What is Prayer (part I)

By Odon Bulamba (summary only - 2002)

Prayer is talking with God, it is a dialogue with Him. However, sometimes prayer is neither a dialogue nor conversation. Prayer might be suggesting something to God that can be something simple without dialogue, you just want to talk freely and you don’t make it a conversation. God allows this type of prayer too. The Bible says that when Jesus was baptized in Luke 3:17-23, the very first thing Jesus did to start His ministry was to pray.

Luke 3:17-23, "His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into His barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” And with many other word’s John exhorted the people and preached the good news to them. But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of Herodius, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done, Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison. When all the people were being baptised, Jesus was baptised too. And as He was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “you are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

When John the baptist preached it touched many people to come to God but for some (like Herod) it was the opposite.

When Jesus was baptised He prayed and the heavens were open. So prayer in everything can open heaven. If you practice this in any given situation the sky will be open.

But what do the heavens mean? It means there will be a solution to a problem and what may seem impossible for man, God will make possible. This is “the heavens to be open” means. So when Jesus was baptised the first thing He did was pray, then the heavens were then opened and the Holy Spirit then came down and last of all a voice was heard from heaven.

John the baptist started baptising people but the Bible doesn’t say these people prayed before being baptised, but when Jesus came He prayed. There is a difference. As He prayed there was a sign everybody could see. The message was given by John the baptist but the prayer was added by Jesus Christ. To grow spiritually we need two things: we need to pray and to read the Bible. These two things go together like two legs. If we tell one leg to walk and we don’t tell the other leg to make a step, the body will not move on and that is what Christians don’t do today. They read the Bible and lots of books, but they forget to pray. This is why there is no growth in churches. Prayer is very important. So why did Jesus prayer? Because Jesus is the Word.

John 1:1. In the beginning was the Word, and Word was with God, and Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

To make the church walk and to show people you are growing spiritually you need prayer. Jesus knows the Word, He is the Word, but prayer is needed to open things, that is why He prayed even though He is the Word. These two things were very important even for Jesus.

SUMMARY
- Prayer is talking to God
- Prayer and the Word of God go together

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