Prayer is the most wonderful action in the spiritual realm; it is also the most mysterious matter.
Prayer is a mystery. After we present a few questions concerning prayer, we will see how mysterious prayer is. These questions are hard to answer. But this does not mean that the mystery of prayer is unknowable or that the questions concerning prayers are unanswerable. It merely means that those who have the answers are few. For this very reason, there are few who can accomplish works for God in prayer. It is not a matter of how much we pray, but a matter of how much we have prayed according to the principle of prayer. Only those prayers that are prayed according to the principle of prayer are worthwhile.
The first question we will ask is: why should we pray? What is the use of praying? God is omniscient and omnipotent. Why would He work only after we pray? Since He knows everything, why do we have to tell Him anything (Phil. 4:6)? Since He is almighty, why would He not do it by Himself? Why does He need us to pray? Why is it that only those who pray receive, and those who seek find, and those who knock enter (Matt. 7:7)? Why does God say, "You do not have because you do not ask" (James 4:2)?
After asking the above questions, we also want to ask: is prayer contrary to the will of God? What is the relationship between prayer and justice?
We know that God does not do anything that is contrary to His will. If it is His will to open the door, why does He have to wait until we knock before He will open? Why would He not open the door for us according to His will, without us knocking? He knows everything. If He knows that we need an open door, why will He wait until we knock before He opens? If the door should be open, if it is God's will that there is the open door, and if God knows that we need to have the door open, why does He not just open the door? Why do we have to knock? What convenience does it give to God for us to knock on the door?
We also have to ask: Since God's will is to open the door, and since it is His will to have the door open, will God not open the door if we do not knock? Will He allow His will and His justice to be delayed and not accomplished just for the sake of waiting for our prayer? Will He allow His will of opening the door to be limited by our not knocking on the door?
If this is so, then God's will is restricted by us! Is God really omnipotent? If He is, why can He not open the door independent of us? Why must He wait for us to knock before He will open the door? Will God really accomplish His will? If He will, why does the opening of the door (His will) have to be controlled by our knocking on the door (prayer)?
After we have asked these questions, we will see that prayer is indeed a great mystery. Here we can see a principle of God's work. This principle is that God's people have to pray before God will rise up to work. God's will is accomplished by the prayer of those who belong to Him. The believers' prayers accomplish God's will. God will not accomplish His will alone; He will only accomplish His will when His people are sympathetic with Him in prayer.
If this is the case, prayer is nothing but the believers' act of working together with God. Prayer is the union of the believers' will with God's will. The prayer of the believers on earth is an utterance of God's will in heaven. Prayer is not an utterance of our own wishes, a plea for God to yield to our cry and fulfill our own wishes. Prayer is not to compel God to change His will by force or ask Him to do what He does not want to do. Prayer is the believers' utterance of God's will out of their own mouth; it is the believers' request before God that He accomplish His own will.
Prayer does not change what God has ordained. Prayer never changes anything. Prayer only accomplishes what God has ordained. On the contrary, the lack of prayer and the absence of prayer changes things. When God's people do not work together with God, He will allow many of the things ordained by Him to be delayed and not be fulfilled.
"Truly I say to you, Whatever you bind on the earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on the earth shall have been loosed in heaven" (Matt. 18:18). These two sentences are very familiar to us. But they refer to prayer. This is why following this, it says, "Again, truly I say to you that if two of you are in harmony on earth concerning any matter for which they ask, it will be done for them from My Father who is in the heavens" (v. 19).
This passage explains clearly the relationship between prayer and God's work. God in heaven will only bind and loose what His children on earth have bound and loosed. Many things that God should bind, He will not bind alone; instead He wants His people to bind them on earth first, and then He binds them in heaven. Many things that should be loosed, God will not loose them alone; instead He has to wait for His people to loose them on earth before He will loose the same for them in heaven. Every action in heaven is directed on the earth! All the moves in heaven are restricted on the earth! God is willing and happy to let all of His works be managed by His people. (I am not saying such words to fleshly persons, for they are not qualified to hear such words. We should listen carefully, lest the flesh comes in, and we offend God even more.) In Isaiah there is one passage which says the same thing as it says here: "Thus says Jehovah, / The Holy One of Israel and the One who formed him, / Ask Me about the things to come... / And concerning the work of My hands, command Me" (45:11). When we read this, we should be fearful and not allow the flesh to come in. God wants us — the humble human beings — to command Him! His work is carried out through our commanding. Whether it be binding or loosing, all of God's work in heaven is carried out according to our command on earth.
It must first be bound on earth before heaven will bind. It must be loosed on earth before heaven will loose. God will not do anything against His will. It does not mean that when something is bound on earth God will be forced to bind what He does not want to bind. God in heaven is binding what has been bound on earth because He has already intended to bind what has been bound first on earth. He is waiting all the time. When His people on earth bind what He in heaven intends to bind, He will follow their command and bind according to their requests. The fact that God is willing to follow His people's command to bind what they are binding shows that it has been God's will all along — which is eternal — to have such things bound.
Then why will God not bind such things sooner? Since it is His will to bind and since His will is eternal, why will He not bind what should have been bound long ago according to His will? Why does He have to wait until they are bound on earth before He will bind in heaven? Does it mean that He will not bind in heaven if it has not been bound on earth? Does it mean that when the binding on earth is delayed He will also delay the binding in heaven? Why is it that what God has desired to bind for a long time will only be bound when it is bound on earth?
If a believer can answer these questions, he will become more useful in the hands of God. We know that God created man for the purpose that man would become one with Him to destroy Satan and his works. Man has a free will, and God's intention is that man would will to join his will to God to oppose the will of Satan. This is the purpose of creation; it is also the purpose of redemption. The life of the Lord Jesus demonstrates this. Although we do not know the reason, we know that God would not act independently. If God's people would not sympathize with Him, if they would not subject their wills, and if they would not express their oneness with God in their prayer, God would rather delay and sit back, than do anything alone. God has shown great honor to His people to allow them to work with Him. Although He is omnipotent, He loves to be restricted by His children. Although He is zealous for His own will, He would rather allow Satan's evil plots to run rampant, if His people neglect His will and do not sympathize with Him or work with Him. Oh! If God's children will not be as cold as they are now, and if they will be willing to stop themselves, to submit to God's will, to care for God's glory, and to keep His word more, God's eternal purpose concerning what He intends to accomplish in this age will be fulfilled much sooner. The church also would not be in so much confusion, sinners would not be so stubborn, the Lord Jesus would return sooner, the kingdom of heaven would descend sooner, Satan and his hosts would be cast into the abyss sooner, and the knowledge of Jehovah would spread over the earth sooner. It is because believers care too much for themselves and do not work with God that so many enemies and so much lawlessness remain unbound, and so many sinners and so much grace are not loosed. Oh, heaven has been too restricted by men on earth! Brothers, God has entrusted so much to us. Do we trust in God in the same way?
How do we bind what God intends to bind? How do we loose what God intends to loose? The Lord's answer is to ask "in harmony." This is the meaning of prayer, and this is the prayer of the Body. The highest point of our working together with God is to ask in one accord for God to accomplish what He intends to accomplish. The true meaning of prayer is for the praying one to seek for the accomplishment of the will of the One to whom he prays. Prayer is an indication that we want God's will. It is to say that our will is standing on God's side. Without this kind of prayer, there is no real prayer.
How many prayers today are for the expression of God's will? How many prayers are a setting aside of oneself and a seeking for the accomplishment of God's will? How many believers are there who truly work together with God in prayer? How many believers echo back to God His heart's desire daily before Him and empty out their hearts to seek after God and to ask for God to accomplish what they understand as God's will? Oh! Let us realize that a selfish heart is no less prominent in prayer than in other things! How many of our own requests are standing in the way! How numerous are our own wills, our own desires, our own plans, and our own cravings! With so many things of our own, it is difficult to expect that we can forget about ourselves completely in prayer and seek after God's will alone. One should, of course, deny the self in everything, and to deny the self in prayer is as important as to deny the self in our walk. We should know that as saved ones we should live unto the Lord who died and resurrected for us. Therefore, we should henceforth live completely unto Him, not reserving anything for ourselves. Among all the things in our life of consecration, prayer should also be one consecrated item. One great and common error in our thoughts is to consider that prayer is an expression of our needs and that prayer is but our cry to God for help. Little do we realize that prayer is to ask God to fulfill His need. We have to realize that God's intention is not for the believers to accomplish their will through prayer. God's intention is to accomplish His own will through the believers' prayer. This does not mean that believers should not ask God to fulfill their needs. It only means that believers should first understand the meaning and principle of prayer.
Every time believers have a lack, they should first ask whether or not such a lack will affect God. Is it God who ordains that they have such a lack? Or is it God's will that they be supplied? Only after one has seen that it is God's will that his needs be met, should he pray for God to accomplish His will (with regards to meeting his need). Only after one has understood God's will, should he pray for the will of God which he has understood and ask that God's will be accomplished. The question now is not whether or not you have a lack or that you need to be supplied. The question now is whether or not God's will is accomplished. Although your prayer may be the same as before, your attention is turned to the accomplishment of God's will in such matters and not to the fulfilling of your own needs. Here lies the failure of many. Believers think that their own needs are the priority. Even after they have understood that God's will is to supply their need, they still pray tenaciously for their own needs. We should never pray for our own needs. There is only one legitimate prayer in the whole universe — only one prayer that pleases God — the prayer that asks for the accomplishment of His will. Our needs must be lost in God's will. Whenever we see God's will concerning our need, we have to drop our need immediately to seek after the accomplishment of God's will. A direct prayer for the fulfilling of needs (whatever kind of need it may be) is never the noblest prayer. All prayers for personal needs should only be made indirectly while one is seeking for the accomplishment of God's will. This is the secret to prayer, and this is the secret to victory in prayer.
God's goal is that we be filled with His will to such an extent that we forget our own interest. God wants us to work together with Him to accomplish His will. The way to work together with Him is to pray. For this reason He wants us to abide in Him to learn His will in various matters and then ask according to His will.
Genuine prayer is a real work. Prayers that are according to God's will and which ask for God's will to be done are a work of dying to the self. We must be weaned from the self completely, that is, we must not have a bit of self-interest. We must live completely to God and only seek after His glory. Then we will like what He likes, pursue what He pursues, and pray what He wants us to pray. Indeed, it is difficult enough not to have any self-interest in working for God. It is even more difficult not to have any self-interest in praying for God's will. One who would live completely to God must be so.
In the past generations, God could have done many things and, in fact, would have liked to have done many things, but because His children did not work together with Him, He did not perform them. It was not God who failed, but His people. If we review our entire personal life, we will see the same story. Had we only had greater faith and more prayer, our life would not have been so. Today God is seeking that His children would be willing to be one with His will and through prayer proclaim this kind of union. No believer has ever fully experienced the greatness of being completely one with God's will.
Once a servant of the Lord said well that "prayer is the railroad track of God's work." What tracks are to a train, prayer is to God's will. A locomotive does have great power and ability; it is able to run thousands of miles in one day. But if there are no tracks, the locomotive will not be able to move one inch. If it tries to move one inch, it will sink into the mud. It can go everywhere except where no tracks have been laid by man. This is the relationship between prayer and God's work. We do not need to explain in detail. The meaning of the illustration should be obvious to all. Indeed, God is almighty. No one can oppose His work. However, if you and I do not work together with Him in prayer or prepare the way for His will through prayer or by means of all prayer allow Him the possibility to move in many directions, He will not work and cannot work. Today locomotives cannot pass through many places in interior China. It is not because their engines have no power, but because there are no tracks on which to run. God wills and wants and even delights to do many things. But because His children do not express their sympathy with Him or pray to open the way for Him, He is limited. All of us who are fully consecrated to God should consider if we are daily limiting Him.
Thus, our most important work is to open the way for God. There is no other work more important than this. With God there are many possibilities. But if we do not open the way for Him, all will become impossibilities. Therefore our prayers in one accord with God should increase more than ever. Let us pray thoroughly — let us pray on all sides — so that God's will will reach all directions. No doubt our activities among men are important. But before God, working together with Him by prayer is even more important.
To pray does not mean to change the mind of heaven. It is the greatest mistake to think that God is hard and stubborn and that we must use prayer to battle with Him until He yields to us and changes what He has predetermined. Actually, any prayer that is not according to God's will is useless. Because God's will has suffered a hindrance from either men or demons, we come before God (as if we are wrestling with Him), asking that He execute His will and that His (predetermined) will not suffer through hindrances to His "permitted will." If we really desire God's predetermined will and if we have such prayer, such wrestling with God, and such resisting of any hindrance to His will, it will cause Him to carry out His predetermined will, not allowing anything of men or demons to (temporarily) come in the way. It is true that it appears that we are wrestling with God. Actually, this is for the accomplishment of His will. It is not that we have a certain idea and are trying to change His will. For this reason, unless we really know what God's will is, we shall not be able to work together with God in prayer.
Dear brothers, once we know the true meaning of prayer, we have to be careful not to allow the flesh to speak anything. O dear ones, if God will send laborers by Himself, the Lord would not have told us to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers! If His name will automatically be hallowed, if His kingdom will come without our cooperation, and if He will cause His will to be carried out on earth by Himself, He would not have taught us to pray this way. If He will come again without the need for the sympathy of the church, His Spirit would not have inspired the apostle to ask Him to come quickly again. If God the Father will automatically cause His believers to be one, there would not have been the need for the Lord to pray such a prayer. If the cooperation of God and man is not important, what is the point of Christ interceding in heaven continuously today? O dear ones, praying in sympathy with God is more important than doing anything else. He can only work on matters in which His children sympathize with Him. He is not willing to work where there has been no prayer, where He does not have His people's will in union with Him. This union of the wills is real prayer. Obtaining an answer to prayer is not the highest goal of prayer. The purpose of prayer is that we be one with God's will so that God can work. When our will is one with God, even though we may at times ask amiss and our prayer is not answered, God still receives the benefit because He is able to work as a result of our sympathy with Him.
