A solitary place of prayer

SCRIPTURE:

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons. Mark 1:35-39

OBSERVATION:

Even from the outset of his early ministry, one of the first things that impressed Peter about the Lord was his priority for his prayer life. Very early in the morning, while everyone else was still sleeping, the Lord had already awakened and left the house in darkness to go to a solitary place to pray.

During the day, the Lord would be very busy, preaching, teaching and healing multitudes of people. Once light came, there was no time to be alone, no time to commune with His Father in an intimate, quiet way. Therefore, Jesus took tremendous effort to get up early and go to a quiet place where He could spend a special solitary time, just with His beloved Father. All the true great saints in Christian history were characterized by their devout prayer life. They took great pains to set apart times of quietness to just be with God, and the passion and power of their ministry was only the outward manifestation of the strength that they drew from regular communion with God.

Once the disciples arose and already found multitudes gathering to meet Jesus, they quickly looked for the Lord to tell him. However, the Lord instead indicated that it was time for them to move on and to continue preaching to the nearby villages. The Lord never stayed long in one place but moved constantly from town to town traveling throughout Galilee. Jesus could have stayed in one place and let the multitudes come to Him from everywhere but He chose to go out and find people. He truly came to seek and save the lost, actively going out to heal people and tell them about the way of salvation.

Later on, the apostle Paul and the early missionaries also followed this pattern of traveling, healing and preaching going from town to town throughout the whole known world to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. The principle here is that the ministry of God’s Word is not to stay in one place, but to be spread around as much as possible from place to place. The church should be the base where the Christians congregate for worship and teaching, but God’s ministry should involve frequent movement, strengthening believers and leading people to Christ from house to house. A good example of this process in action is the spread of the house churches in China where Christianity spread like wildfire through the country as a result of simple house to house ministry.

APPLICATION:-

As we follow Jesus and seek to be more and more like Him, we should also begin to emulate the core principles of his lifestyle. Since Jesus took quiet time and prayer so seriously, we also would do well to do likewise, taking the effort to set aside time to commune with our Lord and our Father in Heaven. We would certainly be blessed and be more effective in our ministry if we learn to do that regularly.

In today’s church practice, most just set aside a few hours on Sunday for church, and devote the rest of the week to other activities. However, this was not so in the early church, where Christians gathered together daily to hear the teaching of the apostles and fellowship with one another. This does not mean we need to go to church everyday, but we should reassess our lives to see if we are truly devoted to God and doing things that please him and help build up others in the body of Christ, even in our daily lives. Our first ministry after all is our own families, and we should endeavor to build each other up in the Lord where we can right in our own homes regularly, even while going about our daily routines. 

PRAYER:-

Lord Jesus, we thank You for Your great example, for showing us the importance of quiet time and prayer. Lead us O Lord, and enable us to set aside times of quietness to come before You. Even in those quiet times, Lord, we pray that you teach us how to commune with you, and how to pray in a way that is effective and pleases You. Inspire us, O Lord, to also have a fresh insight into our daily routines, and lead us to seek opportunities to bless and build up even those closest to us in Your ways. We thank You and praise You, Lord. In Jesus name, Amen.