So let me ask you this (I would appreciate your opinion if you have time), other than in the Garden before His crucifixion and death, did Jesus ever pray for Himself and His needs and wants? For instance, did He petition the Father for food or clothes or housing or money or transportation? Can you refer me to any of the Gospel scriptures where He makes these kinds of requests. I’m not testing you or being facetious or preachy when I ask this...I am truly searching for guidance on this issue, because if we expect to walk as Jesus did on this earth, and THAT is our commission, then this is an important area we need to know about, and not just speculate or guess about. The reason this question comes up to me is that it goes directly to the question about what is prayer and how do we do it; because if we are walking like Jesus did and if we are expected to do even greater things than He did, as we read in the Gospel of John, we need to understand God’s support system for our ministries, to include our personal needs. It would seem that the more that we get lined up with the way Jesus walked in His ministry, the more effective and successful our ministry walk will be.
One of the reasons I bring this up is that I think that we often spend most of our prayer time petitioning God for the things we need and want for ourselves, our families, our relatives and our friends than we do petitioning Him for guidance, direction and resources to accomplish the purpose He created us for...and, believe me, we all have that purpose! God assured me a long time ago, when I was writing The Prayer Directed Life, that when we are working to accomplish the purpose He created us for using our faith, He will move Heaven and earth to remove any obstacle or barrier that would stand in the way of our efforts; I can tell you that He has demonstrated that for me over and over again. Actually, that goes directly to Jesus’ command in the Gospels: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and righteousness, and all the rest will be added onto you.” (Recall that the “Kingdom of God” is not Heaven; it’s God’s way of doing things: And “righteousness” is not about being a good person; it’s about being in right standing with God...being a born again child of God.)
Even when we examine the template for prayer that Jesus gave to His disciples in the Gospel of Matthew, traditionally called the Lord’s Prayer, we only see one line out of the whole template that concerns petitioning for our needs (nothing is suggested about petitioning for our “wants”): “...And give us today our daily bread...”. Even that petition centers on “today”, not “tomorrow” or the future. Another thing that we might need to consider about that template is that it was given to the disciples before they became born again...they were literally just beginning to learn a new concept for prayer. And remember in Luke 16:13-15 where Jesus says, “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (money)”, and “For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination to the will of God.”? Does that not strike a clarion bell in your spirit? Does not the story of Lazarus and the rich man, told a little later in the same chapter, give you a little concern about using God’s gift of faith for our wants and desires? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that God doesn’t want us to have things...even really nice things! The Bible shows God has always been a giver and a gifter to those who obey Him and seek His ways first! But here’s the question: In your daily prayer time, do you spend more time petitioning the Father for what you need and want than thanking Him in detail for what you have and the gifts He has given to you?
You see, I will admit to you that I came to the Lord partly through the attraction of the so-called faith and prosperity message; and I still believe important aspects of that message, especially as concerns the “faith” part, are still essential to a close and successful walk with God. After all, Hebrews 11:6 clearly says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek HIM.” That’s the truth of the “prosperity message” right there! Seeking Him first exactly lines up with Jesus’ teaching to “Seek first the Kingdom of God and righteousness, and all the rest will be added on to you.”
Now, I do believe that there is an important caveat to the line of thought concerning this issue, and it is this: We absolutely need faith for all of this stuff to come together and work like it should in our lives as children of God; that is, we need unshakable faith, like that of a young child’s for the provision of its parents, that is convinced that Almighty God can use the supernatural and miraculous to provide where all else fails. Our faith needs to be strong, but more than that, it needs to be convinced that God can - and will - do all things, even the impossible to accomplish His will...For nothing is impossible for Him! The good news for us is Jesus said that all we need is faith the size of a mustard seed (if you don’t know how small a mustard seed is, Google it!) to operate in this area.
Finally, the one occasion I did find where Jesus told the disciples to pray for themselves was on the Mount of Olives after the Last Supper. Here’s a couple of things that we all should probably take note of in the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke (John didn't cover this event) concerning the Garden of Gethsemane before His crucifixion: First, in all three accounts, Jesus asked His disciples to keep watch for Him while He prayed (note that He did not ask them to pray for Himself), and when He was through praying and came back to find the men asleep, He woke them up and admonished them to pray for themselves, that they not fall into temptation; Second, the Gospel of Luke notes that when Jesus was praying for His Father to spare His life, “an angel from heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him.”(LK22:43) Wow, did you know or remember that? If they can do that for Jesus, they can - and will - do it for us, as need be!
May I suggest that if you haven’t read and studied Matt 6:25-34, you really, really need to do that if you want to get a handle on this subject. I can assure you that when I finally began to get a hold of the meaning of this teaching, my faith focus changed for sure.
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