2026-2-S-ITERO

A.　To pray means that we realize that we are nothing and that we can do nothing; this implies that prayer is the real denial of the self—Mark 8:34; 9:29.

B.　A man of prayer must be one who seeks God and God's will—Matt. 26:39; John 4:34; 5:30; 6:38.

C.　The real significance of prayer is to contact God in our spirit and to absorb God Himself—Jude 20; John 14:13; 15:7:

1.　Prayer is the contact of the human spirit with the divine Spirit, during which we inhale God—Jude 20; John 4:24.

2.　Genuine prayers are prayers that are mingled with God the Spirit in our spirit—Jude 20; Eph. 6:18; Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17:

a.　Prayer must be a joint prayer in which God is mingled with our spirit.

b.　True prayers—prayers that involve God and man—are the issue of the Spirit of God being mingled with man's spirit and man's spirit being mingled with the Spirit of God—Jude 20; Rom. 8:4, 26.

c.　In this prayer God and man mingle together, and God is the Initiator and the Motivator; God prays in man, and man prays in God—James 5:17.

3.　If we would have genuine prayers, prayers that are initiated by God and that touch God, we must pray in the Holy Spirit; praying in the Holy Spirit means that we and the Holy Spirit pray together in the fellowship of the two spirits— Jude 20; 2 Cor. 13:14; Phil. 2:1.

4.　Prayers in which we contact God, inhale God, absorb God, and are filled with God are genuine prayers; only prayers of this kind should be offered to God— Rev. 5:8; 8:3-4.

D.　The Bible contains a most lofty and spiritual prayer—the prayer of authority— Matt. 18:18-19; Mark 11:23-24; Eph. 1:20-22; 2:6; 6:12-13, 18-19:

1.　If we want to be a man of prayer, we have to learn to pray with authority; this is the kind of prayer described by the Lord in Matthew 18:18.

2.　In Matthew 18:18 there is a prayer that is called binding prayer and a prayer that is called loosing prayer; to bind and to loose—this is to pray with authority.

E.　Praying with authority is praying the prayer in Mark 11:23-24:

1.　Faith is believing that we have received what we have asked for—v. 24:

a.　According to the Lord's word, we should believe that we have received, not that we will receive.

b.　To hope means to expect something in the future; to believe means to con-sider something as having been done.

c.　Faith is not only believing that God can or will do a certain thing but also believing that God has done that thing already.

2.　The prayer in Mark 11:20-24 is a prayer with authority—v. 23:

a.　A prayer with authority does not ask God to do something; instead, it exercises God's authority and applies this authority to deal with problems and things that ought to be removed—Zech. 4:7; Matt. 21:21.

b.　God has commissioned us to command what He has commanded and give orders to what He has given orders to—17:20.

c.　The church can have such a prayer with authority by having full faith, being without doubt, and being clear that what we do is fully according to God's will—6:10; 18:19-20.

d.　Prayer with authority has much to do with the overcomers; every over-comer must learn to speak to "this mountain"—Mark 11:23.

A.　Prayer should precede the ministry of the word, just as the apostles practiced— v. 4.

B.　An example of the ministry of the word is Ephesians 3:17a: "That Christ may make His home in your hearts":

1.　When Christ spreads into our hearts, He becomes our person—v. 17a:

a.　We need to take Christ not only as life in our spirit but also as the person in our hearts.

b.　The only way for Christ to be our person is for Him to make His home in our hearts.

c.　If we take Christ as our person in our hearts, the person living in our hearts will not be the self but Christ—Gal. 2:20.

2.　The Christ who is making His home in our hearts is an unlimited, immeasurable Christ—Eph. 3:18:

a.　As Christ makes His home in our hearts, we apprehend with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth; these are the dimensions of the universe, the dimensions of the immeasurable Christ.

b.　Although Christ is immeasurable, He is nevertheless making His home in our hearts.

c.　Christ is the universal cube, and our experience of Him in the Body must be "cubical," three-dimensional.

3.　When Christ makes His home in our hearts, we will be filled unto all the fullness of God—v. 19:

a.　The fullness of God is the Body of Christ as the expression of the Triune God to the uttermost, the ultimate consummation of the corporate expression of the Triune God.

b.　The Body of Christ is the unlimited expression of the unlimited Christ.

c.　If we let Christ make His home in our hearts, we will be filled with the Triune God to such an extent that we will become His full expression.

4.　The genuine church life is the issue of the unlimited and immeasurable Christ personally making His home in our hearts—v. 17a; 4:16:

a.　The content of the church is the Christ whom we take as our person, the Christ who is wrought into our being.

b.　If we would have the reality of the Body of Christ, we must allow Christ to make His home in our hearts.

c.　In order for Christ's word in Matthew 16:18 concerning the building up of the church to be fulfilled, the church must enter into a state where saints allow Christ to make His home in their hearts, possessing, occupying, and saturating their entire inner being.

d.　The more Christ occupies our inner being, the more we will be able to be built up with others in the Body—Eph. 2:21-22; 4:16.