How can I stop being lukewarm in my prayer life?
Luke 22:44
No one in history has ever achieved or even approached the level of perfection of our Savior in all aspects of human life. This includes prayer, for no man has ever prayed like Jesus. Yet, the Holy Spirit commends his example to us as a role model for all things. We are to imitate Christ in his prayers, whether in his consistency or his sacrificial commitment or the content of his prayers or his submissiveness or his boldness in access.
The aspect I want to highlight today is his passion… the full engagement of his mind and heart in what he was praying for. God doesn’t need our prayers in any respect—he doesn’t need us to educate him on any matter, nor does he need us to persuade him to do something he doesn’t want to do, nor does he need us to enflame his heart to care more about that matter. God is already perfect in knowledge, will, and emotion on every matter in the universe. Actually, the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak… we do not know what we ought to pray for, our wills are vacillating, and our hearts are cold. Prayer is part of God’s remedy in all of these aspects.
So, let’s talk about passion in prayer. Part of God’s purpose in prayer is to intensify the affections of our hearts about something he wills to do. If we pray according to his will, he will hear us and give us what we ask for in his perfect time. But God deeply desires us to deeply desire what we’re asking him to do. Our hearts are distant from God, and our affections are often out of tune with his. In our unconverted condition, we often love what he hates and hate what he loves.
God wants us to pray passionately and with great intensity.
When we are transformed at conversion by the Spirit, our hearts of stone are removed and living hearts of flesh are given us (Ezekiel 36:26). That means we are now able to feel more acutely what the Spirit wants us to feel, to love what he loves and hate what he hates. Unlike our previously dead hearts—those hearts of stone—our new hearts are capable of being moved with passion for his will. Yet we know that they are still often sluggish and distant compared to Christ’s. That is where prayer comes in. God wants us to pray passionately and with great intensity. As we spend long times in prayer over a certain matter, by the Spirit we become hotter in it, more passionately committed to God working in it. Fervent faith-filled prayer does that significant work. And Jesus is our role model in such passionate prayer.
Look at him in Gethsemane. As he entered the garden that fateful night, God had revealed to him in overpowering reality what it would be like for him to die on the cross under his infinite wrath. That is why Mark 14:33 says Jesus was “sore amazed” (KJV). His knees buckled. He fell to the ground. And he began praying as no man had ever prayed before and as no man has prayed since. Luke captured the intensity of that prayer in the text cited above. He reports that Jesus was “in anguish” over the cup of God’s wrath he was about to drink. Literally he was in agony, struggling as in hand-to-hand combat, a fight to the death. And in that struggle, he “prayed more earnestly.” That is the focus of this entire article… that we would learn to pray more earnestly, with ever-increasing fervency and passion. This was the moment of Jesus’ greatest mental focus, with every fiber of his being zeroed in like a laser on the event of the cross. He absolutely gave it all in that prayer… holding nothing back. The physical evidence was the burst capillaries under the surface of his skin causing great drops of blood to fall to the ground like sweat. No one has prayed harder about anything. Ever.
We cannot come close to this infinite passion in prayer. But the words of this verse stand over every prayer any Christian will ever make, demanding more passion, more focus, more intensity than our flesh wants to give. Since our hearts are so prone to wander, we usually begin our prayer times somewhat cold and distant. The Spirit is ready to kindle holy fire in our hearts for whatever we are praying for: the healing of a sick family member, the ministry of the Word of God at a church, the conversion of a lost friend, the success of the gospel among a people group. Picture Jesus on the ground in agony, praying with white-hot fervency. Ask the Spirit of Christ to work a similar passion in you for your prayer request. And stay in the prayer closet until he does.
