One of the most impressive sayings in the Bible is that of Christ Jesus when, before raising Lazarus from the dead, he said: "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always." His words were indicative of his gratitude to and confidence in God, and of his certainty that the Father's presence and power are ever available. He had made his appeal to God. The result was the bringing back of Lazarus, his friend, to their midst.
Through his understanding of God and of his own real spiritual nature, Jesus had the perfect assurance that God was ever with him. He knew God as the Father and himself as the Son. He knew that as the Son of God, obedient to the will of God, he reflected the power of God. This knowledge enabled him to do all manner of wonderful things—wonderful or miraculous, that is, to the consciousness unillumined spiritually. His numerous healings of sickness and sin; his mastery over the elements, shown in the calming of the raging wind and of the storm-tossed sea; his victory over the dread enemy of mankind—death—all alike testified to the fact that he saw through the illusions of material sense, knew their nothingness.
Jesus understood man's spiritual relationship to God, and sought to cultivate that understanding. To do this he prayed. And when he communed with God in prayer in order to strengthen his faith in the indissoluble unity which exists between God and man, it was his wont to retire to a place where he should be undisturbed. There he appealed to the Father, prayed for a greater measure of spiritual understanding, supporting his appeal by affirmations or declarations of truth. The New Testament record shows that he returned to his disciples from such holy communion, strengthened for the work before him. The Master chose those seasons which so greatly blessed him, but nothing is surer than that his mental attitude was one of constant acknowledgment of the truth that never for a moment is man separate from his creator, the source of all intelligence, wisdom, and power.
