Daily Devotionals (11th July): Pray Always—Never Faint

Now then, dearly beloved, seeing prayer is so needful a thing, and of so great strength before God, let us, according as we are taught by the example of Christ and His apostles, be earnest and diligent in calling on the name of the Lord.

Let us never faint, never slack, never give over; but let us daily and hourly, early and late, in season and out of season, be occupied in godly meditations and prayers. What if we obtain not our petitions at the first? Yet let us not be discouraged, yet let us continually cry and call upon God: He will surely hear us at length, if for no other cause, yet for very importunity’s sake.

Remember the parable of the unrighteous judge and the poor widow: how she by her importunate means caused him to do her justice against her adversary, although otherwise he feared neither God nor man. Shall not God much more avenge His elect, said our Saviour Christ, which cry unto Him day and night? Thus He taught His disciples, and in them all other true Christian men, to pray always, and never to faint or shrink (Luke 18:1).

 “Set no time to the Lord the creator of time, for His time is always best.”—Samuel Rutherford 

Taken from Cranmer’s Edwardian Homilies (1547) as edited by Rev. Colin Mercer.  © 2012, thinkgospel.com