ELEMENTS OF SELF PRAYER

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

After Jesus said this, He looked toward heaven and prayed:

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify You. For You granted Him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those You have given Him. Now this is eternal life: that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent. I have brought You glory on earth by finishing the work You gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory I had with You before the world began.”

John 17:1-5

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

It’s very important to study the life story of Jesus synoptically which simply means you read across all four gospel accounts in order to gain the fullest and knowledge of everything Jesus did and when He did it.

It makes complete sense if you think about it. If you were to ask four individuals to write up their experiences over time with you, I am pretty sure those four accounts would be similar in some places but very different in others. There will also be accounts found in one or more of the accounts that aren’t found anywhere in the others. This is exactly what you find when you study the gospels written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and as we’ll see in today’s passage as well as devotions over the next two days, John tells of three very special prayers that Jesus delivers before He heads to the garden of Gethsemane and an appointment with arrest. You won’t find these in any of the other three gospels.

Interestingly, this first prayer that Jesus speaks is for Himself. It’s something that might be alien for a lot of us because it just seems like we fail to do it much, certainly far less than we pray for others. It just seems unnatural for us to ask the Lord to intercede for ourselves. And frankly, maybe some people are reluctant to adopt self prayer because it feels almost selfish, like it’s wrong to focus on oneself when there are so many others who need prayer more.

But the way we need to look at this matter is that if Jesus did it, then it must not only be acceptable and allowable, but something we really need to do. And as we see so often with our Savior, He takes the lead in showing us how to pray for ourselves and reveals two important elements of this self prayer.

First, note that Jesus is praying in the moment. He knows what is just ahead as He would be arrested in mere hours and start walking the path of abject suffering and eventual death. His hour had come and He knew it.

As for us, we go through all sorts of life experiences as well and often times, those experiences carry suffering with them. During those times, we, like Jesus, should come before God in prayer during those hours when we face trials and trouble. After all, we read in Psalm 46:1 that our God is our refuge and a very present help in times of trouble. Jesus saw Him that way and so should we.

The second element of self prayer is found in the act of glorifying.

In His prayer, Jesus first asks His Father to glorify Him so He in turn could bring the Father glory. The request for God to elevate Him to a place of honor wasn’t grounded in Jesus wanting self importance. The Son wasn’t trying to steal the spotlight from His Father. Rather, He knew that if He was glorified then He would be able to glorify God and indeed, this is the way it played out, right?

For after Jesus gave up His Spirit on the cross and went to the tomb like any other dead person, on the third day, He was resurrected in power, not by His power but rather by the power of God Himself. Jesus eventually would proclaim that God had delegated authority over all people to Him, including the clout to bring people to eternal life, but none of that would have been possible if God had not resurrected Him. Therefore, Jesus’ resurrection really served to glorify a God who placed His full ability to do all things on display.

Coming before God in the hour of need and doing so with the intent of being glorified through answered prayer so we can in turn glorify the God who did the answering.

These are the basic elements of self prayer, self prayer that Jesus demonstrated just before He journeyed to the cross. Tomorrow, we’ll look at how Jesus prayed for His hand chosen disciples.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com