Prayer: The Disposition To Pray

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Ephesians 6:18

Is prayer your natural disposition? Is it your first line of thinking, behaving, and reacting? Or is prayer often only an afterthought?

Prayer is the currency of our personal relationship with Christ. It is the medium of exchange between needy people and a rich God. The man who is poor in relationships, destitute in hope, and hungry for significance can purchase them with prayer.

The possibilities of prayer form the hidden asset not listed on our balance sheet. Prayer made in faith is the currency we can offer for the need we have. The man or woman who is rich in prayer is very rich. “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:16). Without prayer, though, the soul languishes in poverty. What is the best reason to pray?

The Silhouette of Jesus

The first disposition of Jesus was to pray. Prayer was how He collected Himself, how He gathered His mind. “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” (Luke 5:16).

Draw in your mind a silhouette of our cherished Lord. Is He not talking to the Father?—it was His first disposition. The goal of Christian life is to be like Jesus. The best reason to pray is that Jesus prayed. When we pencil ourselves inside His silhouette, when we retrace our temperament to fit within the outline of His disposition, we will pray.

How did Jesus pray? Jesus did not pray for everything. He prayed for people. He did not pray for material wealth, nicer vacations, better clothes, and a job promotion. He prayed for His disciples, for those who would believe through their message (us), for the needs of people, and for the will of His Father.

Jesus loved to pray—it was the natural disposition of His temperament:

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)

He went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone. (Matthew 14:23)

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. (Luke 6:12)

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed. (Matthew 26:39)

Abraham prayed. Rachel prayed. Moses prayed. Joseph prayed. Joshua prayed. Elijah prayed. Elisha prayed. Gideon prayed. Hannah prayed. Samuel prayed. David prayed. Mary prayed. Peter prayed. John prayed. Paul prayed. Throughout history God has met with people who prayed to Him. Do you long to go and meet with Him? Go to a praying place and enter into His presence. He has invited us to come. If we do not go, we will miss the blessing He will freely give.

Though prayer came naturally to Jesus, prayer is not the natural disposition of our temperament. It is a learned thing, improved by repetition, and understood by the passage of time. The experience of making petitions and receiving answers moves the reality of prayer from abstract to concrete.

Our Silhouette

How can we become like Jesus in praying? How can we take on His same attitude and temperament? The call on the saint is to pray the way Jesus prayed. We become like Him when we “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.”

First, meditate on the attributes of God. Second, as the attributes of God draw attention to your own weakness and sin, confess all known sins. Ask God to search you and point out any blind spots and then confess them, too. Third, ask God to control and empower you with His Holy Spirit. Now, you are in the Spirit.

What next? “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests… Always keep on praying for all the saints” (Ephesians 6:18). Pray on all occasions. Pray without ceasing. Pray in affliction. Pray with thanksgiving. Pray for the salvation of others. Pray for the physical needs of others. Pray with your spirit and your mind. Pray for those who will someday cry at your funeral. Pray for yourself. Pray in the Holy Spirit. And when you are weak and don’t know how to pray, “the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express” (Romans 8:26).

Who do you talk to when you are mulling over a problem or daydreaming away the time? If you find yourself talking to yourself, stop. Talk it over with the Lord instead. Let Him be your soul mate. Anytime you catch yourself talking to yourself, redirect the conversation to God. That’s what it means to pray without ceasing.

The Lord saves our prayers. In heaven are “golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (Revelation 5:8). He loves prayer, and He loves the one who prays. He loves to answer prayer in ways that contribute to His plan and purpose.

But most of all, Jesus loves to have communion with us through prayer. The natural disposition of Jesus is to pray. He continues to intercede for us: “He always lives to intercede for them” (Hebrews 7:25).

Though not our natural disposition, if we superimpose ourselves over the silhouette of Jesus, prayer can become our first disposition. Is prayer your first disposition or a hidden asset?

I SURRENDER

Lord Jesus, I want to be like You in prayer. I confess that the natural disposition of my temperament is to rely on my own ingenuity and talent. Forgive me for not being like You in prayer. I had not considered how much You personally love prayer, how much the Bible heroes loved prayer, and how prayer is the hidden asset on my spiritual balance sheet. Teach me to pray. Amen.