The Most Important Thing: A Powerful Example in Luke/Acts

“Identify the most important thing and start with this.”  I remember the presenter saying something like this in a time management seminar.  It is easy to get caught up in things that feel urgent but are not really that important.  Whether it is living healthily, studying regularly, or prayer, it is not unusual for the most important things to feel the least urgent.  In Luke and Acts, prayer is a major theme.  Prayer is not just tacked on as an obligatory act but is central to Christian living and service.  It is the most important thing.

Jesus begins his ministry not with just baptism, but with baptism and prayer.  The text says that while Jesus was praying, the Spirit came down on him and a voice came from Heaven declaring Jesus as God’s beloved son (Lk 5:16).  It is interesting that the one other time God declared Jesus as his son was while Jesus was praying on the Mount of Transfiguration (Lk 8:28).

Even though great crowds of people were coming to hear him and be healed, Jesus would go to a lonely place to pray (Lk 5:16).  Conventional wisdom dictates that staying busy doing the work should take priority.  However the wisdom of our Lord demonstrates that prayer takes priority.  A ministry that is weak in prayer will likely be a ministry that is weak in power.  It will be prone to aimlessness, discouragement, and fear.  But Jesus prioritizes prayer so that he spent the entire night in prayer before choosing twelve apostles (Lk 6:12f).  I sometimes wonder what being in prayer all night would be like.  What happens when you run out of things to say?  Should you try to spend all your time talking, or should you spend some of the time in meditative silence, listening for the leading of the Spirit?  Jesus didn’t always pray alone.  When his arrest and crucifixion loomed ahead of him, he took three of his closest disciples to the Mount of Olives to pray.  He prayed so hard that sweat began to drip off his body like big drops of blood! (Lk 22:39f).  Jesus’s habit of prayer prompted his disciples to ask him to teach them to pray as well (Lk 11:1ff).

In the book of Acts, we see that the early church, following the example of Jesus the Lord, also made prayer a priority.  Several times the text says they were “devoted” to prayer (Acts 1:14; 2:42; 6:4).  Sometimes they weaved the words of scripture into their prayers (Acts 3:24-26).  With discernment, they didn’t pray for comfort or ease, but for boldness to carry on the mission of Christ in the face of persecution (Acts 3:27-31).  As Jesus prayed before appointing people to ministry, the church in Acts did the same (Acts 6:6; 13:2; 14:23).  These and many other examples of prayer in the book of Acts demonstrates that the early church in the first century was a praying church who followed the example of Jesus who was a praying Lord and savior.  If their Lord Jesus needed to have a practice of prayer, then why would his followers not need to have a practice of prayer as well?

I am convinced that discernment, wisdom, spiritual strength, and godly ministry could hardly be possible without the discipline of prayer.  We usually attribute the qualities of the church in Acts to their faith.  However, this faith could not have been sustained without the regular practice of prayer.  At times, they seemed to have set aside a time to meet for no other purpose than for prayer.  It appears that they at times spent hours in prayer (Acts 12:5,12).  

The church today has meeting times set apart for Bible study, eating, worship, fellowship, planning meetings and other such things.  What would it look like for the church today to set aside a meeting time just for the purpose of prayer?  Perhaps, before any energy goes into planning or activity, energy ought to be put into praying together.  This is a collective demonstration of humility, dependence and openness to where the Spirit of God may be leading us.  Here is a question I am meditating on and invite you to also meditate on:  What would it take to be a more prayerful church?