Service for the Building Up of the Church
Message Seven
Serving God by Prayer according to His Heart and Will
Opening Word of the Prophesying Meeting
Reading the verses in each day.
Reading the main points in the outlines.
Pray-reading the verses:
You then pray in this way: Our Father who is in the heavens, Your name be sanctified; Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen—Matt. 6:9-13
Word of Appetizer
God works according to certain laws and principles. Although He can act as He pleases, He does not act recklessly; He acts according to His preordained laws and principles. What are the principles of God’s work?
One main principle of God’s work is the need for man’s prayer. He wants man to cooperate with Him in prayer. God wants man’s will to be joined to Him and to be one with Him so that man may express and echo His will back to Him in prayer for His good pleasure.
Spiritual Burden
The highest expression of a man who cooperates with God is in prayer; such a man is a man of preciousness to God, even preciousness itself.
God needs man to exercise his spirit with his resurrected will to pray according to God’s 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. We have to pray according to God’s desire and His will for the fulfillment of His economy.
Concluding Word of the Prophesying Meeting
The Revelation of the Truth
In the universe there are three wills: the divine will, the satanic will, and the human will; God wants man’s will to be joined to Him and to be one with Him so that man may express and echo His will back to Him in prayer.
Hannah’s prayer was an echo, a speaking out, of the heart’s desire of God; Elijah, “a man of like feeling with us…prayed in prayer”; Daniel was a man of prayer who was joined to God’s desire through God’s word; Abraham lived in intimate fellowship with God and became God’s friend.
The pattern of prayer that the Lord taught the disciples in Matthew 6 is the prayer that expresses God’s will.
The Experience of Life
When we come to the Lord in prayer, we need to allow the Spirit to mingle our desires with His desires, lead our thoughts into His thoughts, and imprint His desires and thoughts into us; then the prayers that we utter to God with His inward desires will be precious, weighty, and valuable to Him.
Practice and Application
We should intercede for God’s people who have drifted into the world; intercession is an intimate conversation with God according to the inward intention of His heart; for this we must learn to linger in the presence of God.
We need to pray to the Lord, worship the Lord, contact the Lord, and fellowship with the Lord in a secret way. We need to “pray in this way” to “our Father who is in the heavens” (Matthew 6:9-13).
Using Key Verses to Have a Bird’s-Eye View over the Whole Outline
Key Verses (1)
Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth—Matt. 6:10
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High—Isa. 14:14
God Wants Man’s Will to Be One with Him and to Echo His Will Back to Him in Prayer
I. In the universe there are three wills: the divine will, the satanic will, and the human will; God wants man’s will to be joined to Him and to be one with Him so that man may express and echo His will back to Him in prayer for His good pleasure:
• A genuine man of prayer is one whose desires are fully blended into God’s desires and whose thoughts are fully one with God’s thoughts.
• Only the prayers that are initiated by God and echo what He has initiated have any spiritual value; we must learn to pray this kind of prayer.
• We have to pray according to God’s desire and His will for the fulfillment of His economy.
Key Verses (2)
And she [Hannah] was bitter in soul and prayed to Jehovah and wept much. And she made a vow and said, O Jehovah of hosts, if You will indeed look upon the affliction of Your female servant and remember me and not forget Your female servant, but give to Your female servant a male child, then I will give him to Jehovah for all the days of his life, and no razor will come upon his head—1 Sam. 1:10-11
So I [Daniel] set my face toward the Lord God to seek Him in prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. And I prayed to Jehovah my God and confessed… —Dan. 9:3-4
Hannah, Elijah, Daniel, Abraham
I. Hannah’s prayer was an echo, a speaking out, of the heart’s desire of God; it was a human cooperation with the divine move for the carrying out of God’s eternal economy.
II. Elijah, “a man of like feeling with us,…prayed in prayer”.
III. Daniel was a man of prayer who was joined to God’s desire through God’s word.
IV. Abraham lived in intimate fellowship with God and became God’s friend.
Key Verses (3)
You then pray in this way: Our Father who is in the heavens, Your name be sanctified; Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen—Matt. 6:9-13
VI. The Pattern of Prayer That the Lord Taught the Disciples in Matthew 6 Is the Prayer That Expresses God’s Will
• The principle of prayer is to pray in secret to be seen by our Father who sees in secret.
• Matthew 6:9-13 is the Lord’s instruction to us to “pray in this way” to “our Father who is in the heavens” (v. 9a); this pattern of prayer can be divided into three sections: The three basic prayers concerning God are related to the Divine Trinity; the three requests concerning our need are protective prayers; concluding with three reverent praises as extolling prayers.
Prophesying Topics—Twelve Topics per Week
D1
T1 In the universe there are three wills: the divine will, the satanic will, and the human will (Gen. 2:9)
(Please explain that God wants man’s will to be joined to Him and to be one with Him so that man may express and echo His will back to Him in prayer.)
T2 The main principle of God’s work is the need for man to cooperate with Him in the prayer. (Matt. 6:5-6)
(The real meaning of prayer and of all spiritual work is that they consist of four steps; what are these four steps?)
D2
T1 God’s will is uttered through our prayers. (Matt. 6:10)
(Please explain that although we cannot force God to do what He does not want to do, we can ask Him to do what He wants to do.)
T2 We have to pray according to God’s will. (Luke 11:24)
(Please give an example to illustrate how to exercise to pray this kind of prayer, which originates from God’s need.)
D3
T1 Hannah’s prayer was an echo of the heart’s desire of God. (1 Sam. 1:10-20)
(Please explain that Hannah’s prayer was a human cooperation with the divine move for the carrying out of God’s eternal economy.)
T2 We need to be today’s Hannah. (1 Sam. 1:11-28)
(Please explain that God needs many Hannahs, persons who can bring forth some Samuels to turn the age.)
D4
T1 Elijah, “a man of like feeling with us,…prayed in prayer” (James 5:17 and footnote 1) (lit.)
(What does it mean by saying that “prayed in prayer”?)
T2 The highest expression of a man who cooperates with God is in prayer. (Dan. 6:10; 9:3-4, 17)
(Please explain that Daniel depended on prayer to do what man could not do, and he depended on prayer to understand what man could not understand.)
D5
T1 Abraham lived in intimate fellowship with God and became God’s friend. (James 2:23)
(Please explain that the intercession is an intimate talk according to the unveiling of God’s heart’s desire.)
T2 The glorious intercession that Abraham made before God. (Gen. 18:23-33; 1 Tim. 2:1)
(Genesis 18 presents a clear revelation of the basic principles of intercession; what is this principle?) (Refer to Outline V. D.1-5)
D6
T1 The pattern of prayer that the Lord taught the disciples in Matthew 6 is the prayer that expresses God’s will. (Matt. 6:9-15)
(What are the three sections that this prayer pattern of the Lord can be divided into?) (Refer to Outline VI.B.1-3)
T2 The pattern of the Lord’s prayer begins with God the Father and ends with God the Father. (Matt. 6:9-10, 13)
(Please explain that the pattern of the Lord’s prayer begins with the Divine Trinity and ends with the Divine Trinity.)
