The Lord gave the first covenant to the people through Moses. The second covenant is given through Jesus Christ. We must read this passage with the understanding that it is God the Father speaking to God the Son. "This is what the Lord says: 'In the time of My favor I will answer You, and in the day of salvation I will help You; I will keep You and will make You to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances, to say to the captives, 'Come out!,' and to those in darkness, 'Be free!'" (Isaiah 49:8-9)
God the Father sent the Son at the "acceptable time" (as it is rendered in the KJV) at the time of His "favor", meaning at the right time. We may not know all the reasons why God chose that particular time for the advent of Christ but we can rest assured that it was the best possible time in all of history for it to happen. As the Apostle Paul said in Galatians 4:4: "When the set time had come, God sent His Son." The time for the advent of Christ was set before the Lord created the first human being. The plan for every single thing the Lord would ever do for mankind was in place long before He ever scooped up dust in His hands and created the first person and breathed the breath of life into him.
The Father promises the Son that He will hear His prayers. In the gospels there are a number of times where we are told that Jesus prayed before performing a miracle. I wouldn't be surprised that He prayed before every miracle but that sometimes He prayed silently in His mind and other times it was out loud, leading the gospel writers to record the instances when He prayed out loud. Jesus prayed out loud while standing before the tomb of Lazarus, saying, "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I know that You always hear Me." (John 11:41-42a)
The Father heard the Son in prayers such as these but He also heard His prayers for His followers and for Himself, for God kept them all safe during the years of Jesus' ministry. Several times Jesus' enemies plotted against Him, trying to seize Him or stone Him to death, and the Father helped Him and the disciples to escape all these attacks. No one could do anything to Jesus before the time determined by the Father and no one could put Him to death except by the method determined by the Father.
Jesus also prayed for you and for me. On the night before the crucifixion He prayed first for those who knew Him in the flesh and believed in Him and then He said, "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message." (John 17:20)
We never saw Jesus in the flesh. We never witnessed any of the miracles. We never heard any of His sermons. But based on the accounts of the gospel writers, we believe. I think perhaps there is an extra special blessing for those who have believed in Jesus without ever having seen Him. It takes an extra measure of faith to believe in that which we have not seen; therefore, there may be an extra measure of blessing. The disciple Thomas had trouble believing Jesus had risen from the dead because he had not been with the other disciples when the risen Christ appeared to them. He stated that he could not believe unless he saw the proof. Then, when Jesus appeared again while Thomas was present, Thomas believed. Jesus said to him in John 20:29."Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
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