Questions and answers concerning prayer
One
Question: Has God given us a full provision for our prayer?
Answer: Yes, God has given us a full provision in His Son through His Spirit. If we did not have a full provision from the Lord, we might withdraw from our privilege and duty to pray. Thank the Lord that He has fulfilled all of the requirements for drawing near to Him and living before Him. We can sum up the Lord’s provision with two words: trust and help.
First, let us consider trust. Trusting means committing and having the boldness to depend with full assurance. Many things are included in this word. A trusting spirit is very crucial to prayer and the Christian life as a whole. If we waver before the Lord, and if we lack assurance and trust in Him, our life will suffer a fatal blow. Let us pay attention to a few portions of the Word:
Hebrews 10:19-22 says, “Having therefore, brothers, boldness for entering the Holy of Holies in the blood of Jesus, which entrance He initiated for us as a new and living way through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a great Priest over the house of God, let us come forward to the Holy of Holies with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”
Romans 5:2 says, “Through whom also we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and boast because of the hope of the glory of God.”
Ephesians 2:18 says, “For through Him we both have access in one Spirit unto the Father.”
Ephesians 3:12 says, “In whom we have boldness and access in confidence through faith in Him.” We do not come to God according to our worthiness. Christ holds our hand and leads us to God. It is the Lord Himself who recommends to God those who are washed by the blood and who are alive from the dead. We put Him on as our robe of righteousness. Hence, our trust is in Christ Himself.
True faith is based on one thing — Christ Himself. We have an absolute right to come to God. He Himself is our right to come to God. This is His provision. We can come to the Father at any time in His name. We do not have to come to the Father according to our condition or in our own name (this is impossible in any case). We come to the Father in the name of the Son.
Second, let us consider help. Blessed are those who come to God through trusting in the Lord! However, even though we have such a tremendous privilege, we may feel impotent, weak, foolish, and unable to pray. It is marvelous to have help from the Spirit.
Romans 8:26-27 says, “Moreover, in like manner the Spirit also joins in to help us in our weakness, for we do not know for what we should pray as is fitting, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. But He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to God.” Our weaknesses are most readily manifested in our prayers. Nothing exposes our spiritual weakness more than prayer. We know how difficult it was for the disciples to pray in the garden of Gethsemane; they could not watch and pray. But thank the Lord that we have the mighty Spirit as our help. We must trust in the indwelling Spirit to operate in us according to His power, because He is our help in our time of weakness and foolishness. Although we do not know how to pray, the Holy Spirit is in us; He knows the will of God and He will teach us to pray according to God’s will. He will teach us to fellowship with God intelligently and bring us into the reality of fellowship. We should trust in the Christ in whom we believe and the Spirit who sustains us and helps us pray.
Two
Question: Why is Satan doing everything he can to frustrate our prayers?
Answer: Satan will do anything that he can to cut off our fellowship with heaven. Consequently, he will pay any price to frustrate genuine prayer. We must be on the alert. He constantly attacks the prayers of the believers and the prayers of the church. He knows that once he prevails in his attack on prayers, he can rest in peace. Therefore, we must be watchful and on guard against Satan, particularly when we pray. We have to pay attention to several things when we deal with Satan’s attacks:
(1) Satan will attack our faith in the Lord. He knows that as long as he can make us feel unworthy, weak, and lacking in faith towards the Lord, we will lose our heart to pray.
(2) Sometimes he attacks our body, mind, mentality, and other physical faculties. When we feel tired and enervated, we have no interest in praying. We must guard ourselves from these things. These things are surmountable. The Lord will take responsibility for the things that are beyond our power.
(3) Sometimes Satan will attack the time we have set aside for prayer, whether it is our individual prayer time or the prayer time of the church. Many people have similar experiences. Satan is very subtle in his deception. He either usurps the time of prayer, or he causes us to not pray genuine prayers. Sometimes we have the time to pray, but lack the life to pray.
(4) Sometimes Satan will frustrate us from having uninterrupted fellowship with the Lord. He will produce a barrier between us and the Lord so that we cannot contact Him. It is as if a cloud strangely appears between us and Him.
(5) Finally, Satan is determined to shut us up in darkness so that we do not see the need for prayer. He turns our focus continually to other things so that we suffer in our prayer life. We must never fall into Satan’s trap. We have to look to the Lord, gather material for prayer, and pay more attention to the Lord’s interest and needs. We have a great responsibility to pray. Consequently, we have to watch and pray.
Three
Question: According to the Lord’s Word, what kind of prayer should we pay attention to other than our personal prayers?
Answer: We should pay attention to corporate prayers, that is, the prayer of the church. When we talk about the prayer of the church, we do not mean that personal prayers are unimportant; we are not insensitive to the need of personal prayers. But there is a law in God’s kingdom: Some things are impossible for an individual to do alone; they require a collective effort and mutual support. Mutuality is particularly necessary in the matter of prayer. Those who follow the Lord constantly realize the need for praying with other believers. Sometimes it is not enough for a person to pray alone. Particularly for matters as great as God’s kingdom, the only prayer that works is one in which the whole church strives to pray. The Lord said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer” (Matt. 21:13). We can follow this with the phrase “whose house we are” (Heb. 3:6).
The Lord said, “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. For where there are two or three gathered into My name, there am I in their midst” (Matt. 18:19-20). Both fact and experience tell us that when we are gathered together in the Lord, there is more of the Lord’s presence than when we are by ourselves. The Lord is in the midst of the church; He cannot be in the midst of individuals. (With individuals, there can be no “midst.” The Lord can only be inside an individual. The portion of the Lord which is assigned to “in their midst” cannot be found in individuals.) When we truly are gathered together into the Lord, we will feel the broadening sphere of our prayer, and we will be much more empowered in our prayer-battle. Moreover, in our prayer meeting we can often experience the Holy Spirit revealing God’s will to us, burdening us, and giving us utterance for prayer. We can, of course, say much more on the prayer of the church. But I will stop here and say only one important word: The prayer of the church cannot replace our personal prayers. At the same time, personal prayers will always come short of the prayer of the church; they are not on the same level as the prayer of the church.
Four
Question: What do we need to take care of in our prayer?
Answer: There are many things that we have to take care of in our prayer. Let me list them below:
(1) We must sustain a proper fellowship with the Lord in everything. We must bring everything in our daily life to the Lord because nothing in the Christian life is common or inconsequential. We should have a daily and spontaneous habit of fellowshipping with the Lord in everything (Phil. 4:6).
(2) We should petition again and again. The Lord loves to see men petitioning Him. He is a gracious Giver, and He wants man to pray. “But if any one of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and does not reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, doubting nothing” (James 1:5-6). “You do not have because you do not ask; you ask and do not receive because you ask evilly” (4:2b-3). Petitioning involves trust and hope. As long as the motive for our petition is pure, we can petition as much as we want.
(3) Our prayers should involve meditation and supplication, that is, going before the Lord to pray on behalf of others (Col. 4:12). Strictly speaking, this is participating in the fellowship of the Lord as the High Priest, because He is praying for His people and their needs all the time.
(4) We should persevere in prayer. The need for perseverance or earnestness in prayer does not meant that it is difficult for God to answer our prayers. Persevering in prayer means that we should clearly identify God’s need before Him and persist in praying about it. If this is the case, why does not God answer us immediately? Why does He delay His answer? There are at least two reasons for this. First, God wants His people to have an adequate reaction to His deep longings and concerns. Second, certain necessities and circumstances have a need for persevering prayer. Satan has strongholds, and we have to offer up strong prayers before these strongholds can be torn down (Mark 9:28-29).
(5) We should have reigning prayers. We must be joined to the Lord on the throne (Eph. 2:6), who is the Lord over all, and we must pray according to the name which is above every name.
(6) We should have fighting prayers. We should deal with matters by exalting the victory of the cross through our prayers. The direction of our prayer should follow that of the Lord’s victory (6:10-20).
(7) We should have faith in prayer. Under certain circumstances, the Holy Spirit will give men an inward assurance; they will know God’s will. When this happens, their prayers will be answered immediately (Acts 9:40).
(8)We should be burdened for prayer. Prayer is like a spiritual travail for birth. It is fellowshipping with the Lord’s suffering, fellowshipping with the Father’s heart, and being in harmony with the Spirit’s groaning until the day of glory (Gal. 4:19).
Five
Question: What is the central goal of prayer?
Answer: The central goal of prayer is for God to have a glorious church. The central subject of prayer is to prepare a glorious church for Christ, a church that will match Him. This is the revelation of the whole Bible and God’s central goal, and we must pay special attention to it. This is also the Lord’s desire. Before He was crucified, His prayer revealed this desire (John 17). At the same time, we can see the same desire in Paul’s Epistles. This does not mean that we should pray less for other things; it merely shows us the central goal of all our prayers. Once we have this goal in us, we can raise other prayers to a higher level. If we see that the gospel not only brings men out of death and into life but also joins men in an unspeakably wonderful union with the glorious Christ, our prayer for the world will only increase; it will not decrease. Carrying this one step further, there is a great need today for the world to see the glory of Christ through the church. The church, through the Spirit, should convince the world that it is the channel through which blessing is brought to the world.
Finally, God wants us to enter into a more intelligent and deeper fellowship with Him. He wants us as His many sons to come to Him through His beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. He wants many priests to accompany the High Priest, who is living forever to intercede for us, and to bear the work of supplication before Him. “And made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father” (Rev. 1:6). “But you are…a royal priesthood” (1 Pet. 2:9).