entering into our private room and praying to the Father who is in secret

The Lord Jesus set a good pattern before us – He as the first God-man prayed to the Father much time in secret! Even after He fed the crowds by making a miracle, He went away and went up to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer alone with the Father (Matt. 14:23).

The Lord Jesus told us in Matt. 6 that we shouldn’t be like the hypocrites and pray outwardly for others to see it, but we should spend much time in secret, in our private room, with the door closed, with the Father! The Father sees in secret and repays in secret.

We need to pay much attention to our personal, private, and affectionate time with the Lord IN SECRET!

Praying to the Lord in secret

Our Christian life is in many ways a secret life, not merely an outward meeting life. The church life is based on our personal life with the Lord, and we need to spend much time in secret to develop our personal relationship with our Lord Jesus.

The Lord Jesus told us in Matt. 6:6, “When you pray, enter into your private room and shut your door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.”

It is good to pray with other believers, but when we pray with others we cannot enjoy the Lord as deeply and as personally as we enjoy Him when we pray to the Lord privately in secret.

We need to have much experience of prayer to the Lord in secret, in our private room, contacting our heavenly Father in secret. We need to experience some secret enjoyment of the Lord, something that it is only between us and Him, which will be a memorial for our walk and life together.

We can bring all our questions to Him in our personal time with Him and we will receive some secret answer from Him.

Many times we have to leave the people around us, our spouse, our family, the saints in the church, and spend time with the Lord personally. We need to go up to a high mountain to spend time with the Lord – just us and Him, secret time, time of which no one knows about!

Being on the mountain in prayer

The Lord Jesus was such a person – He was not influenced by the urgent need before Him, and He did not linger in His success in performing a miracle.

He knew that the secret to His success and the source of His life on earth was His time with the Father, so He “went up to the mountain privately to pray. And when night fell, He was there alone.” (Matt. 14:23). He was on the mountain in prayer with the Father, alone, in secret.

If the Lord needed such a time with the Father – even though He was God embodied in man, filled and clothed with the Spirit – how much more we need to get to a higher level, separated from everyone else, up on the mountain to be with the Lord in secret!

The truth is that our self, our natural man, likes doing things – even for God – in a public way, in the presence of man. The self loves to be glorified and appreciated for what he does, and the flesh loves to be gazed upon by man.

But if we spend secret time with the Lord, not letting anyone else know about it, but being with the Lord in secret habitually, our self is denied and our flesh is crossed out.

It is normal and it is very healthy for us as Christians to pray every day secretly to the Lord and spend time privately with Him to enjoy Him and breathe Him in the Word and prayer. How much we need to be healed to be such normal and healthy Christians!

“If we pray every day without telling others or letting them know about it, this means that we are healthy and that we are growing; if we always tell others how much we pray, we will not only lose our reward but also not grow in life or be healthy (cf. Matt. 13:6). We have to learn to leave the crowds, our family, our friends, and the saints in the church to go to a higher level on a “high mountain,” separated from the crowds, to be with the Father privately and secretly to have intimate fellowship with Him.” (The God-Man Living, Witness Lee)

Why did the Lord need to pray to the Father?

Think about it: the Lord Jesus, through whom the world was created, who is the embodiment of all the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9), who upholds and bears all things through His word (Heb. 1:3), who is always one with the Father, who does things by the Spirit, in whom the Spirit is and upon whom the Holy Spirit is (Matt. 3:16) – He needed to pray the whole night many times.

Why did the Lord Jesus need to pray so much to the Father? Why did the Lord spend so much time privately, secretly, away from the crowd, away even from the disciples, only Him and the Father?

He didn’t do it randomly, and He didn’t do it for others to see it. The Lord wanted to spend time with the Father to receive secret answers, have secret conversations with the Father, and be fully one with the Father in all He did!

Especially after the Lord Jesus fed the five thousand with only five loaves and two fish, He left the crowds and spend the whole night in prayer with the Father. Why did He do this, and what did the Lord pray for?

We don’t know what He prayed for, or what He asked the Father, but He may have asked the Father to BLESS all those who participated in the enjoyment of the issue of His miracle.

The Lord Jesus knew that whoever eats of this bread will hunger again, so He may have prayed for them that they would not be satisfied only with the food that perishes but that they would seek the food which abides unto eternal life (John 6:27).

Also, His going up to the mountain to pray indicates that He wanted to receive some instruction from the Father concerning how to take care of these people He just fed.

Where is your private room?

Some people say that they don’t have a special room where they can close the door and spend time with God. But really, where or what is your private room?

The “private room” is a symbol which can be taken literally but most of the time it refers to the place, the private place, where you can open to the Lord and spend time with Him. You may be on your way to work or to the school, on the bus or on the train, or simply walking on the street – and right there and then you open to your Father in secret to spend time with Him.

The principle is that we need to SHUT THE DOOR by shutting out everything of the world and shutting ourselves in, locking onto our spirit and zooming, focusing, on our beloved Lord to spend time with Him!

In this world that rushes on and even in working for the Lord with so many needs to be met, we need to often spend time with Him in secret. Often and habitually we need to shut out all the voices and things around us and pray to God quietly and alone – just us and Him.

He’s there, waiting for us in secret. He will repay us in secret. He will reward us if we diligently seek Him in a personal, private, and hidden way.

We need to learn the intrinsic, deeper, lessons of life by spending time with the Lord, so that we may enter into the God-man living and be His reproduction, His duplication, and His continuation on the earth today.

Lord, draw me to spend time with You personally. Save me from being only outward, only for others to see, and only in the meetings with others to enjoy You. Lord, may we spend more time in secret with You to seek answers from You and find Your will concerning the things and people in our life. We want to seek Your face and even diligently seek You that we may enjoy You and build up our personal relationship with You!

References and Further Reading

• Sharing inspired from brother Witness Lee’s speaking in, The God-man Living (pages 126-127), and from, The Prayer Ministry of the Church (chapter 2, by Watchman Nee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Lead as Elders and Responsible Ones, week 5.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Take time to behold Him, / The world rushes on; / Spend much time in secret / With Jesus alone.
  # Take time to behold Him, gaze oft on His face, / Receiving His Person, and grace upon grace.
  # In the secret of His presence / How my soul delights to hide! / Oh, how precious are the lessons / Which I learn at Jesus’ side!
• Picture source: Matt. 6:6.