by Skip Heitzig
Published by Tyndale

Review by Tom Gilbert

Imagine being able to eavesdrop on Jesus at prayer. What was it like to be so intimate with Him that you could pray with Him? How lucky were the apostles!

Do you ever find yourself with thoughts like that? We often wish that we could have the kind of closeness that the disciples shared with Jesus. In Skip Heitzig’s new book, When God Prays (Tyndale Publishing) we’re given an up close and personal examination of Jesus at prayer. In John 17 Jesus prayed for His close companions and for all His followers to come, asking God to protect us and that we would know the special fellowship He enjoys with Father God.

Throughout this book we can discover that God is prayerful. God and His beloved Son give us the opportunity to be part of this circle of love. The theme is an ongoing one of revelation and response. God reveals Himself through Jesus Christ and prayer. We respond by accepting and believing this revelation and joining in the conversation!

Skip Heitzig is the senior pastor of a large, non-denominational church in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He surely has firm beliefs on scripture and doctrine. As an evangelical he professes to a certain end-time interpretation of a pre-tribulation rapture and a millennial rule on earth at the Second Coming. To his credit, though, he doesn't distract us with such positions, but focuses instead on analyzing the heart of Jesus’ prayer in the Gospel of John. It is in the prayer for unity especially that he asks us to look beyond the numerous differences that have often divided the Church over the years to see the real message of Jesus. And he correctly points out that the world is watching: they are evaluating believers on how well they practice what they preach.

When God Prays considers in four parts the astonishing prayer Jesus Christ made just hours before his agonizing passion. Heitzig suggests we look upward, outward, inward and forward as we consider the various parts of the Savior’s prayer.

One of the key points in John 17:1-26 is that Jesus prayed for others. We must learn from this! If we agree with Jesus that we should all be one then we must set aside our petty differences and doctrinal disputes and pray that we will enjoy a fellowship of unity.

Our response requires action. An honest evaluation of our following Christ, being a true disciple, means we will be doers, not just observers. We will not just hear the message, we will act on it.

Part of the book addresses the life separated from the world. Skip expresses concern over monasticism – the desire to isolate from the world to live and be holy (p. 112). However, I think there must be times of quiet retreat and contemplation. Doing the inside work changes us from the inside out and prepares us to go into the world.

What of our real opinion of prayer? A measure of our sincerity will be in what we think prayer is and how often we engage in it. Further, our motivation must include boundaries beyond our personal space. The prayer time is not just for us – God and Jesus want this time with us. It is for their benefit, too! Whether or not we want to be with God in prayer time He always wants to be with us. He loves us continually.

On page 81 the author makes the point that becoming a Christian is sort of like being cured of leprosy but still living in a leper colony. How will we respond to the other lepers? Will we integrate ourselves into the community and help, or isolate to avoid re-infection?

Because Jesus prayed for all of us, both his apostles and those who would later come to believe, we have an obligation to learn from this prayer and put its elements into our daily prayer life.

The center point of this prayer is that Jesus came from the Father and revealed the Father to us with the message of His great love. Jesus also atoned for our sins and fervently cares for how we will embrace this message and bring it to the attention of a lost and hurting world. Part of being a disciple is becoming holy while living in an unholy world.

How do we do this? We have direct access to the Father through prayer and because of Jesus. We should talk straight with God (page 104) and use three simple requests: keep me, Lord; teach me, Lord; send me Lord.