Prayer For Success For The Body Of Christ

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Bible Verses About Prayer: 20 Important Scripture Quotes

God speaks to us through His written word, the Bible. Christians speak to God through prayer. Prayer is an important part of the Christian’s life; we pray in words and sometimes we pray in song. Here are twenty important scripture quotes about prayer.

How Often Should We Pray

1 Corinthians 1:4I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus,

Ephesians 6:18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,

Philippians 1:3-4 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy,

Colossians 1:3 (KJV) We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,

1 Thessalonians 5:17 pray without ceasing

How Should We Pray

Psalm 66:17 I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue.

Psalm 95:2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

Matthew 6:9-13 (KJV)After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

1 Corinthians 14:15 What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.

James 1:6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

What Should We Pray For

Psalm 50:14-15 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

Psalm 118:25 Save us, we pray, O LORD! O LORD, we pray, give us success!

Psalm 122:6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! May they be secure who love you!

Romans 10:1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.

Romans 10:13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Who Should We Pray For

Romans 15:30 I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf,

2 Corinthians 1:11 You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

1 Timothy 2:1-2 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

James 5:13-14 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Christian Quotes About Prayer

“Those persons who know the deep peace of God, the unfathomable peace that passeth all understanding, are always men and women of much prayer.”~ R. A. Torrey

“Don’t pray when you feel it. Have an appointment with the Lord and keep it. A man is powerful on his knees.” ~ Corrie ten Boom

“You may as soon find a living man that does not breath, as a living Christian that does not pray.” ~ Matthew Henry

“Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer.” ~ John Bunyan

“We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties.” ~ Oswald Chambers

The Passion of Christ

Prayer For Success For The Body Of Christ
Christ on the cross ©

The Passion of Christ is the story of Jesus Christ's arrest, trial and suffering. It ends with his execution by crucifixion. The Passion is an episode in a longer story and cannot be properly understood without the story of the Resurrection.

The word Passion comes from the Latin word for suffering.

The crucifixion of Jesus is accepted by many scholars as an actual historical event. It is recorded in the writings of Paul, the Gospels, Josephus, and the Roman historian Tacitus. Scholars differ about the historical accuracy of the details, the context and the meaning of the event.

Most versions of the Passion begin with the events in the Garden of Gethsemane. Some also include the Last Supper, while some writers begin the story as early as Palm Sunday, when Jesus entered Jerusalem to the applause of the crowds.

The Passion is a story about injustice, doubt, fear, pain and, ultimately, degrading death. It tells how God experienced these things in the same way as ordinary human beings.

The most iconic image of the Passion is the crucifix – Christ in his last agony on the cross – found in statues and paintings, in glass, stone and wooden images in churches, and in jewellery.

The Passion appears in many forms of art. It is set to music, used as a drama and is the subject of innumerable paintings.

Spiritually, the Passion is the perfect example of suffering, which is one of the pervasive themes of the Christian religion.

Suffering is not the only theme of the Passion, although some Christians believe that Christ's suffering and the wounds that he suffered play a great part in redeeming humanity from sin.

Another theme is incarnation – the death of Jesus shows humanity that God had become truly human and that he was willing to undergo every human suffering, right up to the final agony of death. Another is obedience – despite initial, and very human, reluctance and fear, Jesus demonstrates his total acquiescence to God's wishes.

But the final theme is victory – the victory of Christ over death – and this is why the Passion story is inseparable from the story of the Resurrection.

The elements of the Passion story are these:

The Last Supper
The agony in the Garden of Gethsemane
The arrest of Jesus after his betrayal by Judas
The examination and condemnation of Jesus by the Jews
The trial before Pilate during which Jesus is sentenced to be whipped and crucified
The crucifixion of Jesus

The Last Supper

Jesus and the disciples share a last meal together either during Passover (Synoptic Gospels) or on the eve of Passover (John's Gospel).

The Last Supper was a Passover meal ©

During the meal Jesus blesses and breaks bread, which he gives to the disciples saying “Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me”.

After the meal Jesus blesses some wine and gives it to the disciples saying “Drink ye all of this; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of me”.

This event is the foundation of the Christian sacrament of the Eucharist, which includes services such as Holy Communion, Mass, The Lord's Supper. Although different Christian denominations have many different ways of celebrating the Eucharist, and understand it in different ways, they all developed from the Last Supper.

During the meal Jesus predicts that he will be betrayed by one of those sharing the meal with him, and that another of the disciples will disown him.

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The agony in the Garden

After supper Jesus goes with the disciples to spend the night in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus asks God if he can escape his fate…”Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

Despite this prayer he willingly submits to God's will and continues to prepare himself. God sends an angel to give Jesus strength for the ordeal.

Jesus continues to pray and his distress is such that 'his sweat was drops of blood'.

The disciples who Jesus asked to wait with him fell asleep; even his closest friends left him to suffer alone.

Jesus is betrayed by Judas and arrested

Judas betrayed Jesus by kissing him ©

A group of armed men, sent by the Jewish authorities, arrives in the Garden to arrest Jesus.

Judas betrays Jesus by identifying him with a kiss – the signal he had arranged beforehand.

Peter, one of the disciples, takes a sword and cuts off the ear of one of the arresting party. The disciple believes that he is trying to protect Jesus, but by doing so he abandons Jesus' teaching against violence.

Jesus forbids further violence and heals the injured man.

The disciples run away and Jesus is taken away.

Jesus is tried by Jewish officials

Jesus is questioned in front of a group of Jewish religious leaders. The Gospels give different accounts of this, and of who is present.

Caiaphas, the Chief Priest of the Temple wanted to destroy Jesus before he caused a rebellion that would bring down the comfortable world of the Temple and enraging the Roman authorities.

During questioning Jesus says enough for the Romans to see him as a rebel, and the Jews to regard him as a blasphemer.

The trial of Jesus before the Jewish authorities is a source of much controversy, and has been used in the past to justify anti-Semitism.

Modern Christians do not blame the Jews for the death of Jesus.

The Jewish authorities had several reasons for being angry with Jesus:

Jesus had challenged their authority – earlier in the week Jesus had gone to the Temple and protested against the moneychangers, as a symbolic denunciation of all the injustices the Temple stood for.
Jesus was reinterpreting Jewish Law
Jesus was breaking the laws concerning the Sabbath
Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, a claim which the authorities thought blasphemous
The claim to be Messiah suggested that Jesus was preparing some sort of rebellion – probably against the Roman colonial government. Such a revolt would endanger the relationship between Roman and Jewish authorities. (In those days the Messiah was expected to be a royal figure who would defeat the enemies of God and cleanse or rebuild the temple, and perhaps also bring God's justice to the world.)

Jesus is tried by Pilate

Jesus is tried by Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, on a charge of treason. The Jewish authorities were not authorised to execute people, so they needed to transfer the case to the Roman authorities.

Pilate is not convinced that Jesus is guilty of a capital crime and suggests that it would be sufficient to flog him.

The crowd objects to this and demands that Jesus be killed. Pilate gives in and sentences Jesus to be flogged first and then executed by crucifixion.

Although the Gospels paint Pilate as a weak man who ignores justice rather than stand against the crowd, other sources say that he was tough and authoritarian, and unly to have been pushed around by anyone.

Pilate was eventually ordered back to Rome and tried for the cruel way he treated the people under his government.

There is a Christian tradition that Pilate and his wife eventually converted to Christianity.

The crucifixion

Jesus is whipped and then, to mock the claim that he is 'King of the Jews', given a crown of thorns and dressed in a purple robe. Jesus carries his cross to the place of crucifixion, helped by Simon of Cyrene.

The crucifixion takes place at a location called Calvary or Golgotha.

Jesus is stripped and nailed to the Cross. Above his head is placed a sign that says 'King of the Jews'. Two criminals are crucified alongside him.

After some hours the soldiers check that Jesus is dead by stabbing him in the side. Blood and water gush out.

Jesus' body is taken down and buried.

The Passion of Christ has featured in Christian liturgy since the 4th century.

It became an institution in the 5th century when Pope Leo the Great laid down that the St Matthew Passion should be part of the mass on Palm Sunday and the Wednesday of Holy Week, and the St John Passion should be part of the Good Friday service.

From the 7th century the service on the Wednesday of Holy Week featured the St Luke Passion, and from the 10th century the Roman Catholic Church used the St Mark Passion on the Tuesday of Holy Week.

From quite early the Passion was chanted in a dramatic way, with the reader representing the different voices in the story: the Evangelist as Narrator, the voice of Christ, and other speaking parts. Very often the words of Christ were chanted while the rest was spoken.

The texts were originally chanted by a single person, but from around the 13th century different voices took the different parts.

The first polyphonic Passion settings date from the 15th century.

As music became more sophisticated various forms of Passion were developed, ranging from straight narratives with music through to oratorios anchored to a greater or lesser extent in the text of scripture.

The St Matthew Passion of J S Bach is probably the best-known of the musical settings of the Passion.

The Passion in drama

'Passion plays' have been staged since the 12th century. The earliest play (so far) is one found at the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy. Two 13th century German passion plays are known, and Passion plays were more popular during that century and the one that followed.

The Passion of Christ was also portrayed in the English 'cycle plays'.

Passion plays often give a detailed portrayal of Christ's physical suffering and many of them include explicit dramatisations of the beating and execution of Christ.

There were at least two reasons for this: since all Passion plays emphasise the humanity of Christ and identify this with his physical experiences, a realistic Crucifixion brought the point home to the audience. Secondly, making the action as realistic as possible demonstrated to the audience that the death of Christ was a real historical event.

The most famous Passion play is the one that has been staged at Oberammergau in Upper Bavaria in Germany since 1634.

The villagers of Oberammergau had promised God that if he saved them from a plague epidemic they would commemorate it by staging a dramatic representation of Christ's suffering, death and resurrection every ten years.

The Oberammergau Passion play is particularly notable for involving the participation of the most of the villagers, with over 800 people in the cast.

The Passion in art

The Passion is one of the most common subjects in art. Paintings of the Crucifixion were much in demand for church use.

The earliest paintings of the Crucifixion date from the 5th century.

Among the most famous paintings is the Isenheim altarpiece (1515) by Mathias Grunewald. The painting of the Crucifixion is gruelling in both its detailed treatment of the physical anguish of Jesus, and the visual language used.

The Crucifix as a sculpted cross with the figure of Jesus dates from the 10th century (the Gero Cross of Cologne Cathedral).

In many churches a Crucifix stands on the choir screen, in the arch between the nave and the chancel. These are often known as 'roods' and the screen as a 'rood screen'. Rood comes from the Saxon word for a crucifix.

The Passion in plants

In this radio programme, Paul Morrison, a naturalist, explores the symbolism of flowers and plants in the crucifixion story. He goes in search of the plant the soldiers may have used to make Jesus' crown of thorns.

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