In this message we want to continue our fellowship on the first God-man’s living by seeing Him as 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).
According to what I have learned, we may be a Christ-seeker, praying desperately to gain Christ in His excellency, yet this is not the pure pattern of the man of prayer revealed in the Gospels. If we are a Christ-seeker, we would think that we are very special and spiritual. But in describing the first God-man as a man of prayer, I have avoided using the word spiritual. Instead, I have used the words divine and mystical. 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 told us 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. First Peter 2:23b says that in the midst of His suffering He did not speak threatening words but kept committing all to Him who judges righteously. Luke 23:46 says that at the time He was dying on the cross, He prayed, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” In our daily life, do we trust in God when trouble comes? Maybe we do to a small extent, but not absolutely.
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. If we are enlightened, we will admit that Satan has too many things in us. He has the ground, the chance, the hope, and the possibility in many things. But here is a man of prayer who said that Satan, the ruler of the world, had nothing in Him. This is a particular sentence in the whole Bible. Thus, Christ was a man of prayer, a man who is one with God, lives in the presence of God continuously, trusts in God in His suffering and persecution, and in whom Satan has nothing.
All of the Lord’s prayers are 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 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.
A sister who lost her son once said she could not understand why it was that the more she loved the Lord, the more she seemed to lose. She prayed, “Lord, don’t You know I love You? Why did You take away my son?” This is not only a human prayer but also a fleshly prayer. 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 is 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.
We want to see the divine facts in the mystical human life of the first God-man in the record of the synoptic Gospels. After His baptism in the water and God’s anointing from the heavens with the great commission for Him to bring in the kingdom of the heavens to the earth, He, under the leading of the Spirit, went to the wilderness to fast for forty days and forty nights (Matt. 3:13—4:11). He should have felt that His Father’s divine commission to Him concerning the kingdom of the heavens was a great and critical burden to Him. He needed to seek His Father’s counsel concerning how to bring His Father’s kingdom in the heavens to the fallen Adamic race on the earth. According to the common practice of fasting, it is always accompanied by prayer (Matt. 6:5, 16; 17:21; Acts 13:2-3). But there is no mention of prayer accompanying the first God-man’s fasting, not only in forty days but also in forty nights. The Lord’s prayer which obviously accompanied His long period of fasting is not recorded. This is very meaningful. We should believe that there was such an accompanying prayer, but it is kept in secret as a mystery and it is impossible for us to know what the content was. This indicates that the first God-man’s prayer was in the divine, mystical realm.
The pattern of the first God-man being a man of prayer shows that we should do everything in a divine way. Even a husband’s loving his wife should be divine and not human. Our buying a pair of shoes and the way that we cut our hair should be divine. A very critical part of the history of the first God-man was His prayer. All of 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 which 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 which 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 which 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.
Sometimes when we hear a young sister giving a testimony, we have the sense that her speaking is divine yet mystical. 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.