Day 8 :: The Priority Of Prayer (Excerpt taken and modified from How to Pray: What the Bible Tells Us About Genuine, Effective Prayer by R.A. Torrey)
A reason for constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer is that those men, such as the apostle Paul, whom God set forth as a pattern of what He expected Christians to be, regarded prayer as the most important business of their lives. When the increasing responsibilities of the early church crowded in upon them, they called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said, It is not right that we should leave the word of God and serve tables; therefore, brethren, seek out among you seven men of whom you bear witness, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. And we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word (Acts 6:2-4).
But there is a still weightier reason for this constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer. It is that prayer occupied a very prominent place and played a very important part in the earthly life of our Lord. For example, turn to Mark 1:35. We read, And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place and prayed there. The preceding day had been a very busy and exciting one, but Jesus shortened the hours of needed sleep so that He might rise early and give Himself to much greatly needed prayer. Turn to Luke 6:12, where we read, And it came to pass in those days that he went out into the mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God. Our Savior sometimes found it necessary to spend a whole night in prayer. The words “pray” and “prayer” are used at least twenty-five times in connection with our Lord in the brief record of His life in the four Gospels, and His praying is mentioned in places where those words are not used. Evidently, Jesus spent much of His time and strength in prayer, and a man or woman who does not spend much time in prayer cannot properly be called a follower of Jesus Christ.
There is another reason for constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer that seems, if possible, even more forceful than the previous reason, namely, that praying is the most important part of the present ministry of our risen Lord. Christ’s ministry did not close with His death. His atoning work was finished then, but when He arose and ascended to the right hand of the Father, He entered upon other work for us just as important in its place as His atoning work. It cannot be separated from His atoning work. Intercessory prayer, or praying on behalf of others, rests upon His atoning work as its basis, but it is necessary for our complete salvation. This great present work by which Jesus carries our salvation on to completeness is told about in Hebrews 7:25: Therefore he is able also to save to the uttermost those that come unto God by him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them. This verse tells us that Jesus is able to save us to the uttermost – not merely from the uttermost, but to the uttermost. He is able to save us unto entire completeness and absolute perfection, because He not only died, but He also ever lives. The verse also tells us for what purpose He now lives: to make intercession for us – to pray. Praying is the main thing He is doing these days. It is by His prayers that He is saving us.
The same thought is found in Paul’s remarkable, triumphant challenge in Romans 8:34: Who is he that condemns them? Christ, Jesus, is he who died and, even more, he that also rose again, who furthermore is at the right hand of God, who also makes entreaty for us. If we are to have fellowship with Jesus Christ in His present work, then we must spend much time in prayer. We must give ourselves to earnest, constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer. I know of nothing that has so much impressed upon me the sense of the importance of praying at all times and being constantly in prayer as the thought that this is the current main business of my risen Lord. I want to have fellowship with Him, and for that reason I have asked the Father that whatever else He may make me, to make me at all times an intercessor – to make me a man who knows how to pray and who spends much time in prayer. This ministry of intercession is a glorious and mighty ministry, and we can all have a part in it. Of course, if we want to maintain this spirit of constant prayer, we must take time – and plenty of it – when we close ourselves up in the secret place alone with God for nothing but prayer.
