A Prayer Of Reverent Submission

Have you ever had a time that you have been praying with all of your heart and it seems like God is not listening? You know what you want. You are asking clearly and yet it seems like you are not being heard. Today we are going to look at a key scripture that gives us insight into the kind of prayers that God hears. For the best example of prayer, we have to start with Jesus.

The Bible tells us that Jesus raised a man named Lazarus from the dead after Lazarus had been dead for three days. Jesus calmed a storm when even the disciples thought surely, they were going to drown. Jesus healed a blind man who had been blind since birth. Jesus cast out demons. He made the lame to walk. He made the lepers clean. He fed 5,000+ people with five loaves and two fish. John 21:25 even says about the things that Jesus did, “If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”

How were Jesus’ prayers heard in such a powerful way? Is that how prayer works in your life? Some of us would give testimony to the fact that God has answered our prayers in the past. We also have probably heard stories of God working in the lives of others. But what about those times when we have prayed, and we have encountered what we think is silence.

Does prayer really make a difference? The One who can best answer that for us is Jesus. In Matthew 6:10, Jesus prays ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’” How could He pray that? He could pray that prayer because He alone has been in heaven and on earth. The angels don’t have the full perspective, and neither can mankind. Only Jesus has seen prayer from both ends. He knows the purpose and the power of prayer. He understands how prayer works and how God works through it. With this in mind, what did Jesus do when He was on earth? He prayed. . . a lot.

We can look in the book of Hebrews to see why Jesus’ prayers were heard so powerfully. Hebrews 5:7 says, “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.”

This verse is primarily pointing us back to Jesus’ prayers in the garden of Gethsemane right before His arrest and crucifixion. We first see that Jesus offered up prayers and petitions with “loud cries and tears.” I am not pointing that out to say that we all have to now pray with loud cries and tears. I am just pointing out the fact that Christ was deeply moved in prayer. Prayer for Him was not just a mental exercise or a religious ritual. The word used here for cry is not a cry that one chooses to produce, but a cry that cannot be held in. It is a cry that is wrung out of a person because of over-powering tension or suffering. We also read in scripture of other times that Jesus cried. We see it at the death of Lazarus in John 11:35 and in Luke 19:41 when Jesus cries over the unbelief of Jerusalem. It is not telling us that we always need to be super emotional when we pray. The example of Christ is calling us to be deeply vested in, moved by, broken over, the things of which we pray. That prayer will be an activity of the heart not just of the mind. Prayers that overflow from a heart of love for God and for others. Oh, that we would understand how weak we are and how desperately we need God.

Jesus not only prayed with loud cries and tears, but He also prayed, “to the one who could save him from death.” Jesus knew the ability and character of Him to whom He prayed. He prayed to God the Father, the sovereign King, the Holy One, the Almighty One, the all-loving One, the all-knowing One, the all-present One, the all-powerful One who could save Him from death. Jesus had faith that God the Father could deliver Him from death so Jesus prayed according to that faith. Jesus knew the ability and character of the One to whom He prayed. Do we? It is a great help to know the character to whom you are praying. Do we understand the power of God? The love of God? The promises of God? The discipline of God? The priorities of God? The faithfulness of God? Only then can we pray with full confidence knowing that regardless of God’s response to our prayers that the results can be trusted.