So often, as we read about Jesus, we fail to make the connection between His example and our own experience. From God’s perspective, the characteristics of His Son’s prayer life are to be true for every believer and every church. We easily dismiss that fact and tell ourselves, “Jesus was the Son of God; of course His prayer life was outstanding. But I’m only human; I can’t be expected to pray as Christ prayed.”
In the days His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him (Hebrews 5:7-9).
These verses pull together the entire prayer life of Jesus into a single, powerful statement for our instruction. It teaches us the essence of prayer, so we can more fully experience the intimate fellowship with the heavenly Father that Jesus knew.
We want to draw your attention first to the significant phrase that introduces this passage: “in the days of His flesh.” This expression emphasizes the human nature Christ embraced during His earthly ministry. That word flesh identifies Jesus with you and me; we have a Savior who can identify with us because of the human form that He assumed as He emptied Himself of His divine privileges and came to earth as a man (Philippians 2:7–8). As we study His prayer life, we’re seeing Jesus in His humanity praying to the Father, just as we pray to Him in our own humanity.
In the days of His flesh, Jesus understood the seriousness of communicating with His heavenly Father. In the days of His flesh, He chose not to allow anything to discontinue or hamper that fellowship.
What can be said of your life—in the days of your flesh? Have you come to understand the importance of maintaining communication with God above everything else? What things have you let distract you from daily communication with the Father?
If Jesus was convinced that His own life and ministry depended upon His prayer life with the Father, we as well must set our hearts to maintain uninterrupted time in prayer with our Lord, for this is the key to our very life as God intends it.
