We need to persevere in prayer because prayer involves a battle, a fight; everything fights against our prayer life, so we need to pray persistently, with perseverance, standing on God’s side.
In order for us to touch the reality of the one new man, we need to not only to pray but have a prayer life and live in an atmosphere of prayer.
We need to keep ourselves in a praying condition; this will bring us outside of culture and cultural opinion, and we will spontaneously be one with the Lord.
We should forget about anything else and pray; we learn to pray by praying, and we learn to have the experience of genuine prayer by praying.
The more we open to the Lord about all things and communicate with Him, the more we involve Him in our daily life by praying to fellowship with Him, the more we are infused with Him, we are one spirit with Him, and we live Him.
We all can testify that, when we pray, we really touch the Lord, and we enter into fellowship with Him, being conscious that we are truly one spirit with Him and that He is actually one spirit with us.
Everything of God can be real to us only in our spirit, and the easiest way to be in spirit and remain in the mingled spirit is to pray.
However, it is so much easier for us to do other things, even to read the Bible and do spiritual activities, yet without prayer. It seems that there’s so much to do, so much to read, and so much to be involved in, and it seems that we can do so many things with no problem – yet with no prayer. Oh Lord Jesus!
May the Lord save us from merely doing things for Him or in His name yet without having a prayer life.
May we learn to build up a habit of prayer, realizing that by default we do not pray but rather, all things and even our own natural being is against prayer.
The way for us to overcome our opinions and stop ourselves from expressing ourselves is not merely by exercising self-restraint or trying our best to do it; the best way is prayer, even a prayer life, living a life in an atmosphere and condition of prayer.
For this, we need to persevere in prayer, exercising ourselves to pray, and learning to set times aside for prayer and fill the gaps in our day with prayer.
When we pray, we are saved from ourselves; when we pray, we stop our natural being; when we pray, we are one spirit with the Lord, we touch Him, and we live Christ.
When we pray, we touch the reality of the one new man. Oh, may we give ourselves to the Lord day by day to pray much more than we speak or do things for Him!
We need to Persevere in Prayer, Realising that the Whole World is Against our Prayer
Because prayer involves a battle, a fight, we need to persevere in prayer (Col. 4:2; Eph. 6:17-18).
To persevere is to persist in a certain state or condition, to persist in a certain undertaking or enterprise. In spite of all the counter-influences, in spite of the discouragement and distraction, we need to stay the course, keep on, and continue in a steadfast manner – we need to persist in prayer.
This is perhaps the greatest virtue, to persevere in prayer; the New Testament has this thought not only of praying but persevering in prayer, as if prayer works only if we persevere in it.
Prayer is effectual only if we keep at it, for there’s a warfare going on, and the enemy does everything to suppress us and oppress us, and he wants to stop our prayer life.
God and Satan, the two parties in this universe, are hostile to each other; Satan is both the enemy outside trying to defeat God and the adversary within God’s realm seeking to cause damage.
As the adversary, Satan opposes God from within God’s realm, His kingdom, and as the enemy he seeks to destroy the kingdom of God by attacking the people of God.
In His greatness and wisdom, God would not deal with Satan directly; He does allow him to be in the realm of His kingdom (see in John 1:6-12, Satan standing before the throne of God and accusing His people), and He wants man to deal with the enemy, the adversary.
We as God’s chosen and redeemed people need to choose to stand with God in prayer, persevere in prayer, realizing that the outcome of the battle depends on us.
If we take sides with Satan, God will temporarily lose – even though He’s almighty; He doesn’t lower Himself to fight against one of His creatures but rather, He wants man to be one with Him in prayer to defeat him.
In a real sense, God needs us, and in particular, He needs our prayer, even our persevering in prayer as the church, for in prayer we carry out the actual work of warfare.
For us to fight on God’s side against Satan, we need to persevere in prayer; perseverance in prayer is needed because the course of the whole world is away from God and against God.
Because Satan, the ruler of this world, is against God, his whole world system is also against God and away from God, and in particular, Satan is against our prayer (Col. 2:1-3).
Therefore, we need to persevere in prayer, realizing that the whole universe is against our prayer.
We can say that Satan is against us the believers and against the church, and this means that he is against our prayer and against the church’s prayer, for he knows that prayer can defeat him.
Satan knows that prayer is the strategic point that will do harm to him, pushing back his kingdom, doing away with his works and defeating him; so he will do everything to stop our prayer.
Almost everything in our environment is contrary to prayer, and resistance to prayer lies not only outside of us but even within us, within our very being (Matt. 26:41).
Many times it is good to even close our eyes – not as a form, but to shut everything else out and focus only on the Lord.
The Lord when He prayed lifted up His eyes to the Father, but for us to shut our eyes and even try to shut our ears really helps, for everything and everyone around us is against our prayer life.
Lord Jesus, we want to persevere in prayer, fighting on God’s side against Satan. May we realize that prayer involves a battle, a fight, and may we learn to persist in prayer, keep our being in a prayerful attitude, and continue in prayer in a steadfast manner. Amen, Lord, save us from slacking in prayer or postponing our prayer time; may we have set times of prayer with You, and may we persevere in prayer to stand on Your side and cause the enemy to be defeated. Amen, Lord, stand one with You on earth – we stand as the church, praying on earth for Your will to be done on earth and for Your kingdom to come on earth!
Going against the Trend in this World and Standing on God’s Side by Persevering in Prayer
To pray is to go against the current, the trend, in the fallen universe.
Everything in this world goes in a certain direction, and all men are swept downstream by the trend in this world, but when we pray, we go against the current of our environment.
If we fail to pray, we will be swept downstream with the rest of the people around us; the moment we stop praying, we are in the evil flow, and we are going down the stream of the worldly current. Oh Lord Jesus!
Only prayer can enable us to go against the current; therefore, we need to persevere in prayer, that is, we need to pray persistently (Luke 18:1-8).
There’s a strong current in the world in opposition to the will of God. Therefore, we as those who take side with God, we find that the whole universe is against us, and in particular, against our prayer.
When we try to pray, many things come in to disturb us – someone may send us a message or try to call us, our children or our spouse wants to speak with us, someone may ring the bell at the door, our pet may want us to be with them…
Even more, in our very being there’s much resistance to our prayer; we may rather do other things but pray. But we need to continue persistently, steadfastly, an earnestly in prayer, standing on God’s side by persevering in prayer.
This requires that we are watchful and on alert, not negligent concerning our prayer life. We need to watch and pray, and this needs to be accompanied by our thanksgiving. We pray and thank the Lord; we thank the Lord and pray.
As we pray, we breathe the Lord in and we breathe ourselves out.
When we hear of our need to pray, we may want to find out the best way to pray…but we should simply pray and learn to pray by praying and opening to the Lord.
May we continue in prayer and strive to continue in prayer; may we persevere in prayer, not looking at the things in our environment that try to distract us from our prayer life.
When we start praying, when we strive to build up a habit of prayer, we will realise that we’re going against the tide, the current of our environment; only prayer can enable us to go against the tide in this world.
We need to persevere in prayer, pray persistently, and watch in prayer; we need to be watchful against the enemy, for we don’t know what he is about to do, but we do know that he hates and fights against our prayer life.
Praying persistently is something we all fail at; we may pray for a little, and we may even pray a lot for a period of them, but then we think we need a break, we need to get on with the business, and we stop praying. Oh Lord Jesus!
May we realise that our prayer can accomplish much more than our work, and may we stand against the current in this age by persevering in prayer, watching in it with petition concerning all the saints, being filled with thanksgiving to the Lord!
Oh Lord, save us from being swept downstream by the current in this world, the downward trend in this universe that is against God and especially against our prayer life. Keep us in an atmosphere of prayer, building up a habit of prayer so that we would not be swept by the tide of this world. Amen, Lord, You are the praying One in us; we want to cooperate with You and be one with You to pray, even to pray persistently! May we watch and pray, being on guard concerning the enemy and his attacks, and may we stand on Your side for You to carry out Your economy on the earth!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Colossians, msgs. 65, 30 (Witness by Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The One New Man Fulfilling God’s Purpose in Creating Man (2019 fall ITERO), week 6, The Prayer Needed for the Reality and Practicality of the One New Man.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Pray to fellowship with Jesus, / Seeking Him in confidence; / Learn to touch Him as the Spirit, / Looking up in reverence. (Hymns #784)
– E’en as the priests the incense burned, / In prayer to Thee I persevere; / As incense Thou the Spirit art / Mixed with the prayer I offer here. (Hymns #813)
– Pray with one accord in spirit, / By the cross deny the soul; / All desires and all intentions / Let the Spirit now control. / Pray with one accord in spirit, / Pray as in the heavenlies; / All the earthly interests treading, / Fight the principalities. (Hymns #779)
About aGodMan
