Climbing the Mountain of Prayer
Written by Pastor Derek Smith
Legacy Church, Albuquerque, NM
In Luke chapter 9, we find the incredible story of Jesus taking his closest disciples (Peter, James, and John) up the mountain to pray. While they are there, the disciples get to witness one of the most amazing events of their lives. They suddenly see, standing before them, Moses and Elijah. These were good Hebrew boys who have studied these heroes of the faith all of their lives. At this point, Moses has been dead for 865 years, while Elijah has been gone for 450 years. Peter, acting of out of the excitement of the moment, exclaims “Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” The Mistake that Peter made was to put two human beings on the same level as Christ. Jesus has no equals, and He never will. After this, a cloud comes down and the voice of God begins to emanate from the cloud to correct Peter’s proposition “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!” God gives us great advice here – listen to Jesus!
I know that there are several different ways that we can hear from the Lord. I personally believe that the 2 greatest ways to hear from God are through His Word, and through our times of prayer. Jesus climbed the mountain with a specific purpose – to pray. It is no coincidence that this is where the transfiguration happened. All of us are in need of some type of transformation in our lives. The best way to find the path towards that transformation is to begin to climb the mountain of prayer. Jesus knew that His ministry on earth would only last for 3 ½ years, yet we continually find references in scripture where He went off to pray. This is a man that had never sinned; yet He dedicated Himself to prayer and communion with God. I would have loved to eavesdrop on the prayer life of the one who had never had his communication with God corroded by sin. I have heard it said that if you take out the phrases “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have, and I never will again” from our prayer vocabulary, many of us would have nothing left to say! Jesus had never done a thing wrong, yet we always find Him in prayer. Surely, then, our prayer lives have much greater potential than just repenting and pleading for things.
In the Old Testament, there is no biblical account of anyone ascending into the presence of God. When God wanted to meet with Moses, He went down to meet with Him (though it is interesting that Moses climbed the mountain to meet with God.) Transversely, we have no biblical account in the New Testament of God coming down to meet with man. This is what I believe we are to derive from this: If you are going to grow in Christ, it will be because you ascended, not because God descended. We might often find ourselves in a position of crying out to God to come down to us to meet our needs. However, James tells us to “draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.” When we will devote ourselves to a lifestyle of climbing prayer mountain, we will most assuredly meet with God on a regular basis. As I reach up, He reaches down.
I believe that there are 2 important things that take place when we continue to ascend the mountain of prayer. First, it will change our view of the world. Whenever I am flying back into Albuquerque, I always look for the big copper colored dome at Central and Unser that houses our church. It is a very large building that can house over 3,000 people. However, there are times when I just can’t seem to find it. The issue is not that the dome has moved, it is that I am looking from a different altitude. When we ascend the mountain of prayer in our lives, we adjust to altitude to meet with God. When we do this, we see our problems in life quite differently. That issue that seemed overwhelming becomes insignificant in the presence of God. When we begin to think that our problems are covering us up, it is time to change our altitude.
The second thing that happens when we climb prayer mountain is that it will change the way that we view God. Our society makes a disease out of every dysfunction. They claim that they are the ones that want to help you, but they simply coddle you and keep you from the real solutions to your issues in life. We keep rolling around in our dysfunction and justifying why we do it. The key to being free from addictions and dysfunctions in life is to climb your way out! Go to the place where transformation starts. Stop rolling and start climbing!