Eph. 6:18 By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this in all perseverance and petition concerning all the saints.
Watching unto Prayer
In Ephesians 6:18 Paul says that we need to pray at every time in spirit and watch unto this in all perseverance. We need to be watchful, on the alert, for the maintaining of our prayer life. Praying must be followed by watching. We have to add watching to our praying. After we make the decision to pray, many things will rise up to keep us away from praying. This is why we have to watch unto our prayer in all perseverance. To watch means that we are on the battlefield. The battle is raging, and there are enemies around us. (Fellowship Concerning the Urgent Need of the Vital Groups, ch. 12)
Unceasingly Praying and in Everything Giving Thanks Enabling Us
to Abide in the Lord Continuously
The secret, the key, to remaining in the enjoyment of the Lord is prayer and thanksgiving. When we pray, we are shining within, but if we also give thanks, we will become enlivened within. Prayer may be likened to connecting the wires, and thanksgiving, to shining the light. Sometimes our “wires” have been connected, yet it seems that we do not sense any reaction. The light does not shine if there is only prayer but no thanksgiving. Therefore, if we want to have a life that is always shining without flickering, we need to pray unceasingly and give thanks in everything. According to our experience, if we pray and also give thanks, even if before we were not abiding in the Lord, we will spontaneously enter into the Lord and abide in Him. If we want to get in and not come out but remain inside all the time, we need to pray unceasingly and give thanks in everything.
whether it is the proper Christian life, the life of experiencing Christ, or the church life, each concludes with giving thanks in all things.
Prayer and Thanksgiving Being a Christian’s Spiritual Feet
Prayer and thanksgiving are like our two feet. One foot cannot walk without the other. Prayer without thanksgiving will not work; thanksgiving without prayer also will not work. Hence, we must not only pray but also give thanks, and we must give thanks with prayer. We must do both simultaneously. It does not matter which comes first. As long as you have both, you can conveniently walk on the pathway of your Christian life
Our Uninterrupted Breathing Being Actually a Picture
of Our Unceasing Prayer
How can we pray unceasingly? However, every spiritual matter can be confirmed by practical things. We thank the Lord for this. This is God’s sovereign arrangement. In God’s ordination there is one thing that has no interruption, and that is our breathing. Eating, drinking, and sleeping are intermittent; only breathing is not intermittent. When breathing is interrupted, the result is death. While you are eating, drinking, and sleeping, you must still breathe. Therefore, our uninterrupted breathing is actually a picture of our unceasing prayer.
The Practice of Unceasing Prayer
It is easy to explain the truth concerning unceasing prayer, but it is very difficult to practice it. We can breathe continuously, but how can we pray unceasingly in the same way that we breathe? Yes, I have found out that breathing is a secret in nature that is very logical, because it is the only thing among the great things of human life that is unceasing. However, I could not understand how we can pray unceasingly as we do in breathing
We must understand and realize that we have a spirit within us, which is our spiritual breathing organ. The reason we do not want to pray or cannot pray is that we basically do not use our spirit. To pray we must use our spirit. Whenever we use our spirit, we are enlivened. The first function of our spirit is to pray. Your spirit prays automatically even without your prompting. Hence, in order to pray unceasingly, you must not interrupt your spirit’s activity. Instead, you must allow your spirit to be active all the time.
The spirit’s activity is to pray to the Lord. Even without opening my mouth to make a sound, my spirit automatically “breathes” in me to have fellowship with the Lord. Sometimes I may feel deflated; at that time I need to take a deep breath and call, “O Lord Jesus!” I may not make a sound, but still I am breathing in the Lord. We all should practice this kind of inaudible yet uninterrupted prayer.
Forty years ago, by the Lord’s mercy, I learned to practice praying by exercising my spirit. Now I can say that I am accustomed to using my spirit. Just as we walk when our feet move, so we pray when our spirit moves. Hence, we all need to exercise our spirit that it may become living and strong. The secret to our abiding in the Lord and enjoying His life is that our spirit is living. Just as our eyes are our seeing organ, so our spirit is our praying organ. The function of our eyes is to see, and the function of our ears is to hear. Likewise, the function of our spirit is to pray. God created such a spirit for us. Therefore, we need to practice using our spirit so that our spirit may be living.
Furthermore, we need to practice doing everything in our spirit and according to our activated spirit. If we do not move according to our activated spirit, we will practice religion. When our spirit is active, that is prayer; when our spirit is inactive, that is religion. Even when eating and drinking we need to practice having an active spirit. When our spirit is active, we pray. When we live and walk in our activated spirit, we pray unceasingly, and spontaneously we abide in the Lord and enjoy Him as our life. (Abiding in the Lord to Enjoy His Life, ch. 3)
Prayer Accomplishing God’s Purpose
Real fasting in prayer is this: because a person loves God, lives before God, and touches God’s heart, the Spirit of God will heavily burden him with one thing that God desires to do. He will become burdened to such an extent that he can neither eat nor drink. Then he will spontaneously fast and go before God to pray. Consequently, such prayer will accomplish God’s purpose, drive out the devil, and usher in God’s authority. (Lessons on Prayer, ch. 19)
