By L. J. Fowler
Taken from Grace and Truth Magazine 1923
If for a moment, we were to discard our Bible and were to seek in human knowledge an explanation. of the One Who walked in Galilee healing the
sick, comforting the sorrowing, rebuking in scathing terms the
hypocrite, controlling even the forces of
nature herself, we would find that we were facing the greatest
enigma that has ever entered upon the pages of history. From whatever angle we approach Him, whether to study some phase of His
matchless teaching or to view His
perfect life, we find Him an
unsolvable riddle. We are baffled by
this One Who is so lowly and yet so mighty, and thus we must remain till we are willing to receive
the testimony of the Word of God and confess with the centurion at
the Cross, “Truly this man was the
Son of God.” No other
explanation can fully satisfy
any or all of the recorded facts of the life
of Jesus Christ. The Infinite declaration to finite man
is that He was ‘God manifest in the flesh.” He was a
man who was also God. Any study of the life or teachings
of Jesus which would disregard this explanation must of
necessity be valueless. He must be seen as the One Who
was fully God and fully man, the Second Person of the
Trinity taking “upon Himself the form of sinful flesh.”
It is in full recognition of
this infinite declaraiton of fact that we approach the study
of the Prayer Life of Jesus. Why One Who was God must
needs draw aside from the throngs of Judea into a
solitary place to pray, we cannot say. The infinite
realm has joined itself to the finite and God gives us in
His Word no explanation. But the child of God reaches out
and receives in simple faith God’s statement of
infinite truth. As man, He was subject to all the testings
which come to man, “was tested in all points like as we
are, yet without sin.” Therefore He must pray. And pray He
did. From His baptism in Jordan as He entered
upon His public ministry, until His last moment on the
Cross, His heart was being. poured out to the Father in
supplications and thanksgivings. He breathes forth His
loving petitions for His disciples, cries out in awful agony
in Gethsemane that the will of the Father may be done
through Him, asks forgiveness for His enemies, and
lifts His soul to the Father in thanksgiving at the tomb of
Lazarus that He has been. heard. To discover what prayer
meant in His life as man, that we may learn what
prayer may accomplish in our lives, is the purpose of
this study.
Prayer and Transformation
It is
with sorrow that we face the
fact that a great host of those who fill our
churches today have become so engulfed in the
worldliness and modernism of this hour that there is left
but little desire for a transformed life. Few indeed are
those who could say:
“My tears have flowed, when
I have thought,
How little I resemble Thee,
How weak at best, when I
have sought
Thine image to reflect in me.”
Oh that there might be raised up in our day an ever-increasing
number who have a wistful longing
to be in the likeness of Jesus!
That prayer does bring transformation is beautifully set
forth in the event which occurred on
the mount of transfiguration. Matthew records the fact that the
Lord took with Him Peter, James and John and went into a high mountain and there was “transfigured before them” (Matt. 17:2). It is interesting to note that the
word here translated, “transfigured,”
is the same Greek word which is rendered “transformed” in Romans
12:2 where Paul's appeals to the believers at Rome
not to be “conformed to this world,” but to be
“transformed” by the renewing of their minds, The explanation
of what was back of the transfiguration or
transformation of Jesus is
recorded by Luke. He says:
“And it came to pass about an
eight days after these sayings, He took Peter and
John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray.
And as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance
was altered, and His raiment was white and
glistering” (Luke 9:28-29).
‘There is just one path of
living the transformed life,
Paul says that it is made possible by
getting a renewed mind. The Holy Spirit speaking through
Luke declares that it is by prayer. And what is prayer
but getting a new mind? It is changing the habit of the
mind from dependence on self to dependence on God. ‘The
prayer which brings transformation is the prayer
that recognizes the weakness of the flesh and the glorious
strength of the Lord. Prayer brings transformation.
Prayer and Guidance
One needs but to give to the
Gospels a casual read ing in order to have the fact
indelibly impressed upon the soul that the life of
Jesus on this earth was but the living out of a plan
which was scheduled long before He became the Son of the
Virgin Mary in Bethlehem. We find that He must
needs go through Samaria; that He knew the very hour in
which it was the Father's purpose for Him to go to
Jerusalem that He might suffer on the Cross. His life is.
preserved because His hour is not yet come, and He Himself
declares to the Father that He has finished the work
which He was sent to do. His was a life lived in constant
communion with the Father, and which fulfilled in
every detail the Father's plan for Him upon this earth.
How unlike is His life to the
lives of those who name the name of Christ today. For
the most part, Christians walk in the path of their own
choosing. From childhood they are encouraged to choose
their own calling, and so thoroughly has the thought
become instilled in the souls of the youth of our day that to
talk to a young man or a young woman about letting
God's plan for the life have pre-eminence is to receive the
response that one is treading on sacred ground. In John
17:18 Jesus utters these remarkable words in His
intercessory prayer to. the Father:
“As thou hast sent me into the
world, even so have I also sent them into the
world.”
Jesus was sent into the world to
live out a definite plan which the Father had ordained.
He came to do the will of another. Likewise we too are
sent forth to live out the plan, the will, which another
has ordained. It is that “good and acceptable and perfect
will of God.” ‘The question naturally comes, “How
may I know and do the will of God?” ‘The answer is to
be found in an outstanding event in the life of
Jesus:
“And it came to pass in those
days, that He went out into a mountain to pray, and
continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was
day, He called unto Him His disciples: and of them
He chose twelve, whom. also He named apostles” (Luke
6:12-13).
This is the only recorded
instance in which Jesus prayed “all night.” Again and again He
withdrew Himself and prayed, but never did He pray
all night, as far as the record is given, except just
preceding the time when He chose His disciples. Here were
men who were to receive the teachings of Jesus; would be
witnesses of His death and resurrection; and were to be
used by God in giving the divine record of His life.
The Father's will must be known in such a task. And to
prepare Himself for that
eventful day, Jesus prayed.
If this One Who was without sin
must needs pray for guidance, how
much more should we whose souls have known so much of rebellion
toward God learn to pray if we would
know and do His will.
Prayer and Service
Jesus Christ is God's only anointed Prophet, Priest and King. Every prophet of Israel, every priest and every
king were only pictures of the true
Prophet, Priest and King—Jesus Christ.
John calls Him in the Book of the
Revelation, “The Faithful Witness, the First Begotten of the Dead, and
the Prince of the Kings of the
Earth.” He came two thousand years ago
as Prophet, He is now Priest, and
He is the coming King.
As the Prophet of God, He spoke forth the words of God. He was
the perfect witness, the perfect
servant and minister. In the first
glimpse we have of Him in His public
ministry He is praying. He is at Jordan,
and Luke describes the incident
thus:
“Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that
Jesus also being baptized, and
praying, the heaven was opened”
(Luke 3:21).
He prays. It is the secret of
the perfect life of the perfect Prophet of God.
It is the natural thing for Him to do. And not
only do we find Him praying as He steps upon the
scene of His public ministry, but His life is filled with
prayer. His prayer life divides itself into three groups.
First, we find Him entering into
that phase of the prayer life which must be the
basis of all true praying. He prays alone. Five times, it
is recorded, He went apart to pray. He goes into a
solitary place, into a mountain, or into the wilderness.
(See Mark 1:35; 6:46; Luke 5:16, 9:18; 6:12 with Mark
329-14.) It will be found in reading the events
which precede each time of solitary prayer that Jesus had
either healed or fed a multitude. At one time Peter
interrupts His prayer time and urges the human reason for
omitting prayer, “All men seek Thee.” Charles G.
Trumbull stated a deep truth when he said, “Those serve
best who pray, and they serve while they are praying.”
How slow we have been to learn this lesson, and yet
how necessary it is for us to realize that no service is
sufficiently important to crowd out our time alone with Him.
Again, Jesus took aside a small
group of His disciples, Peter, James and John, and
prayed. He promised that “where two or three are gathered
together in My name there am J in the midst.” Ina
singular’ way God has blessed this phase of the prayer
life in the lives of His children, Samuel Mills and four
of his fellow students of Williams College fired in the
hearts of the Christian people of America the first
spark of foreign missionary enthusiasm by such a prayer time
under the shelter of a hay stack. ‘The great Torrey-Alexander
world evangelistic campaign had
behind it
such a prayer time. Many are the testimonies which might
be brought of God's blessing on the
earnest cryings of the small group
of His believing children. It has the
Divine sanction.
Third, we find Jesus praying in public. He prayed with all of
His disciples present, when many
brought to Him the little children, and
when the five thousand were present
as He blessed the five loaves and the
two fishes. Does not such a prayer life condemn all of us who would enter
into service for Him? May God’s children learn in this hour of great
need that any service which is not
backed by fervent, believing prayer is
not service—it is a mockery of God.
Prayer and Testing
There are places where the Christian cannot presume to go. He can never tread the path to Calvary and receive the
wrath of a righteous and holy God,
neither can he enter Gethsemane where Jesus went alone, bearing a load
too heavy for human strength. We
may, however, make an application
which will be of blessing to us.
‘There is nothing in the Word of God to indicate that the
Christian life in this age is to be a bed
of roses, On the contrary, Paul declares that “all that
will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” Jesus
did not pray that we should be shielded from the
testings of this world, but that we should be kept “from the
evil one.” ‘The truth about testings is declared in I
Cor. 10:13:
“There hath no temptation taken
you but such as is commen to man: but God is
faithful, who will not suffer you “to be tempted above that ye
are able; but will with the temptation also make a way
to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”
What a relief is brought to the
soul by the knowledge that there is “a way to escape.”
However, it is well for us to keep in mind that there is
also a sure way to defeat. The two paths may be clearly
seen in the things which transpired in two memorable
gardens. It was in a garden that the First Adam lost the
victory in his conflict with Satan and thereby brought ruin
upon the race, and it was in a garden that the Second
Adam, Jesus Christ, defeated the Adversary and made possible’
our eternal salvation. ‘The first Adam faced a testing
and willed to do the will of Satan, but the Second Adam
yielded to the will of God. ‘The First Adam prayed no prayer
but rested on his own wisdom, but the Second Adam fell
on His face and prayed, “and being in an agony He prayed
more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great
drops of blood falling down to the ground.” By nature
we partake of the tendencies and habits of the First
Adam. We even yield to the will of Satan and refuse
to pray. But by the strength of the New Man, which
is Christ in us the hope of glory, we may yield to the
will of God and learn to pray. This is the only Divinely
appointed way by which we can face the testings and
bear the burdens of this life. When the load seems to grow just
a little too heavy and the path is enveloped in
darkness, “‘the peace of God which passeth all understanding”
may in a moment flood our souls as we commit our way
unto Him and with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane
simply say, “Father, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”
The life of Jesus was a life of
prayer. Although being very God of very God, He was
“found in fashion as a man,” and as man He prayed. By
His example He has taught us that all
transformation is dependent on
prayer; that guidance may be received
through prayer; that true service is impossible without
prayer; and that the testings of this life can only be met as
we learn to pray.
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