I’m excited to share a lesson about prayer that might surprise you. It’s all about the boldness and persistence we should have when we talk to God.
In the bible, shameless audacity is to pray with boldness in an unapologetic way. Why did Jesus teach us to pray shamelessly? Let’s study the scriptures to find out.
Contents
Learning to Pray
The Parable of the Persistent Friend
What Does God Look For in Our Prayers?
Knocking on Closed Doors
Be Bold, Knock Hard!
Shameless audacity
Learning to Pray
One day, Jesus was praying, and when he finished, one of his disciples asked him to teach them to pray just like John taught his disciples. (Luke 11:1-13)
Jesus then shared a simple way to pray that honors God: Ask for our daily needs, seek forgiveness, and ask for guidance away from temptation.
Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.
Luke 11:2-4
But Jesus didn’t stop there. He knew that to really understand how to pray, we needed more than just words; we needed the right heart.
The Parable of the Persistent Friend
Jesus told a story to explain this.
Imagine you go to a friend at midnight needing bread to offer a guest, but your friend doesn’t want to help because it’s late and he’s already in bed. But because you keep asking shamelessly, he finally gets up and helps you.
Jesus used this story to show us that it’s not about friendship but our boldness and persistence that lead to receiving help.
In Luke 11:8, Jesus said,
I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.
You might think God wants us to be polite and reserved in our prayers, but Jesus taught the opposite. He wants us to be bold and persistent—so much so that it might even seem a bit rude!
But it’s this kind of “shameless audacity” in asking that God really responds to.
Knocking on Closed Doors
Jesus continues in Luke 11:9-10,
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Luke 11:9-10
What does “knock” imply? It means there’s a barrier that needs to be overcome. Sometimes in life, we face closed doors—challenges or personal changes that seem too difficult for us. But Jesus encourages us to boldly knock on these doors with faith.
Think about it like this: if your life truly depended on you getting through a certain door, you’d knock as hard as you could, right? And, you would not give up! That’s the intensity and desperation we should have in our prayers to our God.
Be Bold, Knock Hard!
So, when you pray, don’t just wait for easy openings. Look for the closed doors, the big challenges, and knock on them with all your might. Christianity calls us to a life of boldness and faith.
Jesus assures us that God is like a parent who wants to give us what we need. Just as kids aren’t shy about asking their parents for bread, we shouldn’t hesitate to bring our requests to God.
Shameless audacity
I encourage you to live by faith, be bold, and knock away. Approach God with the confidence of a child who trusts their parent will provide. Let’s not just pray safe prayers; let’s pray powerful, audacious prayers. Remember, it’s not about having polished words but about having a persistent heart.
So, next time you pray, think about that friend at midnight. Be persistent, be shameless, and watch how God moves in response to your bold faith.
Let’s knock on those closed doors together and see what God opens for us!
By Jim Brown
Jim Brown along with his wife, Teresa currently serve on the leadership team of the Southern Connecticut Church of Christ. They both also serve as campus shepherds and house church leaders.
In effect Jesus is teaching us to engage in a kind of holy “audacity” in our prayers. The word used is difficult to translate into English as it refers to a combination of boldness and shamelessness. Jesus does not depict the man going three different times to wake his friend.
What is shameless audacity? If a person is shameless, it means that they're not worried about how what they're doing makes them look. If a person is audacious, they're doing something boldly.
Being audacious means being bold. In the dictionary, “Audacious” can mean “extremely bold or daring”. And in the bible, God does call us to be bold: “The wicked run away when no one is chasing them, but the godly are as bold as lions.” — Proverbs 28:1 NLT.
When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: “ 'Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.Give us each day our daily bread.Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
Godly audacity is asking for great things even though they may seem too great—asking because we know that God delights to give vast gifts to those who trust Him. Godly audacity in prayer does not just permit, it prompts and promotes us to be persistent in our asking.
What is Shameless about? Shameless (2019) explores how the church's view of sex and sexuality as sinful has guilted and shamed its congregants. Through personal stories and those shared with her by members of her church, the author demonstrates the harmful effects of the church's teachings.
An audacious faith is actually a tenacious and pertinacious faith that refuses to give up – will never take “NO” for an answer. Audacious faith will never give up; it is not over until God's promises are fulfilled.
Some common synonyms of audacity are cheek, chutzpah, effrontery, gall, hardihood, nerve, and temerity. While all these words mean "conspicuous or flagrant boldness," audacity implies a disregard of restraints commonly imposed by convention or prudence. When can effrontery be used instead of audacity?
Audacious faith believes Christ's best; it even waits on those with imperfect obedience. “But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them” (1 John 2:5). Audacious faith is not afraid to engage the ugliness of hunger and poverty.
Summary. Jesus taught, “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men … but when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your father who is unseen.”
Jesus taught His disciples how to pray. He said that some people pray only so others will see them praying. Jesus taught that we should say our personal prayers where we can be alone, if possible. He said that some people say the same words over and over when they pray.
boldness or daring, especially with confident or arrogant disregard for personal safety, conventional thought, or other restrictions. Synonyms: foolhardiness, temerity, grit, spunk, nerve. Antonyms: prudence, discretion. effrontery or insolence; shameless boldness: His questioner's audacity shocked the lecturer.
That is the righteousness of God speaking. It is a holy audacity. In short, he was saying, “I have accessed the presence of God and I know what He has perfected in eternity.” As a believer, be audacious in the righteousness of God.
So, to say that God's love is audacious is to say that God's love is extremely bold or daring; recklessly brave; fearless! The Apostle John (one of Jesus' 12 disciples) talks about God's love in one of his letters to the church in the New Testament.
Therefore, God hears each and all of our specific petitions through the filter of Jesus' role. In other words, God understands all our different requests through the filter of “this will reconcile them; this will make them holy,” and that is the prayer God hears and the request God always grants.
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Jim Brown along with his wife, Teresa currently serve on the leadership team of the Southern Connecticut Church of Christ. They both also serve as campus shepherds and house church leaders.