1 John 5:14 And this is the boldness which we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
Expressing God’s Will
There are three wills in the universe: God’s will, man’s will, and Satan’s will. God does not remove Satan’s will by Himself. He desires that man’s will become one with His will, to deal with Satan’s will. A spiritual prayer is an utterance of God’s will. How useless is a prayer that merely utters one’s own will! Our prayer cannot change God’s will; it merely expresses His will. God is the initiator of everything; we are merely the channel through which His will can flow. God ordains, and we obey. He initiates, and we agree in prayer. We cannot force God to do what He does not want to do, but we can stop Him from doing what He does want to do. When God’s will is turned into our prayer, He will begin working. Every revival comes from prayer. Our prayer cannot change God’s will; it only speaks out His will. No one can direct God’s will, and no one can make Him do what He does not want to do. However, what He does want to do can be limited by man’s prayer. Although Pentecost was prophesied by God in the book of Joel, there had to be the prayer of the one hundred and twenty before He could accomplish this. God’s will reaches only as far as our prayers have reached. Therefore, the more thorough our prayers are, the more the will of God will be accomplished, and Satan’s deceptions will not be able to come in. We should cast a net of prayer “by means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time” (Eph. 6:18), so that God’s will can prevail in all areas, and Satan will not find one crack through which to come in. In our prayer we should pay attention to three things: (1) to whom we are praying, (2) for whom we are praying, and (3) against whom we are praying. All our prayers should fulfill God’s will, afford others a profit, and inflict Satan with a loss. (God’s Overcomers, msg. 1)
A Genuine Man of Prayer
In Daniel 9 we should pay attention to two things concerning Daniel’s prayer. First, a genuine man of prayer is not only one who comes before God continually but also one whose desires are fully blended into God’s desires. In other words, his thoughts are fully one with God’s thoughts. This is a very important principle in prayer.
Some prayers originate from our needs. Sometimes God answers these prayers, but He does not gain anything through these prayers. Psalm 106:15 says, “And He gave them their request, But He sent leanness into their soul.” What does this mean? This means that in the wilderness the Israelites prayed to God for the satisfaction of their lust, and God answered their prayer. He gave them what they wanted, yet they became weak before His eyes. Brothers and sisters, sometimes God answers our prayers to satisfy our needs. Yet these prayers do not satisfy God’s desire. These prayers are of little worth.
There is another kind of prayer—one that originates from God’s needs. It comes from God and is initiated by God. This kind of prayer is valuable. Those who have this kind of prayer must be in God’s presence continually, and their desires and thoughts must be mingled with God’s desires and thoughts. Because these ones live in God’s presence continually, He shows them and touches them with His desires and thoughts. These desires and thoughts become the praying ones’ desires, which in turn become their prayer.
Participating in God’s Desires and Thoughts
We must learn to pray this kind of prayer. Although we are childish and weak, we must still come into His presence and allow His Spirit to mingle our desires with His desires and to lead our thoughts into His thoughts so that we can touch and participate in His desires and thoughts. If we do this, we will understand something of God’s way and demands on man. Brothers and sisters, the more we enter into God’s desires and thoughts, the more we will understand these desires and thoughts. Eventually, His desire will become our prayer. These prayers are precious. Daniel joined himself to God’s thoughts; he touched God’s desire and will, and they became the desires of Daniel’s heart. God’s desires were imprinted in Daniel and became Daniel’s desires. When Daniel prayed according to these desires, crying out or groaning because of these desires, they became God’s desires. We must have this kind of prayer, a prayer that touches God’s heart. More words are not needed, only more of a touching of His desires is needed. We should allow God’s Spirit to lead us into His heart. We should spend time to learn this lesson. When we first begin to pray in this way, there is no need to say or consider much. Our heart should be calm and undisturbed. We can bring the things we have encountered into God’s presence and consider them, or we can forget about these things and simply meditate on God’s Word. We can remain in His presence, touching God in our spirit and allowing God to touch us in the spirit. Actually, we do not have to go to God to touch Him; we can simply wait on Him. While we wait on Him in this way, something will come to our attention, and we will gain something. Then we will touch God’s desire. The greatest wisdom comes from this kind of waiting. In this way our desires are mingled with God’s desires, and our thoughts are one with God’s thoughts. Based on this, we can pray to God. (CWWN, vol. 38, “General Messages (2)”, ch. 59)
Being One with God
The praying one could have faith in God without doubting, but believing that he had received what he asked for, and he would have it (Mark 11:24). The praying one is now one with God, in union with God. He is mingled with God, so God becomes his faith. This is what it means to have faith in God, according to the Lord’s word in Mark 11:22. The praying one is absolutely one with God, and God becomes his faith. We have to pray according to God’s will for the fulfillment of His economy. Then we are one with God and the right persons in God’s eyes. Then we have the assurance that we have received what we have prayed for. (The God-man Living, msg. 16)
