How to Pray Like Jesus
Mark 1:35-39: “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. And Simon and they that were with him followed after him. And when they had found him, they said unto him, All men seek for thee. And he said unto them, Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth. And he preached in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and cast out devils.”
Leonard Ravenhill once said, “No man is greater than his prayer life.” This is undeniably true. Because, throughout the history of God’s people, capacity for usefulness has only ever been deepened and widened through prayer and God uses to the greatest degree those whose lives are saturated with it. Moses was a man who prayed constantly. Jacob wrestled all night with God. Hannah tarried in the temple and prayed, pouring out her soul unto the Lord for a child and God gave her Samuel. Hannah’s prayer of thanksgiving after Samuel was born was so beautiful that God preserved it in Scripture (1 Samuel 2:1-10) and Mary echoed it in her Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). David was a man of prayer. Of the 100 psalms that indicate an author, 73 are attributed to David. Though primarily songs, they are also in effect prayers and Psalm 72:20 declares, “The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.” Daniel prayed three times a day according to Daniel 6:10 even at risk to his own life. James 5:17 tells us that it did not rain for three and a half years because Elijah prayed. The list goes on.
The greatest who ever lived, Jesus the Son of God, prayed without ceasing. And so obvious and transcendent was what occurred when Jesus prayed that His disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray (Luke 11:1). His disciples did not ask Jesus to teach them to do the miraculous. They asked not that He teach them how to cast out demons or to heal the sick or to walk on water. They asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. And so He did. By what He taught in words, but perhaps more poignantly as a model for how to pray.
In Mark 1:35-39, we see two things: (i) how to pray like Jesus and (ii) the results when we do. We deal with (i) how to pray like Jesus in this post. We deal with (ii) the results when we do in the next.
Make Prayer the Priority
In Mark 1:35 we read, “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day…” In the Greek text, the phrase can literally be translated as, “Very early the next morning, while it was still quite dark…”
Jesus made prayer the priority. He did it first thing before dawn. He gave prayer a primacy over food, above even sleep. And this was not easy especially when you consider what He went through the day before as documented in Mark 1:21-34. Jesus accomplished more in that single 24-hour period than anyone will ever accomplish in a lifetime. He went into the Capernaum synagogue on the Sabbath day and He taught. Preaching and teaching from the word of God in and of itself is exceedingly taxing. The spiritual warfare involved every time one engages in the teaching of God’s word makes this an altogether different endeavor orders of magnitude more difficult than the mere public recitation of prepared remarks. Jesus was then interrupted by a demon possessed man. Jesus delivered this man and subsequently left the synagogue and entered into the house of Peter and Andrew. Jesus then healed Peter’s mother-in-law. And in the evening of that same day, the entire city of Capernaum gathered at the door of the house having brought to Jesus all who were sick and demon possessed. This crowd likely swelled into the thousands. In a time when advances in medicine were nonexistent, where the medical profession could do next to nothing to curb disease or alleviate pain we would have to imagine that everyone came out of the woodwork – from spectators desirous to see the spectacular to those who were afflicted with all manner of illnesses from paralysis to post-nasal drip because everyone has something that needs fixing. In Mark 1:32, “they brought” is rendered in the imperfect tense in the Greek which suggests a continuous, almost never ending stream of people swelling the crowd to massive proportions. And Jesus healed people deep into the night. If anyone deserved and needed a full night’s rest it was Jesus.
Considering the demands on His schedule, if anyone could have rationalized and rightsized their priority list to current demands it was Jesus. He could have very easily reasoned that physical strength and endurance were necessary components of His ministry. He could have slept in. He could have considered prayer a luxury – an afterthought at best – and something to be done if there was ever a lapse in His schedule. He did not. He prioritized prayer. He made the time and so has every single man and woman ever used by God. Because they understood this fundamental truth – one’s ability at full strength pales in comparison to God’s strength made perfect in weakness.
If the Incarnate Son of God made prayer a priority, then how much more should we? Beloved, how often do you pray honestly? Is prayer a priority in your life or are you too busy to pray? Martin Luther famously said, “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” We prioritize what we value. We make time for the things that are important. There is nothing more important than prayer because it is a living, breathing demonstration of a whole hearted dependence upon God and a necessary understanding of our fundamental weakness. To the extent that we do not make prayer a priority is the extent to which we will never see the full power of God because we will instead substitute our own and that is the very last thing we want or need.
Get Alone with God
In Mark 1:35-36 we read, “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. And Simon and they that were with him followed after him.”
The phrase “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day…” functions to note two important things. First, Jesus made prayer the priority. Second, the phrase functions as an indication of the importance Jesus placed on being alone with God. It is important here for us to remember that this was an agrarian society and people typically got up for work as soon as the sun rose. Jesus got up well before dawn in order to make absolutely certain that He would be able to get out of town to be alone with His Father in a solitary place without anyone following Him or knowing exactly where He would be.
This is made much more explicit in verse 36. “And Simon and they that were with him followed after him.” Please take particular note of “followed after” in verse 36. This is actually an unfortunate translation in the KJV. Other translations like the NIV and the ESV render the Greek verb here as “searched for” or “looked for” which also does not quite do the word justice. The Greek verb here (katadioko) only appears once in the entirety of the New Testament and that’s here. The word means to “search for eagerly” or “to hunt for.” Mark could have used any number of Greek words here to convey that the disciples were looking for or searching for Jesus. But, for Mark, this just wouldn’t do – it would be insufficient to describe what was happening here. So instead he uses a rare word – a word no other New Testament author uses – to convey just how deliberately lost Jesus had made Himself in order to be alone with His Heavenly Father in a solitary place with no interruptions and no distractions. So lost in fact that His own disciples had to hunt Him down.
This was something Jesus did often throughout His ministry. Matthew 14:23, “And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, He was there alone.” Luke 5:16, “And He withdrew Himself into the wilderness and prayed.” Luke 9:18, “And it came to pass, as He was alone praying.”
If the Incarnate Son of God needed time alone with His Heavenly Father then how much more do we? Praying together as a church family is a good thing – something we are encouraged to do in the Bible. But, unfortunately public prayers are fraught with danger. The danger of hypocrisy – prayers to be seen and heard by others – is precisely why Christ commanded us to pray in secret (Matthew 6:6). There is also the subtle temptation to pray to the wrong audience and to pray for the wrong reasons – to sound polished and spiritual – and if we give in to that temptation we lose sight of who it is we’re really addressing.
Bill Moyers was a special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson and he was once asked to say grace before a meal in the family quarters in the White House. This former Baptist minister began to pray softly. President Johnson interrupted him saying, “Speak up Bill!” Bill Moyers, without missing a beat, replied, “I wasn’t addressing you Mr. President.” When we get alone with God we eliminate distractions and interruptions and we eradicate the temptations that come with public prayer. We set the stage for genuine intimacy which is what we turn to next.
Make Prayer about Communion
In Mark 1:35 we read, “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.”
Please notice that there is no content provided – not even a general indication of what Jesus prayed for, let alone His words. Many see prayer as entirely about what a person says to God while on their knees, the words they use. If this is true then why does Scripture provide no detail about what the most important person is saying while He is engaged in the most important activity? In fact, in the gospel of Mark, Mark documents only three instances when Jesus explicitly prayed (Mark 1:35, 6:46, 14:32-42) and the only instance where we have a direct quotation of what Jesus actually said when He prayed was when Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane alone (Mark 14:32-42) while everyone around Him was asleep. In the other two instances, we have no idea what Jesus actually said.
If we widen the lens even further and look at all of the gospel narratives, we see Jesus explicitly praying some fifteen times in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And in nine of those instances we have no idea what Jesus was actually praying for. We have only two specific instances where we have direct quotations of what Jesus actually said – His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and His High Priestly prayer in John 17 – and both of those prayers are unique to the Divine Son of God alone. It is interesting that God places so much emphasis and importance on prayer. He makes it plain in Scripture that Jesus had the greatest prayer life of anybody in history and yet there is so little written in Scripture about what He actually said in prayer. If we are to emulate Jesus in prayer would it not be helpful to know what He said in order to parrot the same things in prayer? Isn’t that what God wants? No. And I believe that to be precisely the point. The distinct impression we get from the gospel narratives is that Jesus prayed to be in constant communion with His Heavenly Father and the words are almost beside the point. It is fellowship that God wants and intimate communion cannot be scripted.
Even the Lord’s prayer was never meant to be a script. In Matthew 6:7 we read, “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” Prayers are not meant to be information dumps as “your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.” Neither are prayers meant to be “vain repetitions” to be recited thoughtlessly as automatic formulas. The Lord’s prayer is a model not a liturgy. There’s nothing wrong with reciting the Lord’s prayer so long as it is done mindfully, but there has been so much said about the body of the Lord’s prayer and so many sermons given on it that, as a church, we tend to forget how the prayer starts, “Our Father.” This connotes personal and relational intimacy.
Imagine a scenario where your beloved son or your precious daughter comes to you every single day and for five minutes straight reads to you from a script. He or she recites to you some petitions, gives important updates on their life, and then ends with a benediction of gratitude and praise. All of which is in the King James and read to you while on their knees. They finish and they immediately leave and you don’t hear from them for the rest of the day. Imagine the next day they did the same thing. Imagine that they did this every single day with only slight variation. I think for most of us - hopefully all of us - this would be deeply troubling. I would imagine our preference would be that our children would barge into our office multiple times throughout the day, jump into our laps, and talk like a normal person, fall asleep or say nothing at all. I would imagine that would be exactly the type of intimacy we would crave as loving parents. And if we, being evil, want this from our children, then how much more our Heavenly Father who is nothing but love and nothing but good.
God is so desirous of genuine fellowship and constant communion with us that He implores us in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to “pray without ceasing.” This cannot happen if we do not make prayer about communion. If we make prayer about us talking the entire time, endlessly saying the right things, then unending prayer is an impossibility. We will eventually run out of things to say or run out of the opportunities to say them. One commentator writes, “Pray without ceasing suggests a mental attitude of prayerfulness, continual personal fellowship with God, and consciousness of being in His presence throughout each day.” Wayne Grudem writes that “Such continual devotion to prayer even while about daily duties should characterize the life of every believer.” Prayer should be a continuous conversation between us and our Heavenly Father where listening is just as important as speaking for our relationship with God to reach deeper levels of intimacy. Eugene Peterson writes, “Talk in prayer is essential but it is also partial. Silence is essential.” This, by the way, cuts both ways.
One of the best things about Biola in general and Talbot specifically is the fact that students are required to take spiritual formation courses to earn their seminary degree. Talbot does not want to merely equip the mind for ministry. Talbot endeavors to shape the soul. A major part of the spiritual formation curriculum is to engage in a variety of spiritual disciplines. One such spiritual discipline is silence and solitude which is exactly what it sounds like. You go to a solitary place and sit in silence in the presence of God. I was required to do this and I hated it. I thought it was a waste of time. I sat there for an hour and a half saying and doing nothing for ten days straight. And then I had to write about the experience. I thought that was ridiculous. Write about what? But, it was through this experience that I learned what it meant to make prayer about communion.
My prayers for the longest time were never relational. My prayers were performances. If I came with clean hands, if I prayed long enough and fervently enough, if I prayed for the right things, shed a tear or two to show God I was serious then I expected to hear from God – a special revelation or a divine granting of my request. His silence was unacceptable. If I had sinned, then prayers became a vain exercise in self-flagellation to earn His forgiveness, even His pity. Either way, if I took the time to pray then God owed me one. Prayer was an arms’ length transaction, a bartered exchange, and this performance paradigm severely limited my prayer life. Because you can’t perform all the time. Pretense is exhausting. What silence and solitude did was it eliminated the pretense because the forced silence did not allow me to perform and in turn I did not expect God to respond and I was able to finally rest and be at peace in the presence of my Heavenly Father. And I discovered that it is in the silence that God speaks the loudest. I realized then that prayer is meant to be principally relational and for the longest time it wasn’t. My relationship with God was the exact opposite of every other relationship in my life. I never performed for those closest to me and I never burdened them with the expectation that they had to perform for me. I had conversations with loved ones, not monologues. I never resented silence from a loved one, rather I deemed it a badge of intimacy knowing that I could spend an entire day with this loved one in total silence and not consider it a waste of time.
When was the last time you simply had a conversation with your Heavenly Father? When was the last time you took a walk with Him to just talk? When was the last time you spent a good chunk of time just sitting at His feet in total silence? When was the last time you made your prayer about the Giver rather than the gift? Should we make our requests known unto God? Yes. Should we be fervent in prayer? Absolutely. But, if this is not principally grounded in an intimate relationship with God in constant communion, our prayers become something they were never intended to be – a stick we use to hit God the pinata until He gives up the candy.