Coming to God in Prayer to Absorb God and Express Him, Inquiring in His Presence

In order for us to enjoy the divine dispensing in our daily life, we need to cooperate with the indwelling and automatic law of the Spirit of life through prayer; first, we need to let God speak to us, and then speak back to Him what He has spoken, that is, we first need to absorb God and then pray to express God. Amen!

The Lord’s heart toward us is full of love; He is not after us to get us, and He’s not “upset” because of our condition or failures. He wants us to come back to Him and just be under His divine dispensing.

As believers in Christ, we need to keep coming to the Lord as we are.

He doesn’t want us to improve or try to be better and do better, and then come to Him; He just wants us to come to Him as we are.

Throughout the Gospels, we see that the Lord Jesus, as He walked and lived on earth, called people to come to Him.

Some were quite sinful, others were caught in sin, and still, others lived a sinful life; the Lord did not condemn them but rather, He was with them, He ate with them, and the sinners came to Him.

Those who were sick could come to Him and receive healing, and the tax collectors were not condemned by Him but rather, they loved to be in His presence.

Even at the end of a great feast, the Lord stood up and said, Let him who is thirsty come to me and drink (John 7:37).

All sinners are welcome to come to the Lord; He receives them, and He does not judge or condemn them.

When a sinner comes to the Lord and is with Him, when they see who He is and hear His speaking, they are exposed of their sins and they repent.

This is what also happened to us; we saw who we are, we saw who Jesus is, and we repented, believed into Him, and received Him as our life.

By believing into the Lord, that is, by receiving Him as our life, we became children of God and believers in Christ, and we started a lifelong fellowship and relationship with Him in spirit.

However, many times we as believers may think that we now have to be a little better, improve ourselves, and strive to please God, and then we can come to Him, now that we have been saved.

But Paul clearly says in Col. 2:6-7 that, even as we have received Christ, Jesus the Lord, we should walk in Him; we have received Him not based on our merit but by coming to Him as we are, and we should continue doing this.

Our Christian life is a life of coming to the Lord as we are, allowing Him to shepherd us and minister to us, and taking Him as our life and everything.

Yes, there will be some improvements as a result of our enjoying the Lord, but we’re not after this; we just want to remain under His divine dispensing day by day by coming to Him to absorb God and express Him in prayer.

He receives us just as we are, and we can come to Him even as we are; we may feel that we’re too far for the Lord to still receive us, but He still is willing to receive us, shepherd us, and dispense Himself into us.

We may be too embarrassed to contact God, but He is still there, waiting for us to turn to Him and touch Him, and He will wash us, cleanse us, and dispense Himself into us to be our life and everything.

Coming to God in Prayer to Absorb God and Express Him, Speaking what He Speaks

The best way and most practical way for us to remain under the divine dispensing is to pray; prayer, however, is not just us bringing our requests before God but even more, it is for us to absorb God and express Him.

The meaning of prayer is, first of all, for us to contact God so that we may absorb Him.

The meaning of prayer is so deep and profound, for prayer is much more than asking God for things or telling God our problems.

Yes, there’s the aspect of prayer being our bringing all our worries, problems, situations, and weaknesses to Him, and yes, there’s the aspect of asking God for what we need.

But prayer is much more than that. Real prayer is coming to God and absorbing God, and then expressing His speaking back to Him by speaking what He speaks to us.

The psalmist expressed this very well in Psa. 27:8 when he said, “When You say, Seek My face, / To You my heart says, Your face, O Jehovah, will I seek.”

The Lord wants us to seek Him, and we come to Him as we are; we absorb Him, and then we say the same thing that He says, Lord, I come to seek You.

First, to pray is to absorb God; second, to pray is to express God.

Prayer is to absorb God and express Him. When we absorb God, spending time in His presence to just listen to Him, be infused with Him, and allow Him to speak to us, we are filled with Him.

Then, we just express God in our prayers. Prayer is not about us speaking or expressing ourselves; prayer is to absorb God and express Him, speaking what He speaks.

This is what Abraham did in Gen. 18:23-33; God came to visit him, had a meal with him, and then opened up His heart to Abraham.

God told him that He was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, because of their evil deeds and their corruption.

If it were us, we may have pleaded with God not to do it, because there may be some innocent people there, or we may have asked Him to save them, because there may be some righteous men in that city.

But this is not what Abraham did. After Abraham spent time with God and was infused with God, he knew God’s heart, and he simply spoke back to God the word that God spoke to him.

He said, “Will You indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will You indeed destroy…it?” (vv. 23-24).

He did not plead with God; he prayed God’s word back to Him and appealed to God’s heart, so much so that God said, “I will not destroy it, because of the ten” (vv. 28-32).

We need to come to God, let Him speak to us, and then echo back His word back to Him in prayer.

We may have a prayer meeting and there may be a burden that we pray for a certain gospel meeting or for the church to be revived.

However, as we start praying, we may have a sense from the Lord to pray concerning our inner condition and situation, and we may repent for our living in the flesh.

Instead of just “sticking to the prayer burden”, we simply need to absorb God and express Him in our prayer, repenting before Him and allowing Him to flow through us.

When we let God speak, we will pray according to His speaking.

However, sometimes we may add our own cries, needs, and desires; we may beseech God for this and for that, based on what we feel.

May we learn to come to the Lord and spend time with Him, and may we touch the Lord inwardly so that God would speak to us and we would just pray what He speaks to us.

The most valuable prayer is the one in which God speaks; He speaks to us, and we speak His word back to Him.

This is valuable before Him, and He does what is in His heart in that situation, for He gains our cooperation.

This requires that we set aside our agenda, our own feelings, and our needs and wants; we simply open to the Lord and spend time with Him.

As we are with the Lord in His word, opening to Him and allowing Him to speak to us, we will absorb God and express Him in our prayer.

Our prayer will be an echo of what He is praying. The words we utter in prayer will be an expression of what God has spoken within us.

May we come to the Lord again and again and open to Him, let Him speak to us and in us, and simply utter back to Him what He has spoken to us.

In this way we receive and enjoy the divine dispensing, and we become fully one with Him.

Lord Jesus, we come to seek Your face. When You say, Seek My face, to You our heart says, Your face, dear Lord, we will seek! We just come to You open, unloaded, and emptied of anything of ourselves. We put our wants and needs aside, and we do not focus on ourselves but on You. Speak to us, dear Lord. We just want to absorb You as we spend time with You. Speak to us so that we may speak Your word back to You in prayer. We put aside our agenda and our to-do list when we come to You; we simply come to absorb God and express Him in our prayer. Infuse us with Yourself. Make our heart a duplication of Your heart. Speak, Lord, so that we may speak. We want to be open vessels to Your divine dispensing.

We need to Fellowship with God, Inquire of God, and Converse with God, Cooperating with the Inner Operating God as the Law of the Spirit of Life

In Psa. 27:4 the psalmist expressed his unique desire before God, that he would dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of his life to behold the beauty of Jehovah and to inquire in His temple.

On one hand, he just wanted to be in the house of God to behold God and be infused with God. On the other hand, he not only spent time beholding God but also inquired of Him in His temple. This is prayer.

Prayer is to fellowship with God, be infused with God, and inquire of God. We need to have such a desire before the Lord.

As we spend time with the Lord in His word and read through the morning revival, a spiritual book, a life study, or read through the Bible, we should not rush our time with Him.

We should not even focus on understanding something or preparing something to share with others later.

Rather, we should simply remain open to the Lord in our time with Him and allow Him to infuse us with Himself.

We may have a surge of worry in the middle of our private time with the Lord, or there may be a cloud of care; we should simply continue to remain under the divine dispensing, keeping ourselves in fellowship with the Lord.

Our unique desire should be to behold God and inquire of Him.

To inquire is not to tell God what He needs to do, nor is it for us to ask things of Him.

To inquire is to come to the Lord and ask Him what He wants to do, what is He speaking, and what is in His heart.

The Lord just wants us to seek His face. When we really touch God and absorb Him, He will speak within us.

Then, we will simply respond according to His inner speaking by praying what He has spoken to us.

To pray is for us to go to God, meet Him, draw near to Him, and behold Him; then, as we commune with Him and absorb Him, He will speak to us inwardly.

As we draw near to the Lord and contact Him, he will speak to us, and we will pray back to Him what He has spoken to us.

When we pray to the Lord with His words to us, our prayer will express God.

This is what John 15:7 says; here the Lord says that, as long as we abide in Him and He in us, we can ask whatever we will, and the Father will do it for us.

As long as we fellowship with God and inquire of God, abiding in the Lord, we will cooperate with the Lord and pray for what is in His heart.

During the first aspect of our prayer, we enter into fellowship with God, who then anoints us with His burden for the work and reveals His intention to us.

Then, in the second aspect of our prayer, we inquire of the Lord by petitioning Him concerning His will and His burden for the work (see Isa. 62:6-7; 45:11; Ezek. 22:30; Dan. 9:2-4; 1 Sam. 12:23; 1 Cor. 3:9; 2 Cor. 6:1).

Then, we carry out the purpose of prayer by coordinating with God to be God’s co-worker.

We start by coming to God as we are, opening to Him, and allowing Him to infuse Himself into us; as we absorb God, we will express Him in our prayer.

Inquiring prayers honor God, for they do not tell God what to do but rather, they inquire of Him to find out what is it that He wants to do, what is in His heart.

David knew how to pray because he often inquired of Jehovah (1 Sam. 22:10; 23:2, 4; 30:8; 2 Sam. 2:1; 5:19, 23).

After God spoke to David through Nathan the prophet, David “sat before Jehovah” (7:18) and told the Lord, “Do as You have spoken” (v. 25b); he then told the Lord that, because of His speaking, “Your servant has found it in his heart to pray this prayer to You” (v. 27).

May we be such ones. May we come to the Lord in prayer to absorb God and to express Him.

If we do this, if we fellowship with God, converse with God, and inquire of God, we will cooperate with the indwelling and operating God as the law of the Spirit of life.

May we cooperate with the installed, automatic, and inner operating God as the law of the Spirit of life by conversing with Him in order to maintain our fellowship with Him (Rom. 10:12-13; Gen. 13:18; 1 Thes. 5:17; Eph. 6:17-18; Phil. 4:5-7, 12-13; Psa. 62:7-8).

At any time and in every place, we can just come to the Lord, converse with Him, listen to Him, and inquire of Him; then we will express what He has spoken to us, and we will be one with Him for what He wants to do in us.

Lord Jesus, we come to You to fellowship with You and absorb You; infuse us with Yourself and with Your heart’s desire. We just open to You in prayer, dear Lord; speak within us. We draw near to You to commune with You and absorb You so that You can speak to us inwardly. Amen, Lord, our desire is to behold the beauty of the Lord and inquire in His temple. We come to inquire of you by petitioning You according to Your speaking within us. We want to honor You, Lord, by often inquiring of You. Infuse us with what You are and duplicate Your heart in us. We want to cooperate with the installed and inner operating God as the law of the Spirit of life by conversing with Him so that we maintain our fellowship with Him. Amen, Lord, keep us in fellowship with You. Keep us in a listening position, listening to what is in Your heart. May we learn the secret of conversing with You in all things and pray back to You what You are speaking to us and in us.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ricky Acosta in the message, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1956, vol. 3, “The Meaning and Purpose of Prayer,” pp. 227-230, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Divine Dispensing of the Divine Trinity for the Divine Economy (2022 Thanksgiving Weekend Conference), week 3, entitled, Living in the Divine Dispensing of the Divine Trinity by the Law of the Spirit of Life in Romans 8.
• Further reading on this topic:
  – Prayer to Absorb God and to Express God by Praying to God as a Friend So That We Can Co-work with God(2), a sharing by Ricky Acosta here (video).
  – Turning Mental Understanding into Meditation and Prayer, portion via, The Church in New York City.
  – Prayer to Absorb God and to Express God by Praying to God as a Friend So That we Can Co-work with God, sharing via, The Church in San Jose.
  – Meeting God’s Need and Present Needs in the Lord’s Recovery – sharing from the HWMR via, The Church in Bangladesh.
  – Prayer to Absorb God and to Express God by Praying to God as a Friend So That We Can.. – sharing by brother Mark Raabe here (video).
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Hidden in the hollow / Of His blessed hand, / Never foe can follow, / Never traitor stand; / Not a surge of worry, / Not a shade of care, / Not a blast of hurry / Touch the spirit there. / Stayed upon Christ Jesus, / Hearts are fully blest; / Finding, as He promised, / Perfect peace and rest. (Hymns #719 stanza 2 and chorus)
  – Lord, speak to me, that I may speak / In living echoes of Thy tone; / As Thou hast sought, so let me seek / Thy erring children lost and lone. / O lead me, Lord, that I may lead / The wandering and the wavering feet; / O feed me, Lord, that I may feed / Thy hungering ones with manna sweet. (Hymns #903 stanzas 1-2)
  – Pray to fellowship with Jesus, / In the spirit seek His face; / Ask and listen in His presence, / Waiting in the secret place. / Pray to fellowship with Jesus, / List’ning earnestly to Him; / Be impressed with His intentions, / Yielding to Him from within. (Hymns #784 stanza 5 and chorus)