Jesus, the Prayerful Healer

Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.
—-Luke 5:16

In Luke 5, we see an example of Jesus, our perfect healer. Jesus had compassion on a man who was filled with leprosy, and He was willing to reach out and heal him.

As a result of His miraculous healing of the leper, Jesus’s popularity was soaring. Verse 15 tells us that “the news about Him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses.”

However, instead of capitalizing on His growing fame, Jesus did something that was completely unexpected. While the momentum was building, look at what He did in verse 16: “Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.” A constant theme throughout Luke’s gospel is the prayer life of Jesus. The secret to Jesus’s power and extraordinary effectiveness was His commitment to prayer.

As Jesus’s fame was increasing and large crowds were gathering to hear more and more, it is likely that His disciples were saying something like, “Lord, this is no time to be praying. We need You out front healing more people and doing more miracles.” But Jesus understood something very important. There would always be more people for Him to heal, and there would always be more work for Him to do. But Jesus could not neglect His vital time alone with His heavenly Father–and neither can you and neither can I.

You know, we will never have an extraordinary life that is empowered by God until we understand that no matter how unsettled our lives are, and no matter how long our to-do list is, we must get aside and take time to pray. The truth is, if you wait until you have time to pray, then you will never take time to pray. Prayer is something you make time for no matter what is going on around you.

Oswald Chambers said it this way: “Remember, no one has time to pray; we have to take time from other things that are valuable in order to understand how necessary prayer is.”

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Jesus, the Perfect Healer” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2016.

Quote from Oswald Chambers, “Prayer: A Holy Occupation” (Grand Rapids: Discovery House, 1992), 97.

Scripture quotations are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.