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).
If Jesus, in His deity, knew what His day was to entail, it would have been natural to spend time the night before checking in with His Father and asking for some guidance. But would it have been necessary to make that chat last all night?
Perhaps, in His humanity, He, like us, didn’t exactly know what following day would look like, but was able to successfully navigate through it, largely because He spent an extended length of time in prayer?
And why did Jesus, as often as possible, “withdraw to desolate places and pray” (Luke 5:16)? Like us, He did have a lot for which to pray. He was tempted (see Matthew 4:1). He experienced grief, distress, and trouble (see Matthew 26:36-38 & Mark 14:32-34). He was thankful for provision (see Matthew 15:36, 26:27; Mark 14:23; Luke 22:17-19 & John 6:11). He knew people who needed prayer (see John 17:1-26). And He needed strength and perspective to complete a very important assignment (see Matthew 26:36, 39, 42-44; Mark 14:32, 35-36, 39 & Luke 22:40, 42). All of these are valid reasons to pray. Perhaps Jesus was merely being a model for us in the area of prayer.
But could it be more than that? After all, He wasn’t just human, He was God. Why would God need to pray? Could it be that Jesus, as the Son of God, having spent eternity past in constant communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit, knew that prayer was the only way He could continue in this perfect fellowship while He was here on Earth? Perhaps He knew, what we don’t realize, that prayer is the lifeblood of a relationship with God.
How’s your prayer life? Is prayer often an after-thought, something you do when nothing else seems to be working? Is prayer something you know, as a good Christian, you should be doing, so you rush through it like you are checking something off a to-do list? Do you pray only to ask God to bless your plans instead of seeking His heart on what you should do in the first place?
Or is prayer something you can’t wait to do, something you do almost constantly, because you know, like Jesus did, that it is the only way on Earth to maintain a vibrant, satisfying, joyful, loving relationship with God Almighty—a relationship that will continue into eternity. Why not get the most out of that relationship now?
1Scripture quotations marked with ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All Scriptures are taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted. To aid in understanding, I have capitalized references to God.