- The Lord Jesus was the first God-man, who set a pattern for us to follow. This God-man was a man of prayer, a man who was one with God, lived in the presence of God continuously, trusted in God, and in whom Satan had nothing.
- This God-man was a man of prayer whose prayers were divine and mystical.
- This God-man lived a life in which He was one with the Father, did not do anything for Himself, did not seek His own will, and did not seek His own glory.
A MAN OF PRAYER
The Lord lived as a man of prayer. He did not live as a common man praying common prayers to God, as a pious man, a so-called godly man, praying to God in a religious way, or as a God-seeking man praying to God for the divine attainments and obtainments. His being a man of prayer was not even as merely a Christ-seeker praying desperately to gain Christ in His excellency (Phil. 3:12-14, 8). Instead, He was a man in the flesh praying to the mysterious God in the divine, mystical realm. The Gospels tell us that He often went to the mountain or withdrew to a private place to pray (Matt. 14:23; Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16; 6:12; 9:28). Divine is on God’s side. Mystical is on man’s side. On the one hand, Jesus was a man in the flesh, yet He prayed to the mysterious God in the divine and mystical way and realm.
He was a man of prayer, a man who is one with God (John 10:30). We may be a Christ-seeker, desperately praying to gain Christ, yet we may not be one with God. He was also a man living in the presence of God without ceasing (Acts 10:38c; John 8:29; 16:32). He said that He was never alone, but the Father was with Him. Every moment He saw His Father’s face. We may seek Christ, yet not live in the presence of God so closely and continuously without ceasing. Also, He trusted in God and not in Himself, under any kind of suffering and persecution.
In John 14:30 the Lord said, “The ruler of the world is coming, and in Me he has nothing.” This means that in the Lord Jesus, Satan as the ruler of the world had no ground, no chance, no hope, no possibility in anything. Here was a man of prayer who said that Satan, the ruler of the world, had nothing in Him. Thus, Christ was a man of prayer, a man who was one with God, lived in the presence of God continuously, trusted in God in His suffering and persecution, and in whom Satan had nothing.
THE DIVINE FACTS IN THE MYSTICAL HUMAN LIFE OF THE FIRST GOD-MAN
All of the Lord’s prayers were divine facts. We need to ask if our prayers are divine facts. A wife may ask the Lord to take care of her family because her husband has lost his job. Such a prayer is not divine. Instead, she may pray, “Lord, as a housewife, I praise You and thank You that we are in Your hands. We trust in You in this circumstance.” This is divine prayer. If we pray, “Lord, today there is a need for people to go to Moscow,” this is not divine prayer. Instead, we should pray, “Lord, thank You that You are now spreading Your recovery to Russia. Lord, this is Your move.” This is divine prayer.
When we consider the Lord’s prayer in John 17, we can see what divine prayer is. We may pray for our need, but we have to pray about it in a divine way. We should pray divine prayers, not human prayers. All the prayers that Christ prayed were divine facts in His mystical human life. Although we are human, people should sense that there is something mystical about us. Our classmates, colleagues, or peers should sense that there is something about us that they cannot understand. This is because we are mysterious, mystical. The One who prayed the prayer recorded in John 17 was Jesus of Nazareth, a man in the flesh, yet His prayer was mystical.
Based upon this light we should consider our prayers. We pray many human and fleshly prayers, not divine prayers. No prayer is as high as the Lord’s prayer in John 17. He prayed, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You” (v. 1). Christ’s prayer was divine. When He was dying on the cross, He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). He prayed to the Father for the forgiveness of His crucifiers. That was divine and mystical.
The pattern of the first God-man being a man of prayer shows that we should do everything in a divine way. A very critical part of the history of the first God-man was His prayer. All His prayers were divine, yet they were in a human life, making that human life mystical. He lived a mystical human life. A husband should love his wife divinely, not merely spiritually. This is because he does not love her in his way but in God’s way and not with his love but with God’s love. How could a man in the flesh love his wife in a divine way and with the divine love? This is mystical. We should be persons living a life that is divine yet mystical. Our life should be divine yet human—not merely human but mystically human. This is what is unveiled in the holy Word.
We have a concept concerning spirituality that blinds us. We need to see that we should not be merely spiritual but divine and mystical. Every believer today should be a divine and a mystical person. We should be divine yet so mysterious. Even those who are close to us should be able to sense that there is something about us that is mysterious and cannot be understood. The key is that although we are human, we live divinely. True spirituality should make us divine. This is higher.
Everything in our living should be divine and mystical. This is what we see in the Lord Jesus. When people saw what He did, they were astounded and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these works of power? Is not this the carpenter’s son?” (Matt. 13:54-55). This is because all that He did was divine and mystical. God was living through Him. He was God manifested in the flesh. This is a great mystery. First Timothy 3:16 says that the great mystery of godliness is God manifested in the flesh. The divine is manifested in a mystical human way.
The title God-man indicates clearly that Jesus was a man, but He was living God. Today you are a God-man. This means that you are a man, yet you live God and express God. You are a man, yet it is God who lives in you. This is the significance of the title God-man. A God-man’s living is a man living God.
TRAINING HIS DISCIPLES TO LEARN FROM HIM IN THE MIRACLE OF FEEDING FIVE THOUSAND PEOPLE
Taking the Five Loaves and Two Fish,
Looking Up to Heaven, and Blessing Them
In the performing of the miracle of feeding five thousand people with five loaves and two fish, He trained His disciples to learn from Him. In Matthew 11:29 the Lord told the disciples that they needed to learn from Him, indicating that He was their pattern.
Matthew 14:19 says that He took the five loaves and two fish and when He was going to bless them, He looked up to heaven. Looking up to heaven indicates that He was looking up to His Father in heaven. This indicates that He realized the source of the blessing was not Him. He was the sent One. The sent One should not be the source of blessing. The sending One, the Father, should be the source of blessing. According to this pattern, we have to realize that we are not the Sender but the ones sent by the Sender. Regardless of how much we can do, we should realize that we still need the blessing from the source, from our Sender, that we can pass on to the benefited ones.
Being One with the Father
His looking up to the Father in heaven indicated that as the Son on earth sent by the Father in heaven, He was one with the Father, trusting in the Father (John 10:30). This is a very important principle. Being one with the Lord and trusting in Him mean everything in our ministry. We should never go to minister the word by remaining in ourselves and by trusting in what we can do. If we trust in what we can do, we are finished. The blessing comes only by our being one with the Lord and trusting in Him.
Not Doing Anything from Himself
The Lord did not do anything from Himself (5:19). This was also a pattern to the disciples. He was the One through whom the entire universe was created, but He would not do anything from Himself. This is the denying of the self, which He taught so much. He said that anyone who follows Him must take up his cross and deny himself (Matt. 16:24). He lived a life of denying Himself.
Not Seeking His Own Will
The Lord did not seek His own will but the will of Him who sent Him (John 5:30b). First, He denied Himself; second, He rejected His idea, His intention, and His purpose. He would only seek the will of the One who sent Him. All of us should be on the alert for this one thing—when we are sent to do some work, we should not take that chance to seek our own goal. We should pray, “Lord, save me from going out to accomplish something according to my intention and idea.” The Lord Jesus never sought His own idea, His own purpose, His own concept, or His own intention. He purely sought only the Father’s will.
Not Seeking His Own Glory
The first God-man did not seek His own glory but the glory of the Father who sent Him (7:18). To be ambitious is to seek your own glory. In the service we render to the Lord in the church life, there is always our ambition. In John 7:18 the Lord told the Pharisees, “He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of Him who sent Him, this One is true, and unrighteousness is not in Him.” The Pharisees were seeking their own glory. According to the context of this verse, the Lord indicated to them that if they were not seeking their own glory, they would know that He was sent by His Father.
Going Up to the Mountain Privately to Pray
After performing the miracle [of feeding five thousand], the Lord went up to the mountain privately to pray (Matt. 14:23; cf. Luke 6:12).
The Lord did not remain in the issue of the miracle with the crowds but went away from them to be with the Father privately on the mountain in prayer. If we go to a certain place and have a great success, would we leave right away, or would we remain in this big success to enjoy it? We need to see and follow the pattern of the Lord Jesus. He did not remain in the issue of the great miracle that He performed. Instead, He went up to the mountain privately to pray. The word privately is very meaningful. This means He did not let the people know that He was going to pray. Otherwise, they would have followed Him. He went away from them to be with the Father privately in prayer. I like these three phrases: to be with the Father, on the mountain, and in prayer. We should learn from the Lord’s pattern here by exercising to be with Him on the mountain in prayer. His looking up to heaven means that He had no trust in Himself. His going up to the mountain means that He wanted to be with the Father in prayer.
To pray with others is good, but often we need to pray by ourselves. When we pray with others, we cannot enjoy the Lord as deeply as when we pray to the Lord privately. Even the Lord Jesus told us that when we pray we should enter into our private room and shut our door and pray to the Father who sees in secret (Matt. 6:6). Then we have the sensation of how intimate He is to us and how close we are to Him. We have to learn to leave the crowds, our family, our friends, and the saints in the church to go to a higher level on a “high mountain.” We have to go higher, far away from the earthly things on a lower level. We need to get to a higher level, separated from the crowd, to be with the Father privately and secretly to have intimate fellowship with Him. This is the significance of being on the mountain in prayer.
Fellowship Questions
- What does it mean that the Lord Jesus not only prayed but was a man of prayer?
- What are some characteristics of the Lord’s prayer in His human life?
- In the record concerning the Lord Jesus feeding five thousand people, what can we see concerning His relationship with the Father?
- What can we learn from the pattern of the Lord Jesus as a man of prayer?
- What is the significance of Jesus being with the Father on the mountain in prayer? How can we apply this to our own personal life with the Lord?
Excerpts taken from The God-man Living, chs. 10 and 14