Luke 10 ends with Jesus commending Mary of Bethany, the sisterof Martha and Lazarus, for“choosing that good part, which will not be takenaway from her”. She had chosen to“sitat Jesus feet” over serving in the kitchen when Jesus was a guest in their house.We talked about as important as it is to serve the Lord as ambassadors and be “goodneighbors”, we must remember that at the heart of everything we do should beintimate worship with the Lord. Colossians 3:17 teaches us:“And whateveryou do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks toGod the Father through Him.”
Now interestingly, Luke 11 begins with a lesson on thesubject of prayer. Prayer is connected to worship like our beating heart is toour body. There can be no worship without prayer, and no prayer withoutworship. They are intimately connected to each other. Someone correctly said,“Prayeris not only the shortest distance to God’s mighty throne, it the only way in.”
An overview of Luke 11 shows us in this chapter that ourLord's teaching in it grew out of a prayer meeting, a miracle, and aninvitation to dinner. Jesus used these occasions to give instructions aboutfour important topics: prayer, Satan, spiritual opportunity, and hypocrisy. Itis important that we today understand these topics and apply these truths toour own lives.
As we study the life of Jesus in the Gospels it is veryobvious that prayer was a priority in His life and ministry. In Luke 11:1, Jesusis praying and when He finishes one of His disciples asks Him to teach them topray as John the Baptist taught his disciples to pray. We usually think of Johnthe Baptist as a prophet and martyr, and yet our Lord's disciples rememberedhim as a man of prayer. Remember John the Baptist was a "miraclebaby," filled with the Holy Spirit before he was born, and yet he had topray. He was privileged to introduce the Messiah to Israel, and yet he had topray. Jesus said that John was the greatest of the prophets (Luke 7:28), and yetJohn had to depend on prayer. If prayer was that vital to a man who had thesemany advantages, how much more important it ought to be to us who do not havethese advantages!
John's disciples had to pray and Jesus' disciples wanted tolearn better how to pray. No where in the Gospels do we find the disciplesasking the Master to teach them how to preach, to be good teachers, to be betterleaders, or do great signs. But they did asked Him to teach them to pray. Wetoday sometimes think that we would be better Christians if only we had beenwith Jesus when He was on earth, but this is not likely. The disciples werewith Him and yet they failed many times! They could perform miracles, and yetthey wanted to learn to pray.
But the greatest argument for the priority of prayer is thefact that our Lord was a Man of prayer. Thus far we have seen that He prayed atHis baptism (Luke 3:21), before He chose the Twelve (Luke 6:12), when thecrowds increased (Luke 5:16), before He asked the Twelve for their confessionof faith (Luke 9:18), and at His Transfiguration (Luke 9:29). The disciplesknew that He often prayed alone (Mark 1:35), and they wanted to learn from Himthis secret of spiritual power and wisdom.
If Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God, had to depend onprayer during "the days of His flesh" (Heb. 5:7), then how much moredo you and I need to pray! Effective prayer is the provision for every need andthe solution for every problem.
I’ll never forget in my Bible college years hearing Dr. Falwelloften saying, “Nothing of eternal value is ever accomplished apart from prayer.”I believe it is John Wesley who is credited for saying, “The devil trembleswhen the weakest Christian gets on his knees”.
Today, maybe our prayer should also be, “Lord, teach us topray”!
God bless!
