7 Days of Breakthrough PrayerSýnishorn

Jesus Prayed

“You can do more than pray after you have prayed…but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” —A. J. Gordon

Prayer was the single most important ritual in Jesus’s life. Prayer was the single most important time in Jesus’s life. Writing this twice was not a misprint—it is that important for us to understand! Jesus spent long nights in prayer to His heavenly Father so that He could move in His Father’s will and power. Prayer was the greatest tool Jesus used to change the lives of others. 

We have to understand this! Jesus spent hours communicating with His Father in prayer so that He could accomplish the Father’s will every single day. After His prayer times, Jesus could say, “I only do the things I see my Father doing.” (See John 5:19.) Jesus could reach through the darkness to rescue the lost and hurting because His Father shared the power and plan with Him through prayer.

Jesus knew the value of meeting with His Father first and foremost every day and in everything He did. The very essence of His life was bathed in constant communication with His Father. Jesus accomplished more in less time and with greater lasting value than anyone else whoever walked the earth. The disciples saw this up close and personal as they watched Him and knew that His source of power to fulfill His destiny was directly related to His time with the Father. So the disciples asked Him, “Lord, teach us to pray.” You know His response—a prayer recognizing the glory of the Father and our need for Him in every instance of our lives: "Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen" (Matthew 6:9–13).

Jesus is the perfect model of prayer for us:

"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins." (Mark 11:24–25) 

"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater things than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it." (John 14:12–14) 

"Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (Mark 1:35). 

In the end, prayer was the time Jesus spent in close communication with God the Father. Through that time of fellowship, Jesus was given both the knowledge and the power to do what His Father wanted Him to do on the earth. To forgive, to heal, to comfort, to feed, to set free—Jesus accomplished all these things as a result of His time of prayer.

Learn to pray the way Jesus prayed for the concerns in your life, for the power of God to move through your church, and for the encouragement and strength of your pastor as he seeks to lead the flock. Say to the Lord yourself, “Teach me to pray.” And He will.