Never Imitate An Unjust Judge
Knowledge. Information. Research. Facts. These words are in constant rotation and being pushed online and off. Every group has their brand and every brand seeks for buyers. These things certainly do have their place, but perhaps we may have given them a pedestal – a value – higher than what is conducive to organically growing in ways that nurture one’s spirit.
As spiritual beings – spirits housed in physical vehicles called bodies – we can tend to focus on natural things in imbalanced ways. Anything that is out of balance is unhealthy. We often neglect the weightier matters in favor of things that are temporal. Forgetting that our divinely appointed experiences in life trump the opinions and innumerable expositions and interpretations by men, we fail miserably at that which is holistically beneficial to ourselves and others. We convolute, complicate, and even seek to corporatize that which is most potent (first) in its simplest form. Faith.
A short while ago my daughter took ill with fever. She is rarely ever sick, and while I am known to be the “go to” person for prayer, I felt the need to reach out to a few women of like faith to pray for her healing. The response that I received birthed the post that you are reading.
Four women were called upon: the first two agreed immediately to pray on their own time as they were being led by the Ruach – the Holy Spirit. The third immediately called and told me to go to my daughter, put the phone on loudspeaker, and prayed with us on the spot – this was unexpected and blessed my daughter and I both tremendously. The fourth responded by (first) questioning my request for prayer.
To be clear with you, the reader, this is simply a teaching moment that I do not intend to waste. I am a teacher in the body of Christ and a disciple – therefore, I often use events in my walk to help others to glean from the lessons that I learn on my own journey. My friend did not intentionally desire that I justify my request before she would honor it. It was the vanity of knowledge, information, research, and facts about the nature of fevers that guided her response. She did not consider that given the fact that I’d never personally requested prayer from her, that there could be more about this sickness (or the general experience we were having as a result of it) that neither she or I were aware of. She insisted that there had to be some other (underlying) reason why I would ask for prayer. For those who are Followers of the Way, believers in Jesus the Christ (Yahshua) we walk(live) by faith – facts notwithstanding. There is a wonderful allegory in the book of Luke that speaks to the heart of the matter where petitions of prayer are concerned and how the Messiah likens the exercise of it to faith – the very thing (exclusive of all the knowledge, information, research, and facts we have) that He hopes to find at His return.
The passage in Luke 18: 1-8 is known by many as the parable of the “unjust judge.” We know that the Father sees the end at the beginning. So what I love about this parable is that beginning in Luke chapter 18 verse 1, the word tells us without any pretense, that the purpose of speaking this parable is that men should not faint to pray. The word for faint is “dei” which is pronounced phonetically like the word “die.” Here is the definition of the word faint:
(1163) dei: it is necessary, inevitable; less frequently: it is a duty, what is proper (www.biblehub.com).
The allegory goes on to connect this truth by using the story of a widow who is righteously seeking justice from a judge – a judge who knows her plight but has no fear of Yah (God) to provoke him to hasten his response to the widow’s plenteous cries. The word goes on to say that the widow kept making her request to him continually – so much so that he answered…only to avoid being wearied by her repeated requests. The word used for weary in this text is hupopiazo:
(5299) hupopiazo: annoy, harass, wear out, strike under the eye – to give a “black eye” (www.biblehub.com).
At this point, I should explain that after having a back and forth dialogue with my friend for quite some time, she finally agreed to pray for my daughter – to which my desire was then that she not pray. The prayer of agreement is a powerful thing – synergy is the result when two or more come together in agreement asking anything in the Father’s name. However, the act of prayer should be an indication of faith – not a response to a doctrinal obligation nor being wearied by the request of another brother or sister. Recall that it tells us in James 5:15 that the prayer of faith shall save the sick.
Towards the end of the parable the words of Jesus in red tell us as it relates to the widow asking an unjust – an irreverent man – that if the unjust judge would eventually concede and bring justice to the widow how much more will the Father bring justice to His own chosen – the elect. The end of the matter of this passage is also a mirror of the beginning – the whole point. In Luke 18 verse 8, Jesus says this:
“I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (KJV)
It is important to note that the illness began with my daughter but spread to other members in my household within days. Odd symptoms that followed the fever lingered for weeks. We’d never seen anything like it. Somehow, though I was caretaker to them all, I did not fall ill. Looking back in hindsight, I understand why I felt the urge to request prayer of my sisters and not the standard protocol for fever reduction alone. I shudder to think how much worse this situation could have been. What I am certain of is that the effectual fervent and persistent prayers of those faithful women that I called upon to agree with me caused me to not know that experience – and I am grateful to them for that.
With the Internet being what it is, the Father will surely not find a people in lack of knowledge, information, research, and facts – whether they be true or fabricated forms of reality accepted and shared amongst the masses repeated so many times that it is simply believed to be true. That is not the issue. The issue is one that we will miss if we allow knowledge to puff us up and complicate simple spiritual matters as we gorge on it every day. It is faith expressed in the form of prayer – for ourselves first and then for others – that Jesus (Yahshua) hopes to find. As believers, we must be imitators of Yah (God) (Ephesian 5:1). We must remember to never allow ourselves to be imitators of an unjust judge.
