Our Personal, Ultimate IntercessorSample

Praying alone was Jesus’ foundation

Getting alone with His Father was common for Jesus, as these scriptures describe: Luke 5:16: “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Mark 1:35: “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.”

Jesus encouraged being alone with God in Matthew 6:5-6: “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites...to be seen by others... But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

There is nothing more valuable than spending time with the living God who created us and loves us more than we can imagine.

David loved spending time alone with God, as he describes in Psalm 42:1-2: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” He makes it even more clear in Psalm 27:4: “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”

The prophet Samuel prayed often, interceding for the people of Israel, and in 1 Samuel 12:23, he said “As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you.” And in 1 Samuel 15:11, when God rejected King Saul because of his disobedience, Samuel was distressed and cried out to the Lord all night.

Moses often cried out to the Lord concerning the Israelites, and when God wanted to destroy the people because they had sinned so much in Exodus 32:11-14, Moses stood in the gap in intercession, and actually moved God to change His mind: “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people... Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.”

Reflection: Whatever consumes us when we are alone, we will reflect on the world around us.