The Priority of Prayer

The passages

God, you are my God. I will earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you, in a dry and weary land, where there is no water. So I have seen you in the sanctuary, watching your power and your glory. Because your loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you. So I will bless you while I live. I will lift up my hands in your name. My soul shall be satisfied as with the richest food. My mouth shall praise you with joyful lips,…

Psalms 63:1–5

Early in the morning, while it was still dark, he rose up and went out, and departed into a deserted place, and prayed there.

Mark 1:35

But the report concerning him spread much more, and great multitudes came together to hear and to be healed by him of their infirmities. But he withdrew himself into the desert and prayed.

Luke 5:15–16

In these days, he went out to the mountain to pray, and he continued all night in prayer to God.

Luke 6:12

Jesus said these things, then lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may also glorify you; even as you gave him authority over all flesh, so he will give eternal life to all whom you have given him. This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ. I glorified you on the earth. I have accomplished the work which you have given me to do. Now, Father, glorify me with your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world existed. “I revealed your name to the people whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours, and you have given them to me. They have kept your word. Now they have known that all things whatever you have given me are from you, for the words which you have given me I have given to them; and they received them, and knew for sure that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I don’t pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them through your name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. I have kept those whom you have given me. None of them is lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I come to you, and I say these things in the world, that they may have my joy made full in themselves. I have given them your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that you would take them from the world, but that you would keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, even so I have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. “Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me. The glory which you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that you sent me and loved them, even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world hasn’t known you, but I knew you; and these knew that you sent me. I made known to them your name, and will make it known; that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

John 17:1–26

Pray like this: “‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. Let your Kingdom come. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.’

Matthew 6:9–13

David was told, “Behold, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah, and are robbing the threshing floors.” Therefore David inquired of Yahweh, saying, “Shall I go and strike these Philistines?” Yahweh said to David, “Go strike the Philistines, and save Keilah.” David’s men said to him, “Behold, we are afraid here in Judah. How much more then if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?” Then David inquired of Yahweh yet again. Yahweh answered him, and said, “Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines into your hand.” David and his men went to Keilah and fought with the Philistines, and brought away their livestock, and killed them with a great slaughter. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah. When Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David to Keilah, he came down with an ephod in his hand. Saul was told that David had come to Keilah. Saul said, “God has delivered him into my hand, for he is shut in by entering into a town that has gates and bars.” Saul summoned all the people to war, to go down to Keilah to besiege David and his men. David knew that Saul was devising mischief against him. He said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring the ephod here.” Then David said, “O Yahweh, the God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah to destroy the city for my sake. Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? Yahweh, the God of Israel, I beg you, tell your servant.” Yahweh said, “He will come down.” Then David said, “Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul?” Yahweh said, “They will deliver you up.” Then David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed out of Keilah and went wherever they could go. Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah; and he gave up going there. David stayed in the wilderness in the strongholds, and remained in the hill country in the wilderness of Ziph. Saul sought him every day, but God didn’t deliver him into his hand. David saw that Saul had come out to seek his life. David was in the wilderness of Ziph in the woods. Jonathan, Saul’s son, arose and went to David into the woods, and strengthened his hand in God. He said to him, “Don’t be afraid, for the hand of Saul my father won’t find you; and you will be king over Israel, and I will be next to you; and Saul my father knows that also.” They both made a covenant before Yahweh. Then David stayed in the woods and Jonathan went to his house. Then the Ziphites came up to Saul to Gibeah, saying, “Doesn’t David hide himself with us in the strongholds in the woods, in the hill of Hachilah, which is on the south of the desert? Now therefore, O king, come down. According to all the desire of your soul to come down; and our part will be to deliver him up into the king’s hand.” Saul said, “You are blessed by Yahweh, for you have had compassion on me. Please go make yet more sure, and know and see his place where his haunt is, and who has seen him there; for I have been told that he is very cunning. See therefore, and take knowledge of all the lurking places where he hides himself; and come again to me with certainty, and I will go with you. It shall happen, if he is in the land, that I will search him out among all the thousands of Judah.” They arose, and went to Ziph before Saul; but David and his men were in the wilderness of Maon, in the Arabah on the south of the desert. Saul and his men went to seek him. When David was told, he went down to the rock, and stayed in the wilderness of Maon. When Saul heard that, he pursued David in the wilderness of Maon. Saul went on this side of the mountain, and David and his men on that side of the mountain; and David hurried to get away for fear of Saul, for Saul and his men surrounded David and his men to take them. But a messenger came to Saul, saying, “Hurry and come, for the Philistines have made a raid on the land!” So Saul returned from pursuing David, and went against the Philistines. Therefore they called that place Sela Hammahlekoth. David went up from there and lived in the strongholds of En Gedi.

1 Samuel 23:1–29