Jesus prayed a lot. Prayer was routine for Jesus. Luke 5:16 says, “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”
The disciples knew that prayer was fueling Jesus. They knew it was keeping Him connected in a special way to the Heavenly Father. They knew it was positive and something they needed to incorporate into their lives. They asked Jesus to teach them to pray in Matthew 6:9-13. Just a quick read of what Jesus included in His tutorial on prayer, what we call the “Lord’s Prayer,” reveals that prayer helps us acknowledge God as holy and sovereign. It’s a form of worship. It invites God to reveal His will to us. It gives us an opportunity to ask for daily provision. It is a cleansing mechanism whereby we can ask for forgiveness and also forgive people who wrong us. Finally, it becomes a way to access spiritual protection from Satan, something we’ve been talking a lot about recently. How much more practical could you get? As believers, we would be fools to not make use of this strategic gift of prayer.
Not only did Jesus regularly, daily, pray to the Father, but He deliberately prayed at important events in His life. Jesus was praying at His own baptism. Check it out in Luke 3:21. In verse 22 of the baptism account in Luke, we read that the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus and anointed Him for His earthly ministry. A big anointing followed a time of prayer.
He also prayed before the miraculous feeding of the 5000. When all eyes were on Him, and He was seeking to meet a huge need with just 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. I stress out when I am cooking for more than my family! I can’t imagine the pressure Jesus could have felt in that moment as the eyes of 5000 men plus women and children were on Him. He had to have the Father’s help. A big miracle followed a time of prayer.
One of the biggest moments of Jesus’ life was at the Transfiguration. Read about it in Luke 9:28-36. It was a big reveal moment of who Jesus really was. Peter, James and John were with Him. Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus, and Jesus talked with them, His own appearance changed, and His clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. They saw Jesus in all of His glory. In that moment, the weight of just Who Jesus was, of just Who they had been following, would have fallen on Peter, James and John. All of that followed Jesus having a time of prayer, (Luke 9:28). Big transformation and revelation followed a time of prayer.
In Luke 6:12, Jesus spent the night, not sleeping, but praying as He was seeking direction regarding the choosing of His 12 disciples. He wanted to get the choosing of His team right, and He did. Big discernment came to Jesus following a time of prayer.
In all of these situations, at His baptism when He longed to be fully immersed in the power of the Spirit and the mission for which He had been sent, at the feeding of the 5,000 when all eyes were on Him to make a miracle happen, at the Transfiguration, when God wanted to reveal the weight and glory of Who Jesus really was to those three disciples, and when Jesus wanted to have wisdom and discernment to make the right call for those 12 who would follow Him everywhere, Jesus prayed.
Do you need anointed for a special task? Do you need a monumental miracle in your life? Do you need a revelation of just Who Jesus is and what He can do for you? Do you need wisdom and discernment to make the right decisions? PRAY!
We need to develop a routine of prayer for sure. We also need to consult our Heavenly Father in all of the big moments of our lives. Prayer fuels us for the daily stuff and prayer prepares us for the big moments, the supernatural ones where Heaven and earth meet in a way that helps people to see the glory of God in and through our lives.
