THE LORD AT PRAYER – Part 2

The deep feelings are of another nature…when Philip brought the Greek enquirers to Him. The glory of the Father can only be fully revealed in the intense suffering and death of the days ahead. From this point onwards until Gethsemane, Jesus utters groans and questions, with tears and sighs of intense agony. These are referred to in Heb. 5: 7, "During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from (or out of) death and he was heard because of his reverent submission...” This was learning obedience through what He suffered and attaining maturity through agony of soul. In all these experiences, Jesus wanted only to know and to do the Father's will, so that God could be glorified in the life and death of His Son. It is when we catch the spirit of those glories and groanings, joys and sorrows, for that one reason and purpose, the glory of the Father, that we truly follow Jesus.

On one occasion, the disciples went to Jesus while He was praying and asked Him to teach them to pray (Luke 11:1). Do we need to learn to pray? Surprisingly Jesus had already given them some instruction in prayer during the Sermon on the Mount. What prompted the question now? They were aware that John the Baptist had taught his disciples to pray and that it was the custom of the Pharisee teachers to do the same for their followers. They were also becoming aware perhaps that Jesus' approach to God was very different from anything they or anyone else had ever been taught.

An examination of the parable of the two sons (Luke 15: 11-32) gives us an insight into the way in which we may approach God. We, like the prodigal son, come to our senses at last and realize that we ought to seek our Father. It is one of the most enlightening stories in the world. It teaches us how the most derelict sinner may draw near to the great Creator ~ the majestic and holy God. If coming to Him so often with our every want breeds contempt by familiarity then we need to ponder His majesty and greatness. Our perception of Him is almost certainly too small. Should we not adopt the attitude and spirit of the prodigal who was determined to go to his father and confess his faults, admitting he hardly deserved the lowest place in the household? We see the outstretched arms of the father wanting him to come home as a son. How much that picture of God reflects the words of Jesus to a sinful woman of Samaria -- "the Father seeks such," to worship him not on a mountain or in a temple, but anywhere, if the searching is without hypocrisy but in sincerity and in reality.

The same attitude of heart and mind is shown in Jesus' other teachings about prayer recorded in Matthew 6 and Luke 18. It is so easy for committed disciples of the Lord Jesus today, to think that the religious leaders and pagans of the First century were the only ones to have the wrong spirit concerning prayer. When Jesus told the parable of the two men praying in the Temple, He had in mind also those who would believe on Him because of the message of the early disciples. Many a Christian has silently prayed wishfully, “Dear Lord, I give thanks I am not as that Pharisee". There is such a danger in today to believe that we can enter the presence of God with feelings of pride, achievement and of self-exaltation, to the extent that we suffer from the sin of conceit in our hearts and lives. If that is so, then we shall not be ready for what follows in the teachings of Jesus, nor the model prayers of Matt. 6 and Luke 11. The primary principle of prayer is the hardest lesson to learn, and is focusing attention upon God rather than upon self. In the parable, it is not the words of the sons that are of paramount importance but the words of the father. In the joy of reconciliation, there is a gentleness in the rebuke of the father, not wrath and upbraiding. His one desire was to have the erring son back in the homestead, to restore the relationship and renew the fellowship. The story should be read alongside every passage in the Old and New Testament that speaks of the wrath of God. The question for the believer today is "Have I truly come home?" Have I really entered into the spirit of that home and have I discovered the compassion and joy of that home? The Father eagerly awaits His child…

Bible Student Monthly

“In effect, Jesus lays down two great rules for prayer. (1) He insists that all true prayer must be offered to God. The real fault of the people Jesus was criticizing was that they were praying to men and not God…more concerned with impressing the people than with making contact with God. Whether in public or private prayer, a man should have no thought in his mind and no desire in his heart but God and (2) He insists that we must always remember that the God to whom we pray is a God of love who is more ready to answer than we are to pray. His gifts and His grace are not to be unwillingly extracted from Him. We do not come to a God who has to be coaxed, pestered or battered into answering our prayers. We come to One whose one wish is to give. When we remember that, it is surely sufficient to go to God with the sigh of desire in our hearts, and on our lips the words, ‘Thy will be done.’”

William Barclay