Jesus knew the transfusing power of prayer. If you want to have the joy of your salvation, the joy of Christian forgiveness, and the courage to battle on, let God transfuse you through a time of prayer. If you want to have light for your way, let God transfuse you with prayer. If you want to have power to rescue a soul from darkness, let God transfuse you in your time of prayer. If you want to accomplish something, just pray. Then you realize you must humble yourself before God, call on God, and hold on with faith and prayer. Jesus teaches us that we must pay a spiritual price to do the work of God. When we pay the price, the power of God comes. When we do not pay the price, the power of God does not come. Love, faith and prayer become a cause for drawing the light of God into our lives from heaven itself. That is why I have some impatience with trying to program the God machine. There is no price paid for that kind of prayer. I am talking a continual, constant openness to the presence of God, publicly and silently. I'm talking about a continual openness to God, paying the price spiritually. God gives the reward temporally. He said, "Come to me secretly, and I'll reward you openly."

Advertisement

Jesus also knew the transfiguring power of prayer. I was flipping through a magazine recently, and was impressed with the number of articles and ads advising both men and women how to look good. They always use good-looking models. "Try this, and it will grow hair on your head. Try that, and your skin will glow. Try this, and the fat will fall off." We all want to look better. You've seen people who have spent their time hanging around bad company. They've been in trouble. You've seen people who have lingered long at the wine. You've seen people who have spent their lives in debauchery. About middle years and beyond, they are dogeared, wrinkled, and battered.

The evidence of the Bible is that if you pray a lot you'll look better. That ought to drive you to the prayer room quickly. Moses came down off Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, and the biblical writers tell us that his face shone. He looked better because he had been with God. Stephen the deacon that preached was the first Christian martyr. While they were stoning him, they said he had the face like an angel. The evidence of the Bible is that when you spend time with God, you look different. On the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus, there was a sense of God's presence and countenance of Jesus in the inner group that was with Him.

The point is that there is a transfiguring power of prayer. You will look better, but there will be a tone about your life that will be different, and that is infinitely more important. I have a clipping in my file of four former Miss Americas who said that they spend regular time in Bible study and prayer. I don't guarantee that you will be a Miss America but you will look better. It will show.

The fourth thing is that Jesus knew the transforming power of prayer. If you will learn about prayer from Jesus, you must understand that prayer becomes a lifestyle. It is a habit. When Paul was in the city of Lystra in his first missionary journey, he was beaten, battered, and stoned at the edge of the city. But he got up and went back into the city to start over because a life of prayer had transformed him into a man who did not look to either side or find discouragement. He went ahead. I want to guarantee you that a life of prayer will bring transformation in other people.

I don't think we intercede enough. Intercession is incredibly important. You need to pray for others, and for your church. I sense when my church has been praying for me. Carolyn and I recently returned from the Preaching Conference in Scotland, and I had asked a few of you to pray for me. When I got up to preach, I had a sense of God's presence in the room. When I finished, I said to my wife, "I can tell they have been praying for us. I felt like a man being prayed for as I preached."

I want you to know the power of what it means to learn to pray from Jesus. I don't want us ever to forget that Jesus gives us an example of the transcending, the transfusing, the transfiguring, and the transforming power of prayer. I don't want us ever to be satisfied with short-circuiting prayer into thinking we are programming the God machine, but I want us to learn that prayer is developing a deep relationship. It is a walk with God, and instead of programming Him, we have Him imbedded in us. "Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus," the apostle said. Let's not program a machine. Let's walk with God.

William L. Self is senior pastor of Johns Creek Baptist Church in Alpharetta, GA, and a Contributing Editor of Preaching.