Lesson 63: The Chief End of Prayer, part 1
John 14:13 - Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
That the Father may be glorified in the Son: it is to this end that Jesus on His throne in glory will do all we ask in His Name. Every answer to prayer He gives will have this as its object: when there is no prospect of this object being obtained, He will not answer. It follows as a matter of course that this must be with us, as with Jesus, the essential element in our petitions: the glory of the Father must be the aim and end, the very soul and life of our prayer.
It was so with Jesus when He was on earth. “I seek not my own honor: I seek the honor of Him who sent me;” in such words we have the keynote of His life. In the first words of the high-priestly prayer He spoke it: Father! Glorify Your son, that Your Son may glorify You. “I have glorified You on earth; glorify Me with Yourself.” The ground on which He asks to be taken up into the glory He had with the Father, is the twofold one: He has glorified Him on earth; He will still glorify Him in heaven. What He asks is only to enable Him to glorify the Father more. It is as we enter into sympathy with Jesus on this point, and gratify Him by making the Father’s glory our chief object in prayer too, that our prayer cannot fail to receive an answer. There is nothing of which the Beloved Son has said more distinctly that it will glorify the Father than this, His doing what we ask; He will not, therefore, let any opportunity slip of securing this object. Let us make His aim ours: let the glory of the Father be the link between our asking and His doing: such prayer must prevail.
This word of Jesus comes indeed as a sharp two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. Jesus in His prayers on earth, in His intercession in heaven, in His promise of an answer to our prayers from there, makes this His first object—the glory of His Father. Is it true with us too? Or are not, in large measure, self-interest and self-will the strongest motives urging us to pray? Or, if we cannot see that this is the case, have we not to acknowledge that the distinct, conscious longing for the glory of the Father is not what animates our prayers? And yet it must be so.
Prayer: Blessed Lord Jesus! I come again to You. Every lesson You give me convinces me more deeply how little I know to pray correctly. But every lesson also inspires me with hope that You are going to teach me, that You are teaching me not only to know what prayer should be, but actually to pray as I should. O my Lord! I look with courage to You, the Great Intercessor, who prayed and also hears prayer, only that the Father may be glorified, to teach me too to live and to pray to the glory of God.