What is the Jesus Prayer? The anonymous author of The Way Of A Pilgrim explains, the Jesus Prayer is, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”
This prayer is very biblical, and has been used within the Easter Orthodox Church for centuries.
The apostle Paul tells us, “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). The word “is” is not on the Greek, but is implied. So the passage literally says that no one can say “Lord Jesus” except by the Holy Spirit.
And Paul tells us why this name is so powerful, for “God exalted him even more highly and gave him the name that is above every other name so that at the name given to Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2:9).
The Apostle Paul also tells us, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). And Acts 4:12 tells us that, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.”
In the Gospels we read about a blind beggar, who when Jesus came by, shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me” (Luke 18:38). And about the tax collector who “would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’” (Luke 18:13).
And David cried out, “Be merciful to me, O God; be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, until the destroying storms pass by” (Psalms 57:1).
As you can see, the Jesus Prayer is rooted in both Scripture and tradition. As often as you can, pray, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” Let this be an arrow in your quiver and a shield in times of trouble.