He [Jesus] went out to the mountain to pray, and all night He continued in prayer to God. Luke 6:12 ESV1
Read Luke 6:12-49
Why did Jesus make the effort to climb a mountain and take the time to spend all night in prayer? Was it because He had an important decision to make in selecting twelve of His closest disciples to become His apostles? Because that is what He did immediately following this time of prayer. Their names are listed in verses 13-15 of Luke 6.
Was it because He knew He was going to have to be empowered to conduct a particularly draining time of ministry the following day? Because, at the foot of the mountain, He was met by a great crowd of people. Luke 6:19 tells us, “All the crowd sought to touch Him, for power came out from Him and healed them all.”
Or did He spend all that time in prayer, because He was planning on giving a very long and radical speech that would challenge the most basic beliefs of his audience? Verses 20 through 42 of Luke 6 record a sermon which names as blessings situations most everyone would consider curses, pronounces woes upon those things for which humans constantly strive, and commands that one must love one’s enemies and stop judging others. (Matthew records an even longer version of this sermon in chapters 5-7 of his book).