The Real Significance of Prayer: Contacting God in Our Spirit to Absorb God!

What is the real significance of prayer? Is prayer the utterance of our need for help from God?

Is prayer merely us praying to the Lord by opening our heart and telling Him everything? Is prayer a conversation with God? Is prayer a monologue in which you talk and you hope that God is listening?

According to what the Bible says, we see that the real significance of prayer is to contact God (who is Spirit) in our spirit and to absorb God Himself (see Jude 20; John 14:13; 15:7).

The best way that we as believers and together as the church can cooperate with God is through prayer, that is through opening to God to touch Him in our spirit and absorb Him, inhale Him, be saturated with Him, and be mingled with Him.

Through prayer we exercise our spirit to contact God and we don’t primarily “ask God for things” but rather contact Him, absorb Him, and inhale Him.

As we touch God in this way, as we absorb Him, there’s a sense in our being deep within concerning what we should pray.

The utterance of the inward sense of our spirit in prayer is a genuine prayer before God, because we abide in Him and ask for whatever we will (in the organic union with Him) – and He will do it (John 15:7).

Lord, show us what the real significance of prayer is. Lord, unveil us to see what it means to pray. Save us from praying in a shallow way, in a natural way, or in our own way. Lord, we want to touch You as the Spirit in our spirit. We want to inhale You and absorb You through our prayer. May we pray genuine prayers that are heard before You and answered by You!

What is a Genuine Prayer?

Genuine prayers are not merely prayers coming from a genuine need or from a genuine man. A genuine prayer is not merely the uttering of a need or a cry for help. Rather, genuine prayers are prayers in which man is mingled with God in spirit (Jude 20, John 4:24).

Genuine prayers are initiated by God and they are communicated or made know to us as we open to Him and turn to Him to touch Him and absorb Him.

In this touch with God, we pray in God and God prays in us. This kind of prayer is a joint prayer, in which we pray yet God prays in us, and God prays yet He prays in us and with us.

Genuine prayer is not initiated or directed by our mind, our emotion, our need, our situation, or our circumstance; real prayer is initiated by God and it is directed by the inner sense of our spirit.

As we fellowship with God (fellowship: a function of the human spirit) and enjoy Him, He shines on us and we confess our sins, shortcomings, defects, iniquities, and transgressions – anything that hinders us from seeing Him and touching Him, and anything that is on our conscience (conscience: part of our spirit).

When the sky between us and the Lord is clear, we see Him face to face and we contact Him, absorb Him, and inhale Him.

He then gives us a sense, a feeling, some words, some things to pray for – and with our spiritual intuition we understand and then utter what God communicates to us. We then pray by accompanying God, by joining Him in His prayer.

Wow, what a deep and intrinsic significance of what a genuine prayer is!

Prayer: God Being Mingled with Man

A true prayer involves God and man – the Spirit of God is mingled with man’s spirit and the spirit of man being mingled with God’s Spirit.

The primary matter is not accomplishing something through prayer or obtaining some results and answers – it is following the sense in our spirit to pray what God communicates to us, and being mingled with God.

When we stop our being, spend time with God, and enjoy Him, we will be infused with His desire, His intentions, His thoughts, and His prayer.

If we follow the inner sense and we pray what we feel in our spirit in this organic union with God, the Spirit of God will follow our prayer and we will receive more feelings to pray for more. The more we pray in this way the more we have to pray for.

Sometimes it is simply an, Oh! or a sigh of, Oh Lord! that utters so much before the Lord because we are mingled with Him and we are inhaling Him and breathing Him out!

If we pray and something feels wrong, if we are not supplied and filled by God as we pray, we need to change the direction of our prayer. Switch on to the mingling!

The top exercise in our Christian life is prayer, which results in the mingling of God and man. As you are about to pray, just be honest with the Lord,

Lord, let’s pray together. I want to be mingled with You more. I open to You, Lord, to breathe You in, inhale You, and be saturated with You. Mingle Yourself more with me. Lord, You pray in me and I will pray in You. I join myself to You to be one with You and pray in the mingling of God and man!

God Needs Men Who Pray!

The highest cooperation we can give God is not by studying hard, achieving something in the world, and bringing God all the glory, and neither is it by “becoming the president” and changing the direction of a nation from “going down” to “going toward God”.

What God desires is men who pray. He desires to have some like Daniel who are before Him, read His word and pray His word into fulfillment by praying toward God’s house, God’s city, and God’s temple.

When man prays, God can move and God can act. God is limited by our lack of prayer. He wants to do so much in our environment, our church, our city, our nation, and on the whole earth. But who would pray?

There is nothing greater and more important for the church of God than the ministry of prayer. What we cannot carry out or cause to come into being, prayer can – as long as it is uttered in union with God, in the mingling of God and man, and in accordance to His will.

Christ as the unique and universal intercessor needs many who join Him in prayer, many who come to Him to be mingled with Him, inhale Him, be saturated with Him, and utter the prayers He as the Spirit puts in the depths of our being.

Oh, may we be these ones! May we join ourselves to God today in a proper way through much and thorough prayer so that we may release His will!

Lord, make us those who pray – those who lay the tracks for You to move! May we have set times of prayer in which we just open to You to be mingled with You, inhale You, and join You in Your prayer ministry. Lord, may Your will be done. Lord, may Your kingdom come. Do it on earth as it is being done in the heavens. Release many saints who set themselves aside to pray genuine prayers to move Your hand!

References and Further Reading

• Sharing inspired from brother Minor Chen’s sharing in the message, and portions in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on Prayer and the Lord’s Move, week 1 (entitled, The Significance of Prayer, the Principle of Prayer, and the Prayer Ministry of the Church).
• Further reading:
  # Life Lessons (vol. 1, lesson 4)
  # How to Enjoy God and How to Practice the Enjoyment of God (ch. 20)
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Pray to fellowship with Jesus, / In the spirit seek His face; / Ask and listen in His presence, / Waiting in the secret place.
  # God needs men who pray; / Those who lay the tracks for Him; / God’s economy is carried out through men of prayer.
  # Take time to inhale Him—His Word we may breathe; / By breathing it, God’s very life we receive— / He breathes Himself out so that we may breathe in / The life, the reality, fullness of Him.
• Pictures credit: via, Grace upon Grace, and, Hidden Roots in Christ.