What Is Persistent Prayer? — Matthew 7:7
BY DANIEL ROWLANDS | Some people think being repetitive in prayer is unnecessary—doesn’t God hear us the first time? What does the Bible say about persistent prayer?
Scripture teaches us to persist in prayer, but should we be repetitive? If God hears our prayers the first time, why should we keep coming back to the throne of grace with the same petition?
Jesus calls us to be persistently repetitive in our prayers.
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus commands that we should ask, seek, and knock in our prayers…
Recently my wife looked at these verses (in context) from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. Whilst, like you, I have always heard and imagined these verses to be about prayer, she came across Dr Charles Quarles notes in these verses in her Bible (CSB Study Bible). Very interestingly, he interprets these verses as relating to entrance into the kingdom of God. He has a fairly compelling argument, and the more I reflect on these verses now, the more convinced I am that he is on the right track. I encourage you (and anyone else) to take a look at these verses again, in the context of Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom (and the Lucan version of this teaching which cites the Holy Spirit - the illuminator - as the gift given to the ‘asker, seeker,knocker).
Thanks for your reflections