MATTHEW 14:23 – And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.
THEME OF THE DAY. PRAYER AND ITS PRIMARY PURPOSE. Do you ever wonder why Jesus prayed as much as He did? If He was and is the God-Man, why did He need to pray? If such questions never crossed your mind, let them do so now. The reason why we need to observe the prayer life of our Lord with such questions is because it reveals our understanding of the primary purpose behind prayer.
While the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He would often retreat to quiet places for prayer. And the purpose of this practice was fellowship with His Father. His praying revealed His longing for the enjoyment of being in His Father’s Presence. This is to be our understanding and practice of prayer as well. We go to prayer to encounter God that we might know Him in order to adore Him, worship Him, be in awe of Him, and deepen our longing to be literally with Him in heaven forever,
Should our understanding and practice of prayer be simply asking God for things or for Him to rescue us from tough circumstances, we are missing the primary point of prayer modeled by our Lord Jesus. Prayer is chiefly about relational intimacy with the Living God. So, what would that look like in practice? A couple of things. First there is the development of the right attitude toward prayer. Then the follow-up practice of prayer.
The right attitude toward prayer views it as the language of love between our reconciling God and ourselves. It is fueled by thanksgiving and gratitude bathed in humility with the spiritual understanding that God saved us to know Him, and that primarily through Word-based prayer. When we start to see prayer as a Gospel-gained privilege to communicate with God in a developing relationship of love, we won’t be stagnant or routine. In fact, we will guard time to be with God. We will yearn and be drawn to prayer to get as close to Him as a human being may. Then prayer becomes a discipline of joyful delight, never neglected.
After we are on our way to having the proper attitude of prayer being relational, we practice it regularly. This means we schedule times with God for prayer. We walk throughout our days in communication with the Lord. We commit to the development of the relationship through prayer. Think about it in the context of marriage. What keeps it aglow and fresh? Regular times of communications and a pulling away from the many demands upon us to deepen our relationship. Isn’t that what Jesus did? And if we really want to go from merely knowing about God to knowing God, then the attitude and practice of prayer must be that of relationship development through much time in prayer for that very purpose.
PRAYER: “Father, help me to see prayer is not about getting something from You but to get close to You.”
QUOTE: “If we view prayer only as a means to get answers from God, instead of God, Himself, we miss its chief purpose.”