Have you ever wondered: “Why did Jesus need to pray?”
Recently I came across this verse in Mark 1:35 “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.”
Usually when I read this verse I am impressed with the fact that Jesus got up to pray while it was still dark. If Jesus felt the need to get up and pray “a great while before day,” then maybe, just maybe, you and I need to as well.
Well, of course we do.
Start the day with prayer
Actually, I always try to start my day with prayer.
Sometimes the demands of daily life come screeching into my morning before I even get out of bed and I have to pray on the run. Then there are times when I have gone to sit in my prayer chair at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. The house is quiet. There’s no traffic outside (we live on a busy street). My mind is not racing with the details of what I have to do.
And I think of Jesus getting up so early to pray.
Wouldn’t you love to know what those prayers were?
How did he pray? Were they prayers of petition? Prayers of gratitude? Prayers of praise? Maybe all that and more, but there’s no way to know for sure.
As a lady in one of my Bible workshops put it, “If we really needed to know, Jesus would’ve told one of his disciples and it would’ve been recorded in the one of the Gospels.”
Jesus’s private prayers
Maybe the reason we don’t need to know these private prayers of Jesus is that we might think we were praying by just reciting his words.
Instead, we need to commune with the Father in our own heart-felt prayers.
Jesus gave us a framework for how to pray in the Lord’s Prayer as well as other insights. That will have to do. But he didn’t want us just to copy his words.
Fortunately however, there are countless times in Jesus’ ministry when we see the effect of these private prayers. His prayers have feet; he put his prayers into action.
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches us how to think, how to pray, how to live, how to love. He tells us what to do. And of course, we have to work at it. If we don’t, we’re like the kid in school who goes to all his classes but never does the homework and then wonders why he didn’t get better grades.
Have you ever thought of the Sermon on the Mount as a homework assignment that Jesus gives you?
He’s not being a mean teacher loading on extra work; he loves you and knows if you follow his instructions and do what he says, you’ll have a more rewarding life and taste more of heaven here and now.
So, why did Jesus need to pray?
Jesus had to follow his own advice and put his ideas into practice just as he expected us to.
In fact, He barely finished his Sermon on the Mount before he had an opportunity to practice what he had just preached.
People came to him and asked to be healed. And he healed them, one right after another. Just like that. Look at Matthew, chapter 8.
These healings were a result of the love in his heart and the inner awareness that the kingdom of heaven is truly at hand.
How did he have that awareness? He got it from communicating with God, in prayer.
Just as a side note here, when you are on “the mountaintop” of inspiration in prayer, giving a sermon, or talking to a friend, don’t be too surprised when you have an immediate opportunity to practice what you just preached or what God just revealed to you in your prayers.
What was Jesus thinking?
Imagine how Jesus felt while he was preaching and after he finished his Sermon on the Mount.
He was talking to a Big Crowd. There were no microphones, no audio equipment, no teleprompters, no jumbo tron to zoom in for those in the back to see better.
Jesus was not reading a manuscript that he had gotten approved by some church committee. He was not defending some corporate or governmental policy.
He was speaking fervently, freely, and spontaneously from the depths of his heart, his love for God and all the people present. I can only imagine that he spoke with great feeling and emphasis.
And I personally believe he was thinking of us as well, all those who would believe on him down though time.
And he must have been pretty convincing, because when he was finished, “the people were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority.” (Matthew 7:29)
If you had been in the crowd that day, I can only assume you would have felt inspired with new hope.
How could he do all that?
Jesus lived in a state of prayer
Jesus lived in a constant and conscious awareness that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This awareness is prayer.
So why did Jesus need to pray?
Prayer was the way he communicated with His heavenly Father. He knew that God “always heard” his prayers and affirmed this publicly just before he raised Lazarus from the dead. (See John 11:42)
Jesus’s prayers possessed a powerful spiritual dimension because he did not just know he had a relationship with the Father. He had a deep awareness of his relationship with God on a profound experiential level.
What Jesus can do
He knew he was completely dependent on God. He admitted,
I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. John 5:30 ESV
I quote John 5:30 a lot on The Bible Speaks to You Podcast. It is a crucial insight into Jesus’s modus operandi, his mindset.
Take in these words again, “I can do nothing on my own.” This is Jesus talking. “As I hear, I judge,” Hear who? God.
Jesus makes this same point a few verses earlier
Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. John 5:19 NIV
What Jesus can say
He also points out that he only says what the Father tells him to
So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say. John 12:50 NIV
The words I speak to you I do not speak on my own. John 14:10 CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
When you take all these verses together to see what Jesus is saying about what he says and does and how he is dependent on God, it’s clear he is only saying what God tells him to say and doing what he sees the Father doing.
Prophecy fulfilled
This is actually prophesied back in Deuteronomy when God tells Moses,
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. Deuteronomy 18:18 NIV
Jesus fulfilled that Scripture.
Jesus is basically saying he only says what God tells him to. How did Jesus know what God was telling him?
Well, Jesus knew what God said in the Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament.
Jesus listened to God
But he also knew what God said because he listened to God. He was in relationship with his Heavenly Father. He communicated with God on a moment-by-moment basis. This is called prayer.
Why did Jesus need to pray? Let’s rephrase that question, “Why did Jesus need to talk to and listen to God?”
To hear God’s voice, to know what God’s will was.
Jesus came into this world in the role of a servant. He didn’t come to do his own will. He came to do the Father’s will in every single little detail.
To accomplish that, he had to listen for God’s directions. This is prayer.
Can we pray like Jesus?
What if we followed Jesus’s example of listening to God just 1% of the time during our day to day lives? That comes to just less than 14 ½ minutes per day.
Is that too much to ask?
Jesus did this 24/7 every day of the year! He prayed because he came to only do what God told him.
If he hadn’t prayed and listened to what God told him, he wouldn’t know specifically what God wanted him to do and say at any given time.
Why else did Jesus pray?
Jesus also prayed when he needed God’s help and strengthening.
And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. Luke 6:12 KJV
Right after this, he selects his 12 apostles. Why did Jesus stay up all night praying? He could have been talking to God about who to pick.
Jesus knew from the beginning who would betray him. (John 6:64) Perhaps he had to pray about this to find a sense of peace only his heavenly Father could give him.
Have you ever stayed up all night in prayer when you had an important decision to make?
Jesus prayed for others
Another reason Jesus prayed is because he was praying for people. They needed his help.
There are so many examples of this. I’ll mention just a couple.
Shortly before the crucifixion Jesus prayed for Peter. Jesus knew he would be tempted and deny him. But he still prayed to support him during this challenging time. (See Luke 22:32 below)
Jesus prays earnestly for all his disciples immediately before he goes to the Garden of Gethsemane and is arrested.
If you want to get a deep insight into how Jesus prayed and the kind of intimate conversation he had with his heavenly Father, check out John 17:6-26.
Here are few highlights:
9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.
11 Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.
15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.
17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
20 My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,
21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. John 17:9, 11, 15, 17, 20, 21 NIV
Why did Jesus need to pray this prayer for his disciples and for everyone who would believe in the future?
Maybe the reason is because he loved them. He knew they needed support.
Jesus prayed for himself
There were also times when Jesus needed to pray for himself. This was especially true as the crucifixion drew closer. In this case, most of his prayers for himself were affirmations of his relationship with the Father:
Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,
And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. John 17:1, 5 ESV
Why did he need to pray for himself at this moment? His prayers here are mostly an affirmation of his relationship with God. Why did he need to affirm this relationship? Because it was about to be challenged by the world’s hatred of Truth, what Paul calls the carnal mind’s enmity against God. (See Romans 8:7)
Why did Jesus need to pray on the cross?
Let’s look at one more example, when Jesus forgave, while on the cross, all those who crucified him.
We know this verse so well and quote it all the time. Let’s take a fresh look at it.
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34 NIV
Why did Jesus need to pray for God to forgive those who crucified him?
Because he couldn’t afford to take any resentment with him.
And he had to follow his own example of loving his enemies.
This set an example for us as well. He was teaching us how to pray through his own prayers.
Jesus prayed to set an example for us
And this brings us to a very important aspect of why Jesus needed to pray. His disciples – that includes you and me – needed to see his example.
They needed to see how he prayed and experience the results of his prayers so they could pray with the same sense of authority he did, and expect those prayers to be answered.
This applies to you and me as well.
Why did Jesus need to pray?
We might as well ask: Why did Jesus need to talk to and listen to God. It was to communicate with his heavenly Father about every single little detail of what to say and do.
Maybe we need to quit thinking of prayer as some desperate plea for help flavored with doubts we’ll get an answer.
Jesus’s sense of what prayer is
To Jesus, prayer was living, moving, breathing in God’s presence, communing with the Father at every moment and in every situation.
It was a way of thinking, a way of seeing and hearing God, being in conscious relationship with God.
Jesus came to prove, among other things, that he and the Father were inseparable, and that this relationship with the Father is true for us as well.
Why did Jesus need to pray? To hear and obey God’s voice.
Why did he need to obey God? To fulfill the prophecies of the Messiah.
Why did he need to fulfill these prophecies? To bring salvation to the whole world.
Why did he need to bring salvation to the whole world? Because of God’s absolute love for every single one of us.
You know this Scripture so well:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 ESV
Jesus prayed so that you and I and all mankind would have eternal life.
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James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life. Contact him here.
Bible verses in this episode:
Mark 1:35 NIV
35 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.
Matthew 8:2, 3, 5-7, 13-15 NIV
2 A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy.
5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help.
6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
7 Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.
14 When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever.
15 He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him.
Matthew 7:29 NIV
29 …he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
John 11:42 NIV
42 I knew that you always hear me,
John 5:30 ESV
30 I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
John 5:19 NIV
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
John 12:50 NIV
50 So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.
John 14:10 CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
10 The words I speak to you I do not speak on my own.
Deuteronomy 18:18 NIV
18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him.
Luke 6:12 KJV
12 And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.
John 6:64 NIV
64 Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.
Luke 22:32 NIV
32 But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.
John 17:9, 11, 15, 17, 20, 21 NIV
9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.
11 Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.
15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.
17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
20 My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,
21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
John 17:1, 5 ESV
1 “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,
5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
Romans 8:7 KJV
7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Luke 23:34 NIV
34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
John 3:16 ESV
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
