the True Use of Life
Here and also in Luke 9:28 reference is made to the Master's prayers. He was praying alone, before He broke to His friends the death which awaited Him and in which we may have some share; He was praying, too, when the cloud of glory overshadowed Him. Would it not be well to begin this new day with the resolve to pray more! If the Lord needed it, surely we do, whether for the Cross or the Transfiguration Mount.
Into such prayer, petition and intercession must needs enter. But, ah, what prayer that is, which is neither of these, but the opening of our nature to the inflowing of the divine nature, which is Love, when the soul recognizes its oneness with God and the whole universe!
Our Lord asked these questions that He might lead the Apostles to crystallize their own conceptions in Peter's magnificent affirmation. But they who will follow His footsteps must expect His lot! First, the Cross is set up in our heart, and day by day our old self-nature is crucified there; then we have to endure for others the Cross of rejection, shame and death. But it is thus that we gain ourselves and come into possession of our own souls. If we dare take this path, neither here nor hereafter will Christ be ashamed of us.