After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.
Mark 6:46
If anyone had a reason not to pray, it was Jesus. After all he was God incarnate and had foreknowledge regarding all things. He knew the outcomes of events and circumstances and still he prayed. Jesus was known to pray early in the morning (Mark 1:35); he was known to pray at night, sometimes all night (Luke 6:12). Jesus was known to pray before important events such as his baptism (Luke 3: 21-22) and after important achievements, such as when he healed the woman with an issue of blood (Mark 5: 30). Jesus even prayed before he ate (Matthew 14:19). In other words, Jesus prayed all the time. He prayed without ceasing.
How is your prayer life? Does it measure up? I must admit, mine doesn’t. Sometimes I am too tired to pray, sometimes the day is jam-packed, and the thing that goes out the window is prayer. But here’s the challenging thing, Jesus prayed without ceasing, even when his day was jam-packed, and he even prayed when he was weary. And because he prayed, success followed Jesus wherever he went, while the disciples often experienced failure (James, John, Peter and Judas etc..) because they did not pray. Believing prayer made the difference. Jack Hayford once wrote, “If we don’t, he won’t.” And John Wesley said, “God will do nothing on earth except in answer to believing prayer.”
So, pray we must. We cannot afford not to. Satan understands the power we have through prayer and will do everything he can to trip us up and mess us up so there is no time left to pray. Has your prayer life felt weak lately? There’s a reason for that, your breakthrough is close, so lean in and ask that the Holy Spirit would help you to pray. You must ask, believing that God wants to work in those areas of your life where Satan seems to be succeeding. You must seek, believing that he will lead you to discover the deeper secrets of his word. And you must knock, believing that you will overcome any obstacle standing between you and God’s provision for you. Pray without ceasing, knowing that it is the Father’s delight to make a gift to you of his overruling power (Luke 12:32).
Wonderful Father, thank you for your readiness to release your overruling power in my life whenever I pray. Holy Spirit come, help me to pray according to the Father’s will, so that I might experience spiritual success, even as Jesus did. Amen.