of the Lord and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including all the gold shields Solomon had made. So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned these to the commanders of the guard on duty at the entrance to the royal palace. Whenever the king went to the Lord’s temple, the guards bore the shields, and afterwards they returned them to the guardroom. King Rehoboam was son of King Solomon.When he became king, the kingdom was united. His Grandfather, David, had made the rebellious tribes of Israel into one nation, ruled from Jerusalem. Solomon, his son, ruled over Israel united under a powerful, prosperous but dictatorial administration. Rehoboam had the opportunity of keeping the nation united.He blew it. The nation split into two;
Judah, centred on Jerusalem, and Israel centred on Samaria. This incident in today’s reading provides a brilliant insight into a mentality all too common, even now. The nation’s gold was stolen and he replaced it with brass, but he had it guarded as if it were still gold. As the royal guard went on and off duty they were guarding bogus treasures. The true treasure had gone but the guarding rigmarole continued. The ritual continued even after the treasure had disappeared. How expert we are at carrying on regardless, when the gold of spiritual meaning and real conviction has long since departed.We keep on going through the motions as a cover up. When love has died we go through the motion, instead of putting all our efforts into renewing the love which once made everything else real. When we know our sins have separated and are separating us from God, instead of confessing and being broken and renewed, we ‘carry on religion as usual’ hiding the emptiness. When a church has become set in its maintenance mentality and has no time nor desire to evangelise and grow and glow – it hides in empty rituals. ‘We’ve always done it this way’. ‘Don’t touch our traditions’, even if they are as meaningless as those soldiers guarding bogus treasure.
A Prayer: Today, Lord, move your people to stop playing at church and instead become your living church.
Now read Acts 17: 16-34

Some of the dearest children to me have been taught to pray since babyhood by their mum and dad, and for years they have prayed with a formula which begins: ‘Thank you Lord Jesus for this day ……’ and when it’s grace we get: ‘and for this food’. Or at bedtime: ‘God bless Mummy and Daddy and …….’ and then other members of the family, followed by ‘and make me a good boy/girl, Amen’.
Now I’m not knocking that, but the time will come (and may it be sooner rather than later) that they stop rattling off such a formula … ‘Thank you Lord Jesus for this day …’ and begin to pray with words of their own which indicate a conversation, person-to-person, rather than ritual words. It’s not only children: I recall Dr. A. J. Gossip once confessing that when leading his people in the Lord’s prayer he would sometimes stop in the middle and loudly declare “How wonderful Lord, that these your people can pray so FAST”! William Barclay once said that when leading worship he always had the Lord’s prayer printed before him, because once, while leading public worship, he got lost in it …… Why? …… :”Because”, he said, “I started to think about it”. Now there’s a confession. I’d rather pray than not pray, even if it were but a recital of well-worn words – but I’d rather the oft repeated formulas of prayer become the rungs of a ladder, or the reminders of each area to be turned into our own words of praise and petitions from our hearts.
And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. This then is how you should pray:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” Matthew 6:7-9
Your Prayer: You know the words – turn each phrase, step by step, into your own prayers to your heavenly Father today.
Now read Daniel 9: 1-23

Surveys show that although a very small percentage of our population attend church, and even a smaller percentage read their Bible, over three quarters of the people pray. Now that’s surprising since, when asked, nothing like seventy five percent of the population believe in God! One wonders – to whom do these unbelievers pray? The brilliant Bertrand Russell said something like: ‘It’s the praying that matters, not the one you to whom you pray’, and Dr. A. J. Gossip reading it declared it to be a contender for the first prize in the contest for the most stupid statement ever written; and I add, ‘Here, here!’. The opposite is true. It’s not the praying – it’s the One to whom you pray that makes all the difference. Christians pray to the one whom Jesus called ‘Father’ – Jesus taught his followers to pray to ‘Our Father in heaven’. So although God is not some elderly bearded gent upstairs – he is a person – what philosophers call Supra-Personal. He made us persons, and it is that bit of us which no matter how defaced and fallen must pray. Why do we pray?
The first answer is ‘We can’t help it’, but there are a lot of urges deep within us that we have to learn how to develop and refine and practice in order to learn how to use them. Of course it matters to whom you pray. That’s why Jesus told his followers to pray ‘in his name’. That means in presence of: our minds filled with the picture of Jesus, and as ‘wedded to Him’. I can’t picture the vast, holy, creator of the universe, and Eternal Lord of time and space of heaven and earth, but when I look at the face of Jesus, I see God. Thus all Christian prayer is through Jesus Christ our Lord. Listen to the most wonderful promise, and most difficult thing Jesus said to us about prayer in John 14: 12-14:
I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
A Prayer: Today, Lord, teach us to pray truly ‘in your name’, believing that what you said is true.
Now read Luke 10: 1-24

I read these words of Dr. Nelson Kraybill, the Programme Director of the London Mennonite Centre . He wrote:”450 years ago the INCA monarch Atahualpa was held prisoner in South America by the European conquerors. His captors wanted Atahualpa to accept the Christian faith. A priest carrying a cross in one hand and a bible in the other approached the prisoner and said: ‘I am a priest of God and I teach divine things to Christians. I have come likewise to teach you. God, who is one in essence and a trinity of persons, created heaven and earth and all that they contain. He formed of clay Adam, the first man, and from one of his ribs…” On and on it went. He came to: “Jesus Christ, who had redeemed us by dying on a cross. Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, leaving the apostle St. Peter as his vicar on earth, having put the whole world under his jurisdiction …” That’s some of what he said – don’t blame me. The speech went on longer, then the Inca monarch was given an opportunity to accept the doctrine about Jesus. He refused, but instead agreed to pay an enormous ransom in exchange for his life. The Europeans accepted this offer and received a room filled with gold, and two rooms of silver, and then decided to execute him anyway. On the day of his execution Atahualpa was given one last chance to become a Christian, with the incentive that instead of being slowly burnt alive, he would be speedily strangled. The Inca consented. He was baptised, given the Christian name of John and then executed while the Europeans chanted their creed.” Doesn’t your blood boil at such cruelty, sadism, greed and injustice? How could any one associate Jesus with such devilry? How could they be so blind to the light of Jesus, the peace maker? How could they live like the devil in the name of Jesus? Today – the word is – Our faith must live in our lives. If we don’t practise what he preached we are not his servants at all, whatever we claim to believe. Listen to Jesus in Matthew 5. 43-45
You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy’. But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
We can never achieve what is right by doing what is wrong.
A Prayer: Lord, enable your followers not only to repent and confess their sins against others, but to express repentance to those whom they have so grievously harmed.
Now read Isaiah Chapter 52: 13 to 53:12.

I once heard the famous Scottish divine, Dr. Gossip, speak. I was a student about to begin in the ministry – he a world famous preacher. What impressed me was his humanity, humility and droll sense of humour. He told us (and I’ve no way of knowing how true it was) that when David Livingstone, whom he obviously hero-worshipped, was cutting new trails through Africa’s jungles, his party, each night, would collect masses of dead wood, pile it into a cone shape, and light a camp fire for heat, light, cooking and protection. On tracking back they came across piles of wood, all assembled in cone shapes by, they discovered, monkeys – who here and there sat around them. “But”, he rapped out “There was no fire”. This scrap of memory strikes me now, as I think of the churches in our land at one end of the 20th Century. The jungle is all around, and increasingly taking over.Here and there, there are clearings in which believers assemble the wood in the right order, and sit around them
‘But there is no fire’. Like the jungle monkeys we cannot make this fire: this is the work of God alone. In a similar jungle, thick and tinder dry, in the late 18th Century, John Wesley rode the land dropping lighted matches – and the fires burned and the nation had light and warmth. At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.” Then the fire of the Lord fell …..When the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord – he is God! The Lord – he is God!” I Kings 18:36-39
A Prayer of Charles Wesley :”O Thou who camest from above, the pure celestial fire to impart. Kindle a flame of sacred love on the mean altar of my heart. There let it for thy glory burn with …inextinguishable blaze.”
Now read Exodus Chapter 3

In a million homes today this little drama will be enacted:
“Eat your dinner” “I don’t want it”
“The children in India would be glad of what you are leaving”. “Well they can have mine”
To the well-fed, hunger is always someone else’s problem. And now today remember there is no shortage of food on this planet earth. There is enough to spare for all people, for animals and for industrial processing. “But people are starving!”, you say, “in some parts of the world”.
Indeed that’s lamentably true. But it is not a shortage of food, just a shortage of sharing.There is enough and to spare. But distributing it is a problem which involves all the sciences, all research, commerce, agriculture, transportation over land and sea, and by air …..and the excusing words “market forces” are slapped over the problems in exactly the same way that the little lad says “They can have what I don’t want”.
The problem is not economic, financial nor political – it’s much simpler. It’s a moral problem – Greed. Those who have, want more – those who haven’t demand a fair share, and are silenced by forces they feel they cannot change. So it goes on. The problem is spiritual. Food for me is a physical need. Food for my brother is a spiritual matter. What to do?
When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming towards him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”. Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down”. There was plenty of grass in that place and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. John 6: 5-10
A prayer: Thank you Lord for the daily miracle by which our lives are sustained. Forbid that I rest easy having too much while there are those with nothing. Do another miracle Lord – and deal with our greed.
Now read Leviticus Chapter 23 and underline v.22.