The Jesus Prayer

For Christians, prayer should be like breathing. You do not have to think to breathe because the atmosphere exerts pressure on your lungs and essentially forces you to breathe. That is why it is more difficult to hold your breath than it is to breathe. Similarly, when we are born into the family of God, we enter into a spiritual atmosphere where God's presence and grace exert pressure, or influence, on our lives. Prayer is the normal response to that pressure. As believers, we have all entered the divine atmosphere to breathe the air of prayer.

Unfortunately, many believers hold their “spiritual breath” for long periods, thinking brief moments with God are sufficient to allow them to survive. But such restricting of their spiritual intake is caused by sinful desires. The fact is that every believer must be continually in the presence of God, constantly breathing in His truths, to be fully functional. ---GotQuestions? Ministries

These guys say it better than I ever could.  Check out their article What does it mean to pray without ceasing?

However, I have had something else in mind.  It is an old Russian spiritual book by an anonymous pilgrim with a withered arm who was dead-set on praying the Jesus Prayer (an ancient mantra used by Eastern Orthodox, and other, Christians.  The book is called The Way of a Pilgrim.

I'm only into chapter 3, but have learned quite a bit so far.  Being the protestant I am, I blissfully disregard the extremely few-and-far between parts that speak about the Mother of God, Mary, and other things such as icons and feasts which I do not celebrate.  A true child of God will not fear such petty issues because a true child of God serves the Highest Authority possible who will punish falsehoods and heresies.

That aside, I have been really interested in this Jesus Prayer, to the point of using it myself the past few weeks.     I have been afraid of falling into some mystical false religious meditation, but reciting the short mantra, or chant (not to be confused with the Buddhist or Hindu use of mantra), "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me," has enriched my prayer life lately.

As the pilgrim in the book says, and I believe many Eastern Orthodox Christians will affirm, the Jesus Prayer is a sort of summary of the Gospels. This is a stretch to me.  There can be no replacing the Gospels since they are the inspired and entirely infallible words of God.  But this thought did spur me on to think about each individual word in the mantra.

Lord- ruler, king, master, higher than us, sovereign
Jesus- loving, passionate, righteous, sinless, Son of God, Savior, our atoning sacrifice, bold, able to forgive sins and punish sins
Christ- Messiah, Chosen One of God, our hope
Have Mercy- what our plea and prayer should be for everything, what to beg when we sin or need help overcoming
On Me- the once-perfect creature known as man who continually chooses to rebel God and re-crucify the Savior with sin

Of course there are other prayers to pray and this is not a necessity, but reciting it for myself has helped me keep my mind on Him.  It is short and sweet and to the point, but is not to replace other prayers.

Also, I am running late for work!  See ya.