Prayer as we know it today was first exemplified in the life of our blessed Lord. Although fully God, He took the place of the perfect, dependent man. He was often found in prayer, so that His disciples, seeing this, made the request, “Teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). When the Lord Jesus was about to go to the cross, He emphasized to His disciples that prayer would be their resource in His absence. In the so-called upper-room ministry, particularly in John 16, He told them, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you” (John 16:23). Prayer to the Father in His name would be answered. Following these exhortations, we have abundant reference to prayer in the epistles, showing us the importance God attaches to it in our lives. Truly, as another has said, “A prayerless life is a powerless life.”
W. J. Prost