{"id":2868,"date":"2010-03-03T11:19:10","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T00:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/?p=2868"},"modified":"2010-03-03T11:19:10","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T00:19:10","slug":"why-pray-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2010\/03\/03\/why-pray-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Pray? &#8211; #1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.raystedman.org\/\">Ray Stedman\u2019s<\/a> book, <strong>Talking with My Father, Jesus Teaches on Prayer,<\/strong> is worth the read to prepare\u00a0for my Prayer Pilgrimage,\u00a0<span style=\"color: #993366\"><strong>People @ Prayer<\/strong><\/span>,<em> <\/em>commencing in 3 months time: read of where I am up to in my preparation here: <a href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2010\/02\/27\/prayer-pilgrimage-working-draft\/\">Prayer Pilgrimage &#8211; Working draft<\/a>.\u00a0 Read Stedman&#8217;s book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.raystedman.org\/talking\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><em>Martin Luther said, \u201cI have so much to do today, I need to spend an extra hour in prayer!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>So, <span style=\"color: #ff0000\">why pray?<\/span> Because <span style=\"color: #ff0000\">Jesus Christ prayed.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Ray Stedman writes,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>For Jesus, prayer was as necessary as breathing. If the Son of God felt such a great need for contact with the Father, how much more do we!<strong> \u2026..<\/strong>with Jesus prayer was a necessity&#8230;it was a lifelong habit. It was an attitude of mind and heart \u2013 an atmosphere, in which He lived, the very air He breathed. Everything He did arose out of prayer. He literally prayed without ceasing\u2026..prayer was not an act of self-discipline or duty\u2014it was always His delight\u2026to Jesus, prayer was as necessary as eating \u2013and just as natural.<strong><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>The Gospels mention many occasions of Jesus praying in public and taking time in solitude to commune with God one on one. He prayed before choosing his disciples, before and after miracles took place, He prayed to God all\u00a0night and in\u00a0the early hours of the morning (Luke 6:12, Mark 1:35), He prayed by himself (Matthew 14:23, Mark 1:35, Luke 5:16) and He prayed prior to his crucifixion. <em>In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus said to his disciples, \u201cSit here while I go and prayer over there.\u201d (Matthew 26:36). <\/em><em>\u00a0<\/em>In the book of John, prior to His death, Jesus prayed for Himself (17:1-5), prayed for His disciples (17:6-19), and prayed for all believers \u2013 that\u2019s you and me! (17:20-26)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>May prayer to us be a necessity,<\/li>\n<li>May prayer\u00a0be the very air we breathe,<\/li>\n<li>May prayer be a delight,<\/li>\n<li>May prayer become as necessary and natural to us as it did to Jesus!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>See also on prayer,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2009\/05\/19\/my-pentecost-prayer-and-pastoral-letter-to-the-anglican-church-in-tasmania\/\">My Pentecost prayer and pastoral letter to Anglicans<\/a>\u00a0 and <a href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2009\/09\/16\/muslim-and-christian-prayer-ramadan\/\">Muslim and Christian prayer at Ramadan<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2009\/04\/20\/a-pentecost-prayer-to-pray-or-not-to-pray-to-the-holy-spirit\/\">To pray or not to pray to the Holy Spirit?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ray Stedman\u2019s book, Talking with My Father, Jesus Teaches on Prayer, is worth the read to prepare\u00a0for my Prayer Pilgrimage,\u00a0People @ Prayer, commencing in 3 months time: read of where I am up to in my preparation here: Prayer Pilgrimage &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2010\/03\/03\/why-pray-1\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2868"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3135,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions\/3135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}