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Jesus in Prayer, Part 4
There is perhaps no greater example of Jesus in prayer than the lengthy, swirling “high-priestly prayer” recorded in John 17.
One of the striking things about this passage is that although Jesus is God in the flesh, he seems to rely heavily on prayer as a means of accomplishing God’s will. He doesn’t simply teach his disciples what the right way is or “fix” them in some “supernatural” way. He spends time praying to God the Father on their behalf, here in John 17 and many other places. The New Testament is also clear that the risen and ascended Jesus continues to pray for us (Rom 8:34; 1 John 2:1). Prayer is apparently still the way that God’s work gets done.
One example of this can be found in In Luke 22:31-32. Jesus foresees that Simon will be tested severely. Though Simon thinks he is ready to die with Jesus, he will find out that when it comes down to it, he will quickly, easily deny that he even knows Jesus. You would think Jesus would want to secure the future of the church by perhaps re-wiring Simon’s brain so that he responds differently, to somehow guarantee his eventual success. But he doesn’t. Instead, Jesus says, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” One would imagine that Jesus desperately wants Simon to pass the test, but instead of trying to engineer the outcome, he simply prays for him. It speaks volumes about Jesus’ trust in God that he sees prayer as the best thing he can do for Simon in this very crucial, dangerous time.
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Jesus in Prayer, Part 2
Following from yesterday’s exercise of making time and space for the kind of prayer Jesus seemed to have engaged in often, today we continue to look at Jesus in prayer.
Read Luke 4:1-2:
“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.”
Larry Bird was a freakishly good NBA basketball player who played mainly during the 1980s. Many people still refer to him as the “Basketball Jesus.” There was one stretch during the ’86 season when he was actually bored by how good he was, so he started using his left hand more, just for a challenge. During one game, he only took left-handed shots during the first half. He did this kind of thing often, experimenting with all the different ways he could beat a defender in the low post, seeing how many times he and Bill Walton could run the backdoor play in one game, etc. He intentionally weakened his game just to feel challenged and make it fun again.
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The Sermon on the Mount, Day 33
Again, continue the prayer exercise we started Wednesday using the Lord’s prayer as an outline (Matt 6:9-13) but today do it in a group. Find at least on other person to pray with (feel free to gather a larger group of people if you like). Set aside 20-30 minutes together and start by reading the Lord’s prayer out loud. Then, pray freely through the model of the points and themes of the Lord’s prayer in your own words together. Pay attention to what the other person prays and use each others words and petitions as a catalyst for adding to one another’s prayers. Group prayer can becomes like a group conversation, a group brainstorming session, or a musical collaboration – complete with a life and rhythm of its own. Try to find that rhythm together.
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The Sermon on the Mount, Day 32
Continue the prayer exercise we started yesterday using the Lord’s prayer as an outline (Matt 6:9-13). However, today take one line or phrase from the Lord’s prayer that captures your heart most and use it as a starting point for your prayer. Spend 15-20 minutes praying. Try to dig a little deeper than normal in your prayer time.
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The Sermon on the Mount, Day 31
We’ve just completed the middle portion of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew Chapter 6), which compellingly portrays the central life of one who lives squarely in relationship with God – who is Himself the “blessing” and the “reward” that Jesus speaks of.
At the very center of this middle piece of Jesus’ great Sermon we find the chief activity of the people of God: Prayer (v9-18). If the blessing and reward of the Kingdom is God Himself, then there can be no activity that can replace prayer as the chief duty and delight of Kingdom people, for prayer is where we join with God through a conversation of the heart. (more…)
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The Sermon on the Mount, Day 25
Read The Lord’s Prayer again (Matt 6:9-13) and do the exercises below:
In The Cotton Patch Version, Clarence Jordan translates the Lord’s prayer like this:
Father of us, O Spiritual One
Your name be truly honored.
Your kingdom spread, your will prevail
Through earth, as through the heavens.
Sustaining bread grant us each day.
Forgive our debts as we forgive
The debts of all who cannot pay.
And from confusion keep us clear;
Deliver us from evil’s sway.Jordan translates the Lord’s prayer as a poem because that is how it appears in the original Greek. As a poem, it took advantage of the ability to communicate deeper meaning through structure, rhythm, and rhyme.
- Take time to write out your own version of the Lord’s prayer in your own way.
By Henry Darger
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The Sermon on the Mount, Day 23
Read Matthew 6:5-8 and do the exercises below:
- How is your private prayer different from your public prayer?
- Jesus says “do not keep babbling” (v7). In Jesus’ day a common pagan belief was that the gods could be worn down or overcome by incessant words in prayer. At the heart of this belief is the idea that we can gain control over God by praying the right way. What other approaches to prayer have you heard that basically teach this same idea (that if we’ll only learn to pray the right way God will do what we want)?
- What do you think Jesus means by, “I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full” (v5)? What is the “reward” he’s referring to? What does this teach us about God and the spiritual life?
- Try this kind of prayer today. How would you pray differently if what you were seeking was merely more of Him? Find a time and place where you’ll be undisturbed and spend at least 20 minutes in prayer with God Himself as your only request. You can use scripture (preferably Psalms, Proverbs, or the end of Job), nature, music, or art as a catalyst of meditation. Or, you can just dig in and start pouring out your heart’s desire for God, asking Him to draw close to you in a discernible way. Pay close attention to the thoughts, images, and feelings that run through your mind. How is God communicating to you? Come back here and tell us about your experience.
By Henry Darger
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The Sermon on the Mount, Day 9
Read through today’s recap and practice the exercise at the end:
Before we move into the next portion of the sermon on the mount let’s stop and consider what we’ve discovered:
- Jesus announces the arrival of God’s available Kingdom, the true “promised land.” That was his gospel (Mt 4:12-17).
- Jesus proves the reality of God’s new rule by demonstrating power over human brokenness, suffering, and disease (Mt 4:23-25).
- Jesus points out that the lowest of the world, and even the persecuted, can be considered “blessed” by this new access to God’s present Kingdom (Mt 5:1-12).
- Jesus says the people who are blessed by God’s present Kingdom constitute a new humanity, becoming the “salt and light” of the world (Mt 5:13-16).
- Jesus says this new humanity who are blessed by God’s presence and power will fulfill the law and exceed the righteousness of man’s most stringent efforts (Mt 5:17-20).
As we move into a part of Jesus’ sermon that describes the greatest set of ethics ever taught we will be tempted to think that Jesus is calling us to do our very best to live that way. But that, of course, is impossible and would require us to forget everything we’ve learned up to this point; namely, that the real gospel – the real “blessing” – is God Himself (Gen 15:1). The only way, then, to be the “salt and light” that Jesus describes is to be with God, living under his good rulership as our King.
So then, how are we to be with God?
