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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 4 of 5
Luke 11:1-20
The place occupied by prayer in the life of their Master strikes the disciples very forcibly. Let us be like them: let us ask the Lord to teach us to pray. Is prayer a matter of reciting off by heart a few sentences that we have learned? The parable of the two friends teaches us on the contrary to express each need simply yet precisely: "Friend, lend me three loaves . . . (v. 5). Is it perhaps a spiritual need which suddenly makes itself felt and, so to speak, comes knocking at the door of our own heart (v. 6)? May we be kept from rejecting such a conviction; may we regard it rather as being a friend on a journey (v. 6). Perhaps we have nothing to offer him? Then let us turn to the divine Friend, without any fear of troubling Him. In His love, God delights to answer His children and would never deceive them. On the contrary, if in our ignorance and lack of wisdom we happen to ask Him for "a stone", He knows how to change our request into "good gifts" (v. 13).
Until a man meets the Lord Jesus, he is just as dumb towards God as the demon-possessed man in v. 14. Saved by Christ, then having received the Holy Spirit at his conversion (cf. v. 13), he can then raise his voice in praise and prayer. May we exercise this privilege more fully!
