The common perception of prayer is that it is what people do when they want God to do something timely or special. Often prayers are offered in times of trouble and need when the normal course of events or circumstances do not inspire much hope that outcomes will be good or favorable.
A second concept of prayer is that it is a time of intimacy and dialogue with God that is assumed to mean as much to God as it does to the person who prays.
While these concepts and their application bring comfort, hope and satisfaction to people who are inclined to pray, they are based on wrong assumptions about what God wants and what satisfies him.
First, regarding the kinds of things people ask for when they pray, they pray with wrong motives. And because their motives focus exclusively on worldly matters (e.g. health, finances, relationships, conflict, etc.), God does not hear or answer their prayers.
Prayer is perhaps the one Christian religious practice that is most different from Jesus’ habits and his teachings. Some of these contradictions are discussed in these pages:
Also consider the following scriptures and commentaries:
Matthew 6:5-6: “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
COMMENTARY: This command is not only against literal praying on street corners and in synagogues (e.g. churches). It is against public prayer in general. It says that people who pray in public love to do it because they receive rewards (e.g. pride, praise from others, etc.) when they do it. See Pride, Arrogance, Boasting, Power and Humility, and Making a Name for Yourself for more about rewards for public displays of religion.
Jesus’ closing instruction here is to pray in a secret place. The inner room to which he symbolically refers is the heart. See The Heart is the Place for more about what happens in the heart.
The rewards of praying in secret in the heart where only God knows that we pray are different than the rewards that accrue to people who pray in public.
Matthew 6:7-8: “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. 8 “So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
COMMENTARY: References to Gentiles are to the prayer practices of other religions which God has elsewhere warned that his people should not do.
Matthew 14:23: After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone.
COMMENTARY: Here we see that Jesus practices what he preaches: He removes himself from public view when he prays.
It is important to understand here that the mountain is a symbolic reference to the place where New Covenant disciples meet with God: the heart. This is the place where God writes his laws on the hearts of New Covenant disciples when he speaks to them.
Since the heart is the place where God meets with his people to speak to them, Jesus essentially retreats from the distractions of the physical world to speak to and listen to God. He can do this anytime and in any physical location. He does not need to be in a special building or place dedicated to pray. Going to the mountain of God to pray is the essence of praying in the spirit. Elsewhere this place is referred to as the most holy place, the holy of holies and tent of meeting where priests ministered to God and offered sacrifices. The mountain of God is also the place where God teaches his ways and his laws to New Covenant disciples.
STUDY TIP: See THE HEART IS THE PLACE for an in depth review of what happens in the heart of man.
It is critical to understand that the act of praying in the heart does not require use of the flesh (e.g. physical voice, mental mind, hands folded, hands lifted, body swaying, eyes closed, kneeling, etc.). If God wanted or expected that people use their flesh when praying, he would violate the principle of faith being the substance of things not seen. It is not necessary for the flesh to be employed when praying in the spirit/heart because God already knows the heart of man.
Because Jesus understood all of these spiritual principles, he applied them in his own prayer practices. Because New Covenant disciples understand these spiritual principles, they also apply them by avoiding public prayer.
Mark 6:46: After bidding them farewell, He left for the mountain to pray.
COMMENTARY: A literal interpretation of this scripture suggests that Jesus physically left the people with whom he was meeting and physically walked to a physical mountain where he physically prayed. The problem with this interpretation is that it is literal — not symbolic.
To understand the symbolic meaning of this verse we must recognize that this episode directly follows the feeding of the five thousand. It is only after he told his disciples to get in a boat and only after he sent the crowd away that he left for the mountain to pray. The appropriate symbolic interpretation of this story is that it was only after Jesus was alone that he spiritually retreated to the mountain of God to pray. In other words, his heart was totally focused on God at that point.
But we must be careful that we consider the context of Jesus’ prayer and ask why prayer was important at that particular time and ask what Jesus prayed about.
The context, of course, is the feeding of the five thousand for which we must understand the symbolism of the event which distinguishes between common manna and hidden manna.
Because Jesus was a true prophet, he spoke for God and all of his words were hidden manna. He spoke with the authority of God and all of his words were able to impart life to New Covenant disciples who have ears to hear the spiritual words in the hidden manna.
In the story of the feeding of the five thousand, however, the people who ate the loaves and fishes were Old/First Covenant religionists. Thus, all they heard were the literal words which they ate (i.e. heard with their physical ears). Not being spiritual, they were unable to hear with spiritual eyes and ears. Nevertheless, they were satisfied with what they were able to hear.
This situation describes the condition of Jews and Christians who are satisfied with the literal words of the Bible. But what is left over (i.e. twelve baskets of broken pieces of bread and fish) is greater than the original five loaves of bread and two fish. This is God’s way of saying that the parables, symbolism and mystery hidden in the Bible is much more satisfying than the literal, written words of the Bible. The literal words feed and satisfy the flesh (i.e. mind and emotions), but the mysteries and truths hidden in the spoken words of God are revealed to New Covenant disciples who know how to hear God’s spoken voice.
What we have in this story, therefore, is not a report of a physical miracle in which God multiplies the physical loaves and fishes. What we have, however, is a parable in which the life-giving power of the spoken word of God is shown to greatly exceed the limited effectiveness of the literal words of the Bible. It is yet another parable that demonstrates how the New Covenant is better than the Old/First Covenant.
Next we must ask what it was that Jesus prayed about. The answer to this question is relatively simple: His prayer was consistent with the terms of what is commonly called the Lord’s Prayer.
It should go without saying that every time Jesus prayed his prayer were consistent with the Lord’s prayer. If he prayed any differently, his teaching about how to pray would have been a lie. Thus everything Jesus said, did and prayed was in perfect agreement with the sentiments of the Lord’s prayer.
The lesson here for anyone who prays to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is that they should also pray in agreement with the sentiments of the Lord’s Prayer. Those who do pray in agreement with these sentiments are New Covenant disciples because they follow Jesus. Those who do not pray in agreement with these sentiments are Old/First Covenant religionists.
Luke 6:12-13: It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God. And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles:
COMMENTARY: Again it is necessary to consider this occasion for prayer in context. In this case, Jesus just finished an unpleasant encounter with angry Pharisees who wanted to harm Jesus because he had broken their religious laws about healing on the Sabbath. According to the sequence of the story it was immediately after this that he prayed and then choose his disciples.
From the commentary above, we can assume that Jesus’ prayer was consistent with the terms of the Lord’s prayer. From the fact that he then went to choose disciples we can logically assume that choosing disciples as also consistent with the terms of the Lord’s prayer. From the encounter with the Pharisees he knew that he needed disciples to help him with the work that needed to be done when dealing with the Pharisees. The lesson here for those who pray is that prayer according to the terms of the Lord’s prayer should be followed with action that results in recruiting disciples. See Model Warriors for more about disciples.
John 6:15: So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.
COMMENTARY: Jesus did not want people to make him a king. He knew Israel’s history with kings. Furthermore, because he did not consider himself to be equal to God, he did not want people to look to him to fight their battles for them.
In other words, Jesus knew the limits of his power and authority. He knew that God was their redeemer — not him. He knew that he was only a spokesman for God and that it was God’s spiritual words spoken through him that had power to teach and heal.
Matthew 26:36: Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”
COMMENTARY: Even in his time of agony, Jesus did not pray alongside his disciples. He distanced himself so that he could pray in secret to his Father God.
Luke 5:15-16: But the news about Him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.
COMMENTARY: Even when the demands of ministry to people were pressing on him, Jesus considered prayer to the his primary ministry to God. This particular verse does not say that he went to the mountain of God to pray, but we know from many other scriptures that the mountain of God, also called the secret place, is where he always did pray.
It is important to notice that Jesus’ teachings and habits regarding prayer do not line up at all with the teachings and habits of Jews and Christians. What Jews and Christians, do, therefore, is fake faith.