![Prayer is the Real Denying of the Self, the Real: No Longer I But Christ! [in the picture: Gal. 2:20]](https://i0.wp.com/agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/i-no-longer-live-but-christ-lives-in-me-gal2-20.jpg?resize=306%2C306&ssl=1 "Prayer is the Real Denying of the Self, the Real: No Longer I But Christ! [in the picture: Gal. 2:20]")
God needs men of prayer, men who habitually and continually pray by exercising their spirit to pray themselves into God and receive His life supply. Prayer is so full of meaning, it accomplishes so much, and it is so much overlooked and neglected!
To pray really means that we as Christians realize that by ourselves, with ourselves, and in ourselves we are nothing – and therefore we don’t want to do anything in ourselves or by ourselves but we rather want to do everything in God, with God, and through God.
The Lord Jesus lived such a life, a life in which He admitted that He does not His work but the Father’s work, He speaks not His words but the Father’s words, and He does not His will but the Father’s will.
All this was based on His prayer life – He often withdrew either to a deserted place or went up to the mountain to pray alone with the Father.
We need to see that we really can’t do anything in ourselves and by ourselves, and we will come to Paul’s conclusion in Gal. 2:20, No longer I but Christ.
Through our prayer we deny ourselves practically and we depend on the Lord, admitting that in and of ourselves we can’t do it or be it, but Christ in us can!
Lord, open our eyes to see that in ourselves we are nothing. Lord, we really depend on You. We want to learn to deny ourselves by exercising our spirit to pray and depend on You. We choose You today, Lord, and we tell You, May it no longer be I but Christ!
Prayer is the Real Denying of the Self
In Mark 8:34 the Lord Jesus said, If anyone wants to follow after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.
How can we deny ourselves and follow the Lord? What is a practical way to deny ourselves? In the very next chapter, in Mark 9:29, we see that the Lord cast out a demon which the disciples couldn’t, and then He said, “This kind cannot come out by any means except prayer”.
The way for us to deny ourselves is through prayer. Prayer really is, No longer I but Christ – I can’t do it, I can’t be it, so I turn to Christ and take Him as my all-inclusive replacement for Him to do it and be it in me.
We need to deny ourselves by praying ourselves into God and God into us, so that Christ may be our replacement and become everything to us. Even such a short prayer as, O Lord Jesus! brings us into God and helps us deny ourselves so that Christ may live in us.
![How can we deny ourselves and follow the Lord? What is a practical way to deny ourselves? In the very next chapter, in Mark 9:29, we see that the Lord cast out a demon which the disciples couldn't, and then He said, "This kind cannot come out by any means except prayer". [in the picture: Luke 9:23, Denying the self]](https://i0.wp.com/agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/deny-the-self-take-up-cross-by-prayer-luke9-23.jpg?resize=597%2C445&ssl=1 "How can we deny ourselves and follow the Lord? What is a practical way to deny ourselves? In the very next chapter, in Mark 9:29, we see that the Lord cast out a demon which the disciples couldn't, and then He said, \"This kind cannot come out by any means except prayer\". [in the picture: Luke 9:23, Denying the self]")
The way for us to live Christ by denying ourselves and living by the divine life in us is by praying ourselves into God and by praying God into us.
We first pray ourselves into God – since we are out of God most of the time, we need to pray ourselves into Him! Then, we pray God into us – we pray to gain and obtain more of God into our being.
After we pray in such a way, the work we do will be in the mingling of God and man. We will work as men mingled with God, and we will be one with Him – Christ will live in us (Gal. 2:20).
We Need to Stop and Pray!
Too many times as Christians we think we can do things in ourselves – we “don’t really need God”. We know how to do this and that, we know how to speak about things in the Bible, and we don’t do these things by depending on the Lord.
As I was preparing to write this article also I was considering and prayerfully talking to the Lord,
Lord, I don’t want to write something “as usual, from my enjoyment” yet without touching You and depending on You! Even the blog post, the overflow of the enjoyment in my time with You, Lord, I want it to be from You, from much prayer!
The Lord Jesus didn’t do anything without prayer, and He prayed even as He was talking to people – He “answered and said, Thank You Father…” So many times He went away from people in the wilderness, and after spending the whole night with God He chose His disciples (Luke 6), spoke things, did things, etc.
In Acts we also see that the early apostles never initiated anything without prayer. First they prayed themselves into the Spirit (Acts 1, 13), and after they were saturated with God they did things and God accompanied them with His blessing.
We also as believers in Christ seeking after Him need to learn to stop ourselves again and again, even before we want to do something or speak something for God, and pray.
Stopping ourselves and praying is the practical way to deny ourselves, whether we are about to do spiritual or secular things. When we do things independent from God, He is not happy and we are not happy and at peace inside.
Even in our service for God, we first need to stop our being, stop our activities, and even stop our mind and touch the Lord through prayer. We first need to pray ourselves into God and pray God into our being, and then we will work together with God by being mingled with God.
Through our prayer we testify that we don’t exercise our self-effort to deal with the situation or to do something, but we depend on the Lord in all things.
Lord Jesus, make us men of prayer – Your duplication. Lord, save us from thinking that we can do things or take care of situations in ourselves. Keep us depending on You. We need You, Lord. Keep us turning to You, praying to You, and checking with You about everything. Lord, may we be those who constantly and habitually pray themselves into God and God into them. We want to cling to You and be one with You by prayer!
References and Further Reading
- This portion is inspired from brother Dick Taylor’s sharing in the message and portions in, Life-study of Mark (msg. 27), and, The Practical and Organic Building Up of the Church (ch. 9), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on Prayer and the Lord’s Move, week 2 (entitled, A Man of Prayer).
- Hymns on this topic:
# I will not let Thee go, my Lord, / I will not let Thee go! / Confession glad on Thee outpoured, / Thine own dear heart to know.
# Lord, You have touched me and You have shown me / That I am not so simple as I thought.
# Thy Spirit will me saturate / Every part will God permeate, / Deliv’ring me from the old man, / With all saints building for His plan. - Pictures credit: Gal. 2:20 (via here) and the second via, Hidden Roots.
About aGodMan
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To pray means to stop ourselves from doing anything. If we can do something on our own, we do not need to stop and pray. We can just go ahead and do it ourselves. Many times we carry out the service in this way. We do it by ourselves. This is wrong. We have to stop ourselves. If we look into the New Testament, we can see that the Lord Jesus always prayed first. His prayer was to stop Himself from doing anything apart from the Father. His prayer afforded Him the opportunity to be fully one with the Father. Then the work done by God the Father was through Jesus, the Man. It was the same with the early apostles. The book of Acts shows us that whenever there was some activity, the apostles firstly prayed. They never initiated work without prayer. Whenever they wanted to do something, they stopped themselves by their prayer. Their prayer gave God a way to come into them, to fill them up, and to saturate their very being. Then the apostles began to work. That work was not something done by the apostles independent from God. (The Practical and Organic Building Up of the Church, p. 93)
To pray means to stop ourselves from doing anything. If we can do something on our own, we do not need to stop and pray. We can just go ahead and do it ourselves. Many times we carry out the service in this way. We do it by ourselves. This is wrong. We have to stop ourselves. If we look into the New Testament, we can see that the Lord Jesus always prayed first. His prayer was to stop Himself from doing anything apart from the Father. His prayer afforded Him the opportunity to be fully one with the Father. Then the work done by God the Father was through Jesus, the Man. It was the same with the early apostles. The book of Acts shows us that whenever there was some activity, the apostles firstly prayed. They never initiated work without prayer. Whenever they wanted to do something, they stopped themselves by their prayer. Their prayer gave God a way to come into them, to fill them up, and to saturate their very being. Then the apostles began to work. That work was not something done by the apostles independent from God. (The Practical and Organic Building Up of the Church, p. 93)
The principle of prayer is that when we pray, we are praying ourselves into God and we are praying God into us. To pray means that we realise that we are nothing and that we can do nothing. To pray is actually to declare 'Not I but Christ'!
In the verse preceding Mark 8:34 in the Morning Revival, the Lord rebuked Peter, saying, “Go away, get behind me, Satan”. This reveals that our natural man, which is not willing to take the cross, is one with Satan, and is a stumbling block to the Lord in the fulfilment of God’s purpose. To “come after the Lord” in Mark 8:34 is to have Him, to experience Him, to enjoy Him, and to partake of Him. Hence, when we come to partake of God in prayer, we need to deny ourselves; that is, we need to put ourselves aside and forget ourselves. Prayer is the real denial of the self. To pray is to realize that we are nothing and that we can do nothing. We need to deny ourselves so that Christ may be our replacement and become everything to us.
Prayer is the real denial of self. It is sufficient simply to call, “O Lord Jesus!” Even such a short prayer indicates “no longer I, but Christ”. What do you do when you are stuck at a junction for about 3 minutes and cannot be patient? Just call “O Lord Jesus” = not I but Christ who is driving, not I but Christ who is patient.
Oh Lord Jesus, we ask that You will make us men of prayer, those who knows Your heart, Your heart's desires and to pray in You and with You Lord. No longer we that live but Christ that lives in and through us. Praise the Lord!
To pray is to surrender to God and admit that we cannot do anything. We must submit and surrender so that He can fill every part of us and have His way and build up the Body.
PRAY INTO GOD & GOD INTO US
Mark 8:34 & He called the crowd to Him with His disciples & said to them, If anyone wants to follow after Me, let him deny himself & take up his cross & follow Me.
9:29 & He said to them, This kind cannot come out by any means except prayer.
…prayer is the real denial of the self…”no longer I, but Christ”(Gal 2:20)…we have been made by God as vessels as the means through which God can work. Still we need prayer..We need to pray ourselves into God, & we need to pray God into us. The Lord Jesus always prayed 1st. His prayer afforded Him the opportunity to be fully 1 with the Father…It was the same for the early apostles…They never initiated work without prayer.
Any work mustn’t be independent of God. ‘Your will be done’!
Amen
Prayer is not an utterance of our own wishes, a plea for God to yield to our cry and fulfil our own wishes. Prayer is not to compel God to change His will by force or ask Him to do what He does not want to do. Prayer is the believers' utterance of God's will out of their own mouth; it is the believers' request before God that He accomplish His own will.
A man of prayer is a man declaring “No longer I, but Christ.” When Christ was on earth, He placed Himself under the Headship of God, and prayed to God first before His work. Today as believers in Christ, we are a people that has been replaced by Christ, and even married to Christ. We should do everything in Him, with Him. But in our experience, we are often distracted and we get outside of God, we are not that much in God nor is God that much in us. Therefore for us to do God’s work, we need to pray to get into God and to pray God into us so that we can do the work in a way in which we are mingled with God. God is happy when we stop ourselves and pray ourselves into Him and pray him into us, in order that we may do everything in God, with God and through God. Even just to turn to the Lord and say, “O Lord Jesus!” is able to connect us to God. Mark 9:29 And He said to them, This kind cannot come out by any means EXCEPT PRAYER. We can apply this verse to everything we do. Amen!
What a view—real prayer is the denial of our self: no longer I but Christ! May the full impact of this statement change our lives. I enjoyed the other side of this point – a life of prayer is a life that lives Christ. Brother Ed said, "To build up a habit to live Christ is to build up a habit to have a life of prayer." So on the one hand denying ourselves is to stop ourselves to pray. On the other hand a life that habitually prays is a life that lives Christ.
I enjoyed the hymn at the end. I remember when Brother Dick Taylor sang this hymn with the college-aged saints in Tampa, FL November 2010. It was the first time that I had ever been to one. It was the first time that I had ever prophesied. A sister got me to prophesy for the first time. I was scared; I did not want to. That was sister was like my spiritual mom. "The gates of Hades will not prevail against the church," I said. I love Brother Dick Taylor. He gave me a lot of praise for prophesying which encouraged me to keep prophesying. Oh Christ, the expression of God the great inexhaustible rich and sweet! God mingled with humanity lives in me my all to be. I sang this with some believers in the cafeteria of a college during a bible discussion.