E.M. Bounds wrote:

The praying of Christ was real. No man prayed as He prayed. Prayer pressed upon Him as a solemn, all-imperative, all commanding duty as well as a royal privilege in which sweetness was condensed, alluring and absorbing. Prayer was the secret of His power, the law of His life, the inspiration of His toil and the source of His source of His wealth, His joy, His communion, and strength. To Christ Jesus prayer occupied no secondary place, but was exacting and paramount, a necessity, a life, the satisfying of a restless yearning and preparation for heavy responsibilities.

Passion is something that grips the soul, spoiling every other contesting force, downing every usurping throne, stripping away every excuse, dispelling every controversy that would arm itself against the vision of passion. Passion is the fire that inflames the embers of the heart. It drives every enemy out of doors and incites the heart to greater sacrifices, deeper levels of devotion, and promotes faith to do the otherwise unthinkable.

Passion for Christ is the highest most singularly sublime passion of all. To live, is to live for Him. To desire, is to yearn for Christ. To do in this life is to accomplish for Him, indeed in Him, as all activity and desire is answered in Christ. The highest measure of this divine burning is to live under His complete Living under His Lordship, total ownership wherein death is swallowed up in life. It is to surrender as a servant to his majestic King wanting nothing for himself, but to do His good pleasure. As a humble servant he lives knowing no glory except that of living in the hidden place, known by none but Him. Every action, all fulfillment – the beginning and the end of life, is encapsulated in the life of his divine Pursuer. Only then can this superlative passion be realized.

How can such a state of blazing bliss be achieved? Through prayer!!! Prayer begins at the mercy seat and ends in the satisfaction of lifes quest – union with the Beloved.

Jesus lived in prayer – He did not just pray. When He uttered His sacred words of communion, intercession, and impassioned pleading, they were the very words of God’s heart beating in His heart, compelling release — because Jesus knew Him! His utterances were not vain and empty words of repetition and unbelief – they were oracles from the throne of the Almighty Father.

He knew the Father and loved Him with the sanctified life lived for His joy, pleasure and glory alone. He sought Him with the ardent zeal and loved Him with a consuming passion. His will was to do the will of the Father. The ebb and flow of His life was to please Him at all cost. Therefore, Jesus always knew what to pray and the Father always heard Him when He prayed. Because He heard Him He answered Him, thus the Father’s will was made manifest in the Son. This is the finest life possible – brought about only through prayer. The journey begins with prayer and it ends with prayer. The man, Jesus, grew ever-increasingly in knowledge of the Father because He lived in the fires of prayer, spanning the depths of intimacy with His Father.

The children of God are summoned to walk in this same inflaming passion. They are called to become, as it were, the very torch of love that consumes all that cannot stand the test.

Jesus had to pray, He lived to pray – indeed He was prayer incarnate! He learned where to walk, what to do and how to go because in prayer, He saw what the Father did. He grew in wisdom and in favor with God and man through prayer. It was through communion with God that He listened to the Father’s voice, embraced His will, and in His daily walk learned obedience through the things that He suffered.

The Man Jesus was not a rolling Stone or a leaf blowing in the wind – but a great Rock that stood – a Force that provoked the Father’s will. His very words stirred hearts, changed minds, directed the future of nations. The power in his words were like that of a hammer breaking down the most bonelike resistance, a sword cutting across hypocrisy, dividing asunder between soul and spirit. He revealed the secrets of the heart with His words and His life for He was driven with the zeal of God — His passion like a consuming fire until everything that existed in His day was thrust into a divine tempest of transition from which it has never recovered.

Passion, burning passion, jealous passion, it is the clarion call to the one who would choose Christ. Until your life is driven like a wheel within a wheel by this consuming fire, the passion to live as He lived, and be as He is, you are missing the purpose of life. How does one obtain this passion? Prayer!!!

In Him,

Nita