Matt 18:19-20 (NLT) "I also tell you this: If two of you agree down here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you. For where two or three gather together because they are mine, I am there among them."
Watchman Nee (1903-1972) In about 1940, Watchman Nee delivered a talk on The Prayer Ministry of the Church. It was translated into English and published in 1973. The other day, I decided to read it again. I was stopped in my tracks with the realization that I had forgotten something very important about prayer. As CFO'ers, it is something we have learned but need to remember.
Watchman Nee described three kinds of prayer, all important: (1) Devotional prayer that is full of worship of God, (2) Personal prayer in which we seek God's answers for our own needs, and (3) the Prayer Ministry of the Church. This third kind of prayer is presented in Matt. 18:15-20, in which the key verses are given above. There is much in his presentation worth careful study, but the point I want to relay here, the point that stopped me in my tracks, is a correction in my own thinking and speaking. I have been saying for years now, that if you haven't prayed about a matter, that is the next thing to do. But Watchman Nee said, and I see now that Glenn Clark would agree, that praying is not the first thing to do in this kind of prayer to change the church and the world. The first thing to do is to seek harmony with our fellow pray-ers. To pray with power for the action of God to be manifest here and now requires that we agree with one another, that we are in harmony. Watchman Nee made it clear that this means that we have laid down our own agendas and ideas about what God should do. Before we pray, we should seek agreement about how God would have us pray in unified harmony. So, may God give us the humility together to seek His purposes and ways, and not our own. Amen.
Watchman Nee described three kinds of prayer, all important: (1) Devotional prayer that is full of worship of God, (2) Personal prayer in which we seek God's answers for our own needs, and (3) the Prayer Ministry of the Church. This third kind of prayer is presented in Matt. 18:15-20, in which the key verses are given above. There is much in his presentation worth careful study, but the point I want to relay here, the point that stopped me in my tracks, is a correction in my own thinking and speaking. I have been saying for years now, that if you haven't prayed about a matter, that is the next thing to do. But Watchman Nee said, and I see now that Glenn Clark would agree, that praying is not the first thing to do in this kind of prayer to change the church and the world. The first thing to do is to seek harmony with our fellow pray-ers. To pray with power for the action of God to be manifest here and now requires that we agree with one another, that we are in harmony. Watchman Nee made it clear that this means that we have laid down our own agendas and ideas about what God should do. Before we pray, we should seek agreement about how God would have us pray in unified harmony. So, may God give us the humility together to seek His purposes and ways, and not our own. Amen.
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