Joined to God’s Desire through His Word and Praying to Lay the Tracks for God’s Move

We need to be joined to God’s desire through His word, exercise our spirit over the Word of God, remain in an atmosphere of prayer, live under God’s rule in the reality of the kingdom, and be a self-sacrificing person with the spirit of martyrdom even as Daniel was.

Daniel is a pattern to us; he is an overcomer in his age, and his life was filled with prayer, contacting the Lord, being joined to God’s desire through His word, living in the spirit of martyrdom, and being under God’s rule – the rule of the heavens.

Being Joined to God’s Desire through God’s Word and Reading the Word in an Atmosphere of Prayer

A very particular characteristic of Daniel was that he joined himself to God’s desire through His word (see Dan. 9:1-3; Deut. 17:18-20; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; Eph. 6:17-18; Psa. 119:11, 24).

What the Lord needs today is a dispensational instrument, that is, those who join themselves to God’s desire through His word.

We are not here doing things in an aimless or foolish way; we are here doing what we are doing, taking the way we’re taking, making the decision we’re making, and answering the Lord’s call because we have joined ourselves to God’s desire through His word.

God’s heart’s desire is contained in His word; when we read the Bible and join ourselves to the Lord’s desire, we terminate and repudiate our own intentions, our own desires, our own needs, and our own wants, and we join ourselves to God’s desire.

How can we join ourselves to God’s desire? How can we know the desire of God’s heart?

It is through the word of God; we come to the Word of God not in a way of dead letters or doctrines, not merely in the way of prophecies or types, or in the way of knowing history and facts – we come to God’s word to know God’s hearts desire!

Daniel was not only a person who read the word of God regularly but also a person who was joined to the word of God.

Many people today read the Bible and know the Bible; many are able to quote verses after verses, but they are not joined to God’s heart’s desire whatsoever.

May we read the Bible and join ourselves to every word we read; as we read God’s promises, we need to believe them; as we read concerning God’s plan and economy, let’s join ourselves to Him.

May we allow God to mingle His desire with our desire and let His want become our want. When Daniel read from the book of Jeremiah that God ordained seventy years of captivity for the Israelites, and that after seventy years God would turn back to bless them, he immediately fasted and prayed (Dan. 9:2-3).

As soon as Daniel touched the desire of God’s heart through the Word, he joined himself to that desire. God didn’t want His people to remain in Babylon forever; He wants them to go back to return the good land, rebuild the city, and rebuild the temple, so Daniel prayed for this.

This is how we also should be: after we find something in the Word, we should fast and pray; we should join ourselves to God’s desire through His word.

This doesn’t mean that we should merely speak the word and say Amen, but pray over the word of God not in a formalistic way or formulaic way, but read and pray.

We should take the Word, make it ours, pray and muse over it, and allow God’s inward parts and feelings, even His mind and deep desire, be infused into us.

We pray God’s word into us, we eat it, we absorb it, and we make it part of our being; in this way we will pray back to God His word mingled with our desire (which is His desire), and He can do what He speaks in His word.

This is the effectual pray-reading of the Bible; this is not merely for enjoyment and supply, for our sustenance and feeding, but reading God’s word to be joined and mingled with God’s desire and want.

By doing this, we become the age-turning instrument that God wants desire to end this age. After Daniel read the book of Leviticus, he could no longer eat the unclean food (Dan. 1:8-21); after he read the book of Jeremiah, he could not help but fast and pray for the restoration of God’s people (Dan. 29:10-14).

The word of God is not just for us to read, know, or memorize; the word is for us to practice it, live it out. We need to be those who build our house on the rock by hearing the word, listening to it, and do it, practice it; we need to do God’s commandments, do His word, live the word of God out.

How do we do this? We must read the Word of God in a spirit and atmosphere of prayer and touch God’s desire from His word; then, we must immediately join ourselves to God’s desire through His word.

The Bible should affect our living, and we should be joined to the Bible (see Psa. 119:11, 15-16, 133, 140; 2 Cor. 6:14-18).

May we practice daily reading God’s word in a spirit and atmosphere of prayer so that we may touch His desire in His word, and may we join ourselves to God’s desire through His word!

When we read something, we need to pray and read in an atmosphere of supplication to touch God’s desire in that portion or that passage of the Word.

We may even ask, Lord, what You want? What are You doing? Why are You showing me this? Why do You say this in Your word, What does it mean, Lord?

I want to be joined to Your desire in Your Word; reveal to me what You want today and what You want of me!

The Word of God should affect our living and we should be joined to God’s word in His word; may we no longer be satisfied with mere knowledge of the truth but may we walk in the truth and take in the Word by means of prayer and petition!

Lord Jesus, speak to us in Your word; reveal to us what is in Your heart, what do You want to speak to us and do in us and through us. We want to join ourselves to God’s desire through His word so that we may not only know the word but live the Word, express the Lord, and be one with the Lord in our daily living. Amen, Lord Jesus, may we know what Your heart’s desire is and may we allow Your word to affect our living and our inner being. We join ourselves to You in Your word, Lord, and we pray Your word back to You, so that You may do in us and around us what You intend to do!

Being Men of Prayer Laying the Tracks for God to Move in His Economy through our Prayer

Daniel was a man of prayer with an excellent spirit; he lived under the rule of God in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens, the ruling of the heavens (see Dan. 2:17-19, 28; 6:10; 9:1-4, 17; 5:12, 14; 6:3; 5:22-23; 4:25-26, 32).

We can’t just say, Since prayer is so important, I will pray; it is one thing to pray and it is another to be a man of prayer.

A man of prayer is not just one who prays or just one who prays much; a man of prayer has an excellent spirit, a strong and powerful spirit that rules his whole being.

Such a one is under the rule of God, being fully subject to God’s rule, and he lives in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens.

In Dan. 6 we see man’s prayer for the carrying out of God’s economy; man’s prayers are like the rails paving the way for God’s move to go on.

There is no other way for us to bring God’s economy into fullness and into fulfillment except by prayer.

Especially these days at the consummation of the age, the Lord’s Spirit is leading us into prayer like never before; He wants His people to have persevering prayer, effectual prayer, even intercessory prayer that corresponds with Christ’s prayer as the unique Intercessor at the right hand of God.

For God’s administration of this earth, for the dispensing of the grace of God from the throne of God, we need today to be in prayer for all these things so that God would carry them out, and the only way to do this is through prayer.

God can do it and will do it, but not until man prays. To be an overcomer is to be a man of prayer; age-turners are men of prayer, and overcomers are men of prayer.

We cannot change the age merely by work, even by doing great works in God’s name. We need to cooperate, even coordinate with God and His throne to bring in the kingdom by prayer.

This is why the Lord told us, Pray in this way, Your name be sanctified, Your will be done, Your kingdom come on earth as in the heavens.

If God can do this, why do we need to pray? It is because He needs man’s cooperation in prayer.

The highest expression of a man who cooperates with God is in prayer; God carries out His economy on the earth through His faithful channels of prayer (Matt. 26:41; Acts 6:4; Eph. 6:17-18; Col. 4:2).

For God to carry out His economy, He needs some channels, some men of prayer; Satan’s work, on the other hand, is to shut down those channels, to blockade them, and to annul them.

Satan’s main work is to stop our prayer; if he stops our prayer, he has succeeded to a large degree.

So we need to persevere in prayer, not let Satan win in shutting down the channel of prayer, and realize that prayer is the lifeline in the Lord’s recovery, so the more Satan tries to frustrate our prayer, the more we should pray (Dan. 6:4-10).

After Daniel prayed for a long time, he was in total exhaustion; real prayer, persevering prayer, has a way to exhaust us. But the Lord strengthened Daniel, and He strengthens us, for He is with us and He wants us to be strong and pray!

The more Satan frustrates our prayer, the more we should pray; the more the headache and distraction come, the more the enemy tries to stop our prayer life, the more we should pray.

May we depend on prayer to do what man could not do, and may we depend on prayer to understand what man could not understand, even as Daniel did (Dan. 2:17-19; 9:1-4; 10:1-3, 11-13).

If we still rely on something other than prayer to do something or know something, we are still not a people fully reliant and dependent on God.

The sign of a person that is wholly dependent on God is that this person is on his knees, he is a person in prayer, realizing that he cannot do it, he cannot understand it, so he prays.

This is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength, for we ask God for revelation, for insight, for understanding, for visions, and for knowledge of the situation.

For us to know, even to decipher, the Spirit’s speaking and anointing and moving, we need to pray; a man of prayer is a man who lives before God all the time.

Daniel’s prayer was totally for God and not for himself; through prayer he afforded God the highest cooperation (Dan. 9:2; Jer. 25:11; Dan. 9:17; 1 Kings 8:48).

Because he was such a man of prayer, he was acknowledged by God, qualified to be used by God, and capable of speaking forth the mystery of God (see Acts 6:4).

His prayer reached the highest peak when he asked God to do something for Himself; he prayed, “Now hear, O our God, the prayer of Your servant and his supplications, and cause Your face to shine upon Your sanctuary that has been desolated, for the Lord’s sake” (Dan. 9:17).

When we join ourselves to God’s desire through His word, we will pray not by begging God to do things but by asking Him to do things for His own name’s sake.

This means that we ask God to do something for Himself, not for us. Only such a prayer like Daniel, who prayed to God single-heartedly with an age-turning prayer, can be used by Him to turn the age. May we be such ones.

Lord Jesus, we join ourselves to Your desire through Your word and we pray, do something for Your sake! Carry out Your economy and fulfill Your purpose! Amen, Lord, may Your will be done and Your kingdom come! We come to You as we are, Lord, we join ourselves to You in prayer, and we depend on You and we depend on prayer! It is by prayer that we can know what You want to do, it is by prayer that we depend on You, and it is by prayer that we can cooperate with Your move on earth! Amen, Lord Jesus, we stand one with You in prayer and we persevere in prayer to be men of prayer, even age-turning men of prayer who offer You the highest cooperation for You to do what You want to do! We want to afford You our highest cooperation in prayer!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Daniel, msgs. 2-8 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, A Timely Word Concerning the World Situation and the Lord’s Recovery (2020 Memorial Day Conference), week 5, Answering God’s Call to Be His Dispensational Instruments, His Overcomers to Turn the Age.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Will you be an overcomer? / On His life depend! / Dare to suffer persecution, / Faithful to the end. (Hymns #894)
  – Daniel had companions, and they ate God’s Word, / From the world, they stood apart; / Through a praying spirit were aligned with God, / For His people, God’s own heart. / I will choose to be a living overcomer, / Be a person not ashamed to be a Jesus lover. (Song on, Choose to Be an Overcomer)
  – Behind the scenes, behind the scenes, / The heavens rule in everything. / Our prayers are heard! God sends His Word; / Be strong, be peaceful, and be strong! / When troubles come, go find a chum; / Together we can overcome! / Just step away, take time to pray! / Request compassions of our God. (Song on, Behind the scenes, behind the scenes)