Luke 6:12 “In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God.”
I invite myself and for all those who claim Christ as Lord to take this account of our Lord to heart. I believe God is calling us all up higher. Gosh He is just so nuts about us, He thinks we’re swell, our picture is in His wallet as Bob Goff likes to say. He’s absolutely wild about us!
But I would be amiss not to remind us He calls us higher, so much higher. There is a beckoning to come up the mountain to be with the Father. There is so much more He would have for us to experience and yet, sadly, most of us will never experience it. We will not experience growth in our relationship with the Father because we will not go up and remain. We will not climb the mountain. Becoming a Christian is only the beginning. Jesus calls us to lay down our lives for Him and to seek Him with all our hearts. As Jeremiah 29:13 promises: “you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
We read this verse, Luke 6:12, and we know nothing of it. Nothing. For us it might as well read: ‘in those days they trudged to the couch and remained before the television well into the night’. It does not occur to us that if Jesus Christ Himself needed to spend frequent time with the Father, how much more us? If it does occur to us we don’t want it bad enough or we chalk it up to something segregated to the radicals or ministers or to those who have more time.
Let’s be honest with ourselves at least. We don’t really hunger after more of Jesus because our actions reveal nothing more than that of a generally nice, moral person. We hunger for more food, more drink, more work, more financial gain, more stability,and more entertainment. In so doing we numb ourselves to intimacy with the Father and the work of the Holy Spirit. I have heard it said that entertainment is the devil’s substitute for JOY. I think of the scene from Gladiator, “are you not entertained”!? And alas our flesh is entertained while our spirits fade away.
How many of us sing in church, “O to be like you Jesus”, “i want to know You, I want to see your face”? But do we really? We are a people who pay so much lip service to the Lord it is no wonder atheists like Nietzsche say things like; “I might believe in the Redeemed if His followers looked more redeemed.”
Our words or thoughts are never what counts as Jesus explains in the parable found in Matt. 21:28-32. It is the one who actually does the will of his father who is commended and not the one who cheerfully says he will and then neglects to do anything.
I submit to you this: Your prayer life will be the greatest legacy you can ever leave behind.
This is truly what “full time ministry” is. Ministry to the Father. Are you man or woman of prayer? It is the greatest thing you can do for God, it is the greatest thing you can do for your wife, it is the greatest thing you can do for your kids, it is the greatest thing you can do for yourself, and it is the greatest legacy you can ever leave behind. Revivalist Leonard Ravenhill said, “No man is greater than his prayer life. Failing here, we fail everywhere.”
It’s about intimacy with the Father.
Get. Alone. With. Him.
Pray like you mean it, seek His face with ALL your heart. How are lives would look differently if we sought after God’s face with half of our heart, let alone all of it. I can tell almost all I need to know about you if I saw a diagram of how you spend your time and money. Where does your real treasure lie?
When was the last time you were on your knees before the Father? Probably far too long ago and for far too short a time.
I want to encourage us to press into prayer, press into communion with Abba Father. One who longs to hear you speak, longs to walk with you in the cool of the morning, longs to speak softly to you. Father sees the condition of your heart when you come to him. All He asks is that you seek Him wholeheartedly, earnestly, humbly, contritely, openly, confidently. He is not mad at you if at times you fall asleep praying or your thoughts wonder. He is delighted that you come seeking Him above the grasping of the things of the world.
If we want more of Him, we must press into more, we must swim against the current. What would our lives look like if we were to give one night a month to prayer and listening to the Father? If every semester we planned out a weekend to pray and listen, seeking God’s face? What would our lives look like if we spent half as much time praying as we do watching television which has zero eternal value? “How can you pull down the strongholds of Satan if you don’t even have the strength to turn off your tv?” exhorts Ravenhill. We might be going to heaven, but we are not dangerous, we are not close to being on the devil’s most wanted list…but some of us our content to live like this – to be spoon fed the rest of our lives.
It will take sacrifice but we as American Christians know very little about this. We are content to just be saved and give the rest of our lives to the gods of security, work, sleep, and balanced living.
And so I ask each of us, Where is your mountain? You know where your tv is, your deerstand, your workshop, but where is your mountain? Will you go there? Get there and remain alone with the Father, press into Him. There is no greater call on your life.
