Jesus said a lot about prayer. While many of the Gospel writers spoke about prayer, much of it was somewhat in passing. But I noted something Paul Washer said in one of his sermons: the one thing Jesus’ disciples asked about how to do was how to pray. They didn’t ask how to perform miracles or how to drive out demons. They didn’t ask how to preach. They asked how to pray. I have noticed in my own studies that Jesus could be interrupted on all sorts of occasions, but He could never be interrupted from prayer. Many times, when the disciples searched for Jesus and they found Him, they waited until He finished praying before approaching Him. It was said of John “Praying” Hyde that when he was in his prayer mode, he prayed with the intensity and fervency that no one dared to interrupt him. Prayer was vital to Jesus and His ministry, and He made sure His disciples learned the importance of prayer. This is going to take a few posts, so let’s get into it.
Prayer was something Jesus was noted for doing from the very start. While we only get a few small glimpses of Jesus’ childhood, the first time we see Him as an adult, He comes to get baptized and then is driven into the wilderness to be tempted. It was in that desert of praying and fasting that Jesus demonstrated He would pursue no physical need on His own and would completely and wholly rely on His Father to provide everything He needed in the time needed. How did Jesus overcome the devil in that wilderness? It wasn’t a mere knowing of Scripture, though He absolutely needed that. It was a lifestyle of praying. There is no one, even Jesus in His physical body, who could have prayed and fasted for 40 days without training and practice beforehand. Jesus, while being fully God, did not cheat the system in His humanity in any way. He lived it as a man, and His power came through the power of a lifestyle of prayer and fasting.
Jesus prayed in many fashions and formats. He prayed for needs. He prayed for wisdom. He prayed to glorify God. He prayed for protection. He prayed for His friends. He prayed for those He ministered to. He prayed to deny self. He prayed for submission to the will of His Father. He prayed to forgive others and for the power to heal. Everything He did and said and came out of His life of prayer. But there was one thing Jesus never prayed for: Jesus never prayed for the forgiveness of His sin or for grace that would cover any sin, because He had no sin to repent of. That is the only area in which Jesus’ prayer life was not as necessary as ours. But Jesus had to pray to overcome sin, and so do we.
The tricky thing about prayer is that it cannot be easily defined. The Bible only gives us a few glimpses of what it looks like, but one of the easiest one-word descriptors I can give is “fellowship.” Prayer is with God what fellowship is with each other. Prayer is not treating God like a genie by which we ask God to give us what we wish and what we desire. While we are to present our requests to God, that is not what prayer is first and foremost. Prayer is also not a magical formula to help people through sickness or other needs, though we should pray for them. Prayer is, first and foremost, the process of going to God to be with Him. It is being with God and seeking His face and seeking His glory. It is praising God and glorifying God. It is thanking God. It is confessing our sins before Him and pleading for mercy. It is coming before God with our needs and requesting the aid of the Almighty. It is showing our trust and dependence upon Him. And with that is the submission of our will to His will.
Jesus knew the Scriptures. He knew and understood their point and purpose, but He got there through prayer and seeking what God meant and said in them. Jesus was able to debate the Pharisees not because of a superior intellect, though He was no academic fool, but because He was a man of prayer. When we have spent our time in prayer before we go to battle, God will prepare all the answers we will need in that time. I can give many examples of this in both Scripture and through the biographies and testimonies of preachers and missionaries. But I can also point out times when people have NOT prayed and are relying just on their intellect. They may be able to refute arguments, but they won’t be able to silence the opposition and the spirit driving them. Jesus was able to silence His critics, and it was because He was a man of prayer.
Being a man of prayer, Jesus was able to be interrupted and be at peace. He also knew when to move and when to confront counterfeits. Jesus knew the hearts and intentions of those He dealt with. Yes, He was God, but He did it as a man. Those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and listen to Him are able to hear the Spirit’s warnings of something being wrong with a person or to trust this person. If Joseph and Daniel could “interpret” dreams by the power of the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit is able to reveal what is going on to us if only we’d listen. And no, I am not talking about some mystical clairvoyance.
Jesus was a man of prayer, and that was how He got through all He went through and did all He did. That is a model of how we are to live our lives, too. Through prayer, we’ll have the power to do what we are called to do. Over the next few weeks, I’ll explore more of Jesus’ prayer life and His teaching on prayer before I look at Lazarus and Passion Week.
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