We need to pray in sympathy with God – in the harmony of the divine and human will – for God to accomplish His will on earth as in heaven.
God can do so many things by Himself, but He has limited Himself to man’s cooperation; when His children sympathise with Him and pray to utter His will, thus being a harmony of wills, He can work and accomplish what He desires.
So God needs us to exercise our spirit with our resurrected will to pray according to His divine will for Christ to be manifested and enjoyed by us, for the Body life to be practiced by us, and for the Body of Christ to be built up through us (Heb. 10:5-10; Rom. 12:1-2; Eph. 1:4-6, 9, 11, 22b-23; 3:16-19; 4:16).
The Lord Jesus said, I will build My church (Matt. 16:18); however, the way He does it is through us, the building members of the Body, and He can release the building up of the church is through the prayer of the church.
We need to present our bodies as a choice of our will; our bodies need to be presented as a living sacrifice for the church life.
May we not be fashioned according to this age but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that we may know and prove what the will of God is, that which is good and pleasant and perfect.
For us to live the Body life, the reality of the Body, to build up the Body, we need to firstly exercise our will.
Every proper prayer is the result of God’s intention entering into man’s intention; God has an intention, He reveals His intention to His people, they return this intention to God in prayer, and He comes in to accomplish His will.
In Psa. 131:2 it says, Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child is my soul within me, like a weaned child with its mother.
We need to calm down our soul, calm down our mind and emotion and will, and we need to listen to the Lord in His word.
It’s not easy to be calm in our entire being; we need a much stronger spirit to be silent than to speak.
It is very easy to speak, but it’s not so easy to calm ourselves down to listen to the Lord’s voice and be infused with His intentions.
God requires taht we calm ourselves down, seek Him, and wait on Him, enquiring of Him; then, as we wait in His presence, He will infuse us with His desire and intentions.
May we be like the psalmist in Psa. 27:4, desiring only one thing of the Lord and seeking one thing, that we may behold the beauty of the Lord and enquire in His temple.
May we enquire of the Lord what are the things in His heart, what does He want to do right now, and may we return His will back to Him in prayer, so that He may be able to do what He wants to do on earth.
Learning to Pray in Sympathy with God in the Harmony of the Divine and Human Will for His will to be Done
It is quite striking to see time and time again that God asks His people to pray and ask Him something; He can do all things, He is not limited by anything and anyone, yet when it comes to His work in man and on earth, He places Himself under the limitation of man’s cooperation.
God can ask as He pleases, yet He won’t act recklessly just because He can; He has certain preordained laws and principles.
God is above all laws and principles – He is God, He can act the way He wants, yet He imposed certain principles and laws upon Himself.
He wants man to pray in sympathy with God, uttering the will of God in prayer in the harmony of the divine and the human will, so that He can accomplish what He desires.
If there’s no prayer, God will not act; He needs someone or someones to pray so that He may act.
If God will send the laborers in the fields which are white all by Himself, the Lord Jesus would not have told us to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out the laborers (Matt. 9:38)!
If God’s name will automatically be sanctified on earth as in heaven, and if His kingdom will come on earth by Himself, He would not have taught us to pray in this way (Matt. 6:9-10).
If the Lord Jesus would return all by Himself without the cooperation and sympathy of the church, His Spirit would not have inspired the apostle to ask Him to come quickly again.
If all believers in Christ will automatically be one because of what God does and without man’s cooperation, the Lord Jesus would not have prayed for this oneness in John 17.
God needs man on earth to pray in sympathy with God in the harmony of the divine and human will so that His will may be done on earth as in heaven.
The real prayer is the union of the two wills; whether we obtain an answer to our prayer or not is not the highest goal of our prayer, but our being one with God and praying in sympathy with God for His will to be done, that is what matters.
We may even say that God will not work where there has been no prayer, where He doesn’t have His people’s will in union with Him.
The purpose of our prayer is that we would be one with God’s will so that God can work; when our will on earth is one with God’s will in the heavens, He can work and do what He wants to do.
We may many times ask amiss and our prayer may not be answered, but as long as we join our will with His will and pray in sympathy with God for His will to be done, He will do it.
Lord Jesus, we join our will to Your will as one will and we pray in sympathy with God for His will to be done! Amen, Lord, may Your will be done on earth and may Your kingdom come! We pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers in the harvest, for the fields are white! We pray that God’s name be sanctified and His kingdom come on earth as it is in the heavens! Amen, we pray that all believers would be one in the Father’s life, name, and glory! Amen, Lord Jesus, we pray in oneness with You that You may return soon! May Your will be done, Your kingdom come, and may You return soon!
We Pray for God’s Will to be Done as we Return and Echo His will back to Him through Prayer
One of the main principles of God’s work is the need for man’s prayer; God wants man to cooperate with Him in prayer. He would simply not do certain things that He wants to do unless His people pray.
We could say that prayer for God’s will to be done on earth consists of four steps: God intends to do something according to His will, He reveals His will to us through the Spirit, we return and echo His will back to Him through prayer, and God accomplishes His work according to His will.
First of all, the source of prayer is God and His will; He intends to do something according to His will (Eph. 1:5, 11).
We can’t pray properly until we know what is God’s will, because that’s where genuine prayer begins – it all begins with God’s intention according to His will.
Secondly, God reveals His will to us through the Spirit for us to know His will.
We need to spend adequate time with the Lord so that He can reveal what is in His heart to us; then, we will know His will, and we can pray!
In Amos 3:7 it says that surely, the Lord Jehovah will not do anything unless He reveals His secret to His servants, the prophets.
He has to reveal His secrets to us so that we may know His will and pray. Then, we return and echo His will back to Him through prayer; if we pray according to His will, we know that we will have what we ask for (1 John 5:14).
The result is that God accomplishes His work according to His will (v. 15).
There are a few cases in the Bible that illustrate this, showing us how God operates and His people cooperates in prayer.
In Daniel 9 we see that Daniel, after reading in the book of Jeremiah concerning the length of the captivity of the children of Israel being of seventy years, he prayed that day and night.
He joined himself to God’s thoughts, desire, and will, and God’s desire and will became Daniel’s desire and will; he prayed according to God’s desire, and the result was that God accomplished what He desired.
Another example is in Matt. 9:36 – 10:1, where the Lord saw that the children of Israel were harassed like sheep not having a shepherd, and He told the disciples to pray that the Lord of the harvest would thrust out workers in the harvest.
Then, He called the twelve disciples and gave them authority over the unclean spirits so that they would cast them out and heal every disease and sickness, and sent them out.
First the Lord saw the will of God, then He asked us to pray about it, and then He fulfilled the will of God.
In Ezek. 36:37 the Lord said, Moreover for this I will be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them, I will increase them with men like a flock.
First, God’s intention was to increase His people in a large way, to add a large number of men; then, He needs men to enquire of Him, and as they do this, He will accomplish what He intends to do.
A very good example of how we pray in sympathy with God for His will to be done, returning the will of God to Him for Him to do it, is in Gen. 18.
Every proper prayer is the result of God’s intention entering into man’s intention.
In Gen. 18 the Lord with three angels came and visited Abraham and, after their meal together, God revealed to Abraham what He was about to do, thus initiating Abraham’s glorious intercession for his nephew Lot.
It wasn’t Abraham who initiated the prayer – it was God who revealed His will to him, and Abraham responded by praying in sympathy with God’s will, and then God accomplished His will.
In Acts 13:1-3 we see a group of brothers ministering to the Lord and praying; then the Spirit spoke and sent some of them, and the church sent them out.
When the five brothers came together they didn’t have a particular prayer burden in mind; they just came together to minister to the Lord and be available to Him; then, the Spirit spoke, He commissioned some of them, and the church prayed and sent them out.
We need to draw near to the Lord, be mingled with Him, care for what He cares, and He will have a way to impart His desire into us, mingle His intention with our intention, and infuse His will into our being.
The result is that we will know what to pray because His will has become our will, and His intention is our intention.
May the Lord bring us into such a harmony of wills in which we pray in sympathy with God; may we return and echo His will back to Him.
Lord Jesus, we quiet our soul and our mind as we come to You to just minister to You and be with You. We open to You, Lord, to be infused with Your intention and Your will. May we have a revelation of Your will through Your Spirit in our spirit so that we may know Your will, return, and echo Your will back to You in prayer. May our prayers be worthwhile before You; may our prayers be a returning of Your will back to You for You to do what You intend to do on the earth. Gain our will, Lord; gain the harmony of wills, the prayer in sympathy with God, the human cooperation with the divine will for You to have a way to come in and accomplish Your work according to Your will!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 44, ch. 87, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Will of God (2020 spring ITERO), week 3, Praying for God’s Will to Be Done on Earth.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Pray to fellowship with Jesus, / Fully opened from within, / With thy face unveiled, beholding, / Single, pure, and genuine. / Pray to fellowship with Jesus, / Seeking Him in confidence; / Learn to touch Him as the Spirit, / Looking up in reverence. (Hymns #784)
– Praying to express the Lord, / We must utter His intent, / Quieting our human thoughts / That with His our mind be blent. / Praying to express the Lord, / Ever looking unto Him / As a mirror to reflect / All His glory from within. (Hymns #785)
– Pray to labor with the Lord, / Pray to pave the way for Him; / Pray to move Him and be moved / From the center to the rim. / Pray to labor with the Lord, / Be identified with Him / In His purpose and His aim / Till His blessing floodeth in. (Hymns #786)
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