THE SEVEN PRAYERS OF JESUS
By Laszlo Gallusz
IVP. 154 pages. £9.99
ISBN 978 1 783 595 679
The Lord Jesus encourages us to pray always and not give up. Yet I find myself praying infrequently and giving up often!
This great little book helps to change that. Our desire for God can be smothered by self-reliance. The essence of prayer, according to Dostoyevsky, is ‘to bow down before what is infinitely great’ – something we must learn and relearn. Albert Einstein insisted: ‘Somebody must find out about prayer.’
To Gethsemane
Thankfully, one greater than Einstein has revealed why and how we should pray. The Lord Jesus, who called God ‘Father’ over 170 times, introduces us (through his mediator-ial work) into a deeper intimacy with God, such that we may dare to call him Abba. The author surveys seven key prayers of Jesus in the NT, starting with the Lord’s Prayer, and ending with (as a set) his three prayers on the Cross. Gallusz (a senior lecturer in NT Studies, Belgrade Theological Seminary) links these two bookends: ‘In his first prayer… Jesus taught his disciples to pray for deliverance from evil. In his last… what they are to do when they are not delivered from evil: commend their lives into God’s hands’. The other five prayers include Jesus’ joy at God’s giving of his Kingdom to ‘infants’ (untaught fishermen), and his high-priestly prayer. But most powerful, perhaps, is the only prayer of Jesus’ that went unanswered – Gethsemane. Here, we learn not only his great love for us in dying in our place, but also how we too can accept the problem of unanswered prayer: ‘In moments of anguish, frustration, confusion and hurt, when all kinds of feelings compete in our inner being, we have the choice either to try and handle the situation on our own or to turn it over to God in total confidence.’ Warmly recommended.
