Luke 11:5-8 And He said to them, “Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you’? I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.
Since moving to Israel we’ve been thrust into a Middle Eastern culture of “extreme hospitality”. The above parable from Luke takes place in a similar cultural context, and it powerfully illustrates how God wants us to approach Him.
The word persistance in Greek is the word anaideia which can also be translated in more detail as “bold persistence” or “tenacity”. Look at the raw nerve this man has disturbing his sleeping neighbor in the middle of the night. He’s calling out to him, expecting him to understand his need to provide food and hospitality for his unexpected guest, and even when his friend tries to turn him away…he is relentless! Here in Israel, we call that “chutzpah“!
Chutzpah is a difficult word to translate into English, but this is definitely an example of it – brazen boldness to continue knocking no matter the late hour or the stubborn selfish neighbor!
Now there are some of us who pray with this attitude, like God was a stubborn uncooperative friend who doesn’t really care, or as though we’re somehow bothering him as if we’re waking him up in the middle of the night. But Yeshua (Jesus) is using this stubborn neighbor as a NEGATIVE illustration. He’s saying the Father is NOT like that, but is a true and loving friend, one to whom we can bring all our needs, our troubles, and our problems because He will listen, and He will care! But God also wants us to be persistent, not to browbeat or pester Him for an answer, but rather, because we so believe in Him, and we want to express to Him just how much we really trust Him even when the answer doesn’t come immediately. It’s an expression of relentless faith which so pleases Him.
If this uncooperative neighbor finally gives a loaf to his friend, how much more will our Heavenly Father give to us, His children, if we come to Him with believing chutzpah? As long as we ask according to His will [1 John 5:14], we can confidently bring our requests, and even if we need to dig in and wait for His answers, it’s because we know that our trust in His love and generosity will make him so happy. So… with so much work to be done, let’s show some Holy chutzpah!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]I could tell you about countless difficult and drawn out circumstances over which we have tried to stand firmly in faith until they finally came to pass. Sometimes we made it and sometimes we were weak and began to doubt. But God mercifully came through for us on most of these things, despite our lack of strength to stay faith-ful.
New Testament genealogies of Yeshua Ha Mashiach (Jesus the Christ) all identify Him as the son of king David. It was universally understood from the Tenach (OT) that the messiah would be descended from David and that he would restore the Davidic monarchy to its ultimate and most universal expression, even that this king would reign and sit on the throne forever.
This weekend, the Jewish people will celebrate the festival of Purim. This holiday commemorates Israel’s amazing reversal in Persia during the reign of King Xerxes (Ahasuerus) when Queen Esther and her uncle Mordecai gained victory for the Jews and protected them from annihilation at the hands of the evil Haman.
Over two decades ago, when I moved to Israel, I had the opportunity to spend considerable time with a pastor and his wife. This pastor imparted significant wisdom to me during that period, counseling me to “be like the children of Issachar,” he directed me to this specific passage in 1 Chronicles 12.
Over the past few days, I’ve been discussing the will of God and how to walk out His will daily in our lives. The Lord’s general will involves the development of our character and the ways in which we relate to Him and to our fellow man. Much of this is the same for every believer. But each of us is unique, and each has a potential life vision unlike any other. God has an individual will for every soul that belongs to Him, an individually shaped destiny which varies according to our gifting and calling and purpose in His Body.
As God worked on creation for six days and rested on the seventh day, so our seven day week is established on that pattern. If, as the scripture declares, with the Lord one day is as 1,000 years and 1,000 years as a day, then the seven-day cycle also finds expression in a great historical “week”. As we approach the 1,000-year reign of the Messiah, this “millennium” as it is called, (described in some detail in Revelation chapter 20), is clearly understood as a time of global rest, peace, and righteousness throughout the Earth.
The word for “restitution” in this passage is the Greek word – “apokatastasis”. This is the one and only place it is found in the New Testament. The word literally means to “restore again” or “to repair”. The plan of God in sending His Son Yeshua (Jesus) was to restore that which had been broken and ruined. The Lord’s saving work is a global repair job. Each one of us has come to Him already ruined by sin. But God’s will and His promise is to restore and renew us through His Son.