May 18, 2009

• Shameless Audacity

  God loves it when we have the shameless audacity to believe Him at His word and ask Him for things that ‘naturally’ seem impossible.  When Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, He tells a story of a man who is already asleep in his bed.  When you, his friend, knocks on the door, your neighbor would be unwilling to get up to help you because he’s already in bed.  However, Jesus concludes that it won’t be because of friendship that he will eventually get up and respond to your request, but it will be because of your “boldness” (in the NIV).  In the TNIV, it says, “yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.”  (Lk 11:8)  In the footnote, it says that an alternate translation for those words would be, “yet to preserve his good name.”  I imagine that knocking on the door so loudly in the middle of the night was “shameless” in that it could spoil the sleeping neighbor’s name if he didn’t respond.  God is saying about Himself that if we go out on a limb to pray and ask for ‘anything’, He will respond.  He will respond to keep His good name. 

  After Jesus says this, He says, “So I say to you:  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; those who seek find; and to those who knock the door will be opened.”  Jesus really gives us an invitation to make bold requests.  There are no requests which are “too much” for Him.  Seems like most benefactors would set a cap and limit on how many and how great a request you’re allowed to make, but not so with God.  He wants us to come to Him with shameless audacity, so that He may fill the deepest needs of our souls.  This story isn’t about persistence but about boldness. 

  I think I’ve forgotten how to have that kind of faith.  Spending time with our friend Dr. David L. on Saturday and hearing his stories about how God heals people through him through prayer (not surgery, but prayer), I am reminded that God’s power is above and beyond what I believe He is capable of on a daily basis.  Providentially, Pastor Jamie said in his sermon yesterday that some of us (me) think that praying for something like healing is so “out there”, so we avoid that and say that we’ll just stick to sharing the message.  But to say that Jesus rose from the dead — isn’t that even more “out there”?   Seriously, if I believe that Jesus rose from the dead, why do I think it’s impossible for Him to heal people if I pray?  Dr. David said, “God loves people who have courage to believe Him and step out.”  I want to have courage…to have the shameless audacity to pray for the impossible when His Spirit leads me and to believe that He will show up.

  • 5:43 pm
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