Jesus Prayed all Night (Part 2 of 5)

There are times in life when we need to talk with God all night like Jesus did.

June 6, 2021

"And it came to pass in those days, that He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God."

Luke 6:12

Part 2

Yesterday:  Including God in Our Daily Lives
“And it came to pass in those days.”
Jesus Christ, our Savior, is the honored guest that is with us always. He is there.  When we pray, He is there.  When we go to school or work, He is with us.  When we talk with our friends, He is there.  Believers need to acknowledge Him in all of our daily lives.

 

Today:  Jesus’ Private Prayer Life

“That He went out into a mountain to pray.”
This might seem to you to be a strange place to pray.  Jesus was not in a chapel, church, or synagogue.  But He is out underneath the starry sky.  This is not where the Jews of Jesus day typically went to pray.  Jesus needed alone time with His Father, and that doesn’t happen with crowds of people around.

“A Mountain”

The ancient text says that Jesus went into “the mountain to pray.”  This makes us think that this was a familiar place to Him.  He had probably been here before to pray.

Jesus liked to get away from the masses of people to pray to His Father by Himself.  The privacy of the mountain was helpful to His praying.  It can be a hard chore to think about prayer with many people all around us.  We can understand why Jesus teaches us to go into our closets to pray.  We shut ourselves in with God, and our devotional prayer to Him is in private.  We pray from our hearts[1] and to God.

“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Matthew 6:6).

There are correct times for corporate[2] prayer in public.  When we come together as a local church body for worship, it is one of these times.  In our corporate prayer, we usually focus on God and our worship of Him.  These are generally shorter prayers that regularly include the general needs of the body of believers present.  When we individually pray “secretly” in our closets, we pour out our heart’s needs to our Father.  These prayers are a part of our daily devotional time with God.

Luke shows us at least six times when Jesus got away from the crowds of people to pray.  In our verse, this is the only time in Luke that we read Jesus prayed all night, although it is not hard to imagine that Jesus did this at other times too.

“And He withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed” (Luke 5:16).

Our verse, “He went out into a mountain to pray” (Luke 6:12).

“And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am?” (Luke 9:18).

“And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James and went up into a mountain to pray” (Luke 9:28).

“And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples” (Luke 11:1).

“And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed” (Luke 22:40-41).

How should we, as God’s children pray?  Come back tomorrow, and we will think about what God’s Word teaches about this.

 

Quote: “My faith rests not in what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, in what he has done, and in what he is doing for me” [3] (Charles Spurgeon).

 

 

 

[1] Please note that we do not need any human intervention to help us pray.  No pastor, priest, or bishop can pray our prayer for us.  God tells us to come to Him individually and bring our petitions with us.
[2] “Corporate prayers” are prayed when groups of people are meeting together.  Our church prayer meetings and even the prayer in our worship services are “corporate prayer” for the “body” (the group) of individual believers is gathered.  Both corporate and private prayer is vital to God’s child.  The word “corporate” is “from Latin corporatus, past participle of corporare ‘make or fashion into a body, furnish with a body…’  Definition Downloaded: Friday, May 21, 2021.  From: https://www.etymonline.com/word/Corporate.
[3] Spurgeon’s quote is from his book, “Morning by Morning,” pl 269, Hendrickson Publishers.  Downloaded:  Tuesday, May 25, 2021. From:  https://www.azquotes.com/quote/811655.