I want us to learn how to pray. If we were going to learn about leadership, we would study Winston Churchill. If we were going to learn about heart surgery, we would probably study Dr. Michael DeBakey. If I wanted to learn about evangelism, I would go to Billy Graham. If I want to learn about prayer, I want to go to Jesus, whose life was a living prayer, who prayed incessantly, unceasingly. Jesus, the man of prayer, has something to teach us, not an obscure character in the back channels of the Old Testament in only two or three verses. Jabez never appears anywhere else.

Sigmond Freud said, "The problem of the world is repressed sexuality." I believe in America there is a repressed spiritually. I think the secular media and secular nature of our culture has so suppressed our spiritually that it has to run out somewhere because it's jammed up inside us. Because it has not been trained, it runs out in all kinds of immature channels.

I believe Jesus has something to teach us about prayer. The first thing that Jesus has to tell us is that our goal in prayer is not to feel good but to do good. Doing good is the goal of Jesus. We need to understand that we have this turned around. Shallow Jabez pray-ers become spiritual couch potatoes, summoning God to run their errands while the world moves on toward Hell. If you understand the prayers of Jesus, Jesus brings us in, gives us strength in season and out of season to do His work and to do His will. The only thing the disciples ever asked Jesus to teach them was to pray, "Lord, teach us to pray." I wonder why they did that.

First of all, I think it's because Jesus knew the transcending power of prayer. Jesus knew you could transcend whatever happened in life with prayer, and He knew that was the only way to know the power of God in your life. He prayed at every crisis in His life. There are ten recorded prayers of Jesus in the Bible. You don't find that of any other person. Actually, it is more of an insight into His life rather than just the words of prayer. He prayed at His baptism. He prayed at His temptation. He prayed early in the morning. He prayed before He fed the multitude. He prayed all night before He selected the twelve. He prayed before Peter denied Him. He prayed in the upper room. He prayed in the garden. He prayed before Lazarus was raised from the tomb. He prayed on the cross. Every significant place in the life of Jesus was surrounded and immersed in prayer, not just a quick in-and-out prayer but a deep and abiding prayer from His heart. Some have said, and I think it is absolutely accurate, His life was a prayer.

I think it is interesting that Jesus never asks us to understand prayer. Nowhere in the Bible do I see where Jesus says, "You should understand prayer." When you make prayer as something to understand, you make prayer a problem. It is a syllogism to be understood. It is a knotty, thorny problem to be unraveled. Jesus never said that. Jesus didn't say, "Go out and understand prayer." If you do that, you have seminars about prayers where you try to understand the dynamics of prayer; that's not what Jesus said. He said simply, "Pray," and I think in that is a powerful incentive. Pray, and when you pray, the Father hears.