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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
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
what people thought. 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
what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that
she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
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 18:1-8
This ends
today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Look up the definition
of persistent and you will find this:
Someone who is persistent continues trying to do something, even though it is
difficult or other people are against it.
Persistence is just the
exercise of someone being persistent or, in other words, the act of persisting.
Why put this at the
center of a Christian devotion?
Because the element of
persistence is crucial to the Christian lifestyle in order to persevere through
the challenges and trials believers will have to endure. Jesus seemed to
believe this as we see Him teaching His disciples on the subject through one of
His favorite teaching methods: the parable. Look again at the words of our
Savior here:
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 what people thought. 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 what people think, yet because this widow keeps
bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually
come and attack me!’”
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 18:1-8
Now we know that a
parable is nothing more than an illustration Jesus used to convey a specific
spiritual lesson. In this particular case, the scriptures tell us that He
wanted His followers to learn that “they should always pray and not give up”. To
get His point across He uses the example of a widow attempting to get justice
from a judge.
Before we dive into this
too far, it’s important to remember the plight of widows in the days of Jesus.
It was a very patriarchal culture and the wife depended on her husband for her
very sustenance. If the husband passed before his wife, she was often left in
economic hardship, responsible for her husband’s debts with no real income and
very limited inheritance rights. The plight of the widow would be compounded if
she had no surviving sons to help take care of her. Indeed, a widow would face
both cultural and economic hardship in the wake of her husband’s death and
often the widows were pushed off onto the fringes of society. This is why they
were included with orphans when James’, Jesus’ brother, wrote these words:
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to
look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being
polluted by the world. James 1:27
So we know that widows
had it hard socially and financially during the first century and so it should
come as no surprise that it would be difficult for them to find justice as
well. This is the matter at the heart of Jesus’ parable where we find a widow
petitioning a judge to do something about an injustice she has experienced from
an adversary.
There was only one big
problem in the scenario: the judge was a non-believer.
“In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared
what people thought.”
Because the judge didn’t
fear God, he certainly wasn’t concerned with living as God expected which
included the way he upheld justice in his court and the way he valued people in
general in his life. In the parable, we’re told the judge had no care for what
people thought and perhaps this was good because there probably were a lot of
people who had a poor opinion of him.
Despite all this, we see
where the widow was unwilling to give up. No matter how much the judge tried to
ignore her petitions, she didn’t give up. She persisted in her pleas until the
judge grew tired of hearing from her and gave her the justice she demanded. You
get the notion that the judge was willing to do anything to get the widow off
his back and through his own words, we see him fearing she might just come and
attack him if she didn’t get what she asked for.
The widow refused to
quit and, in doing so, Jesus hoped His disciples (and all who would hear His
words after) would see the critical importance of persistence. His point was
that if an unbelieving judge who had little care for people could answer
persistence with justice, how much more would God, who loves and cherishes all
His people, bring justice to those who persevere in coming to Him in prayer?
Jesus makes it clear that there is a big difference between God and the judge
of his parable for God will not put His people off on matters of justice but
rather help them swiftly. All one needs to do is not give up and continue to
come to Him in prayer and faith.
Indeed, good things
happen when Christian believers are persistent.
They happen when those
in Jesus love persistently.
They happen when those
in Jesus forgive persistently.
They happen when those
in Jesus pray persistently.
And they happen when
those in Jesus display a persistent faith, a faith the Son of God and Man hopes
He will witness when He comes for the second time.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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