As believers in Christ learning to be one with God in everything we do and say, we need to be purified in heart and will so that we pray for God’s sake, for God’s authority and benefit, and even learn to pray the most lofty and spiritual prayer, the prayer of authority, for God to do what He wants to do.
Lord Jesus, we open to You. We want to learn how to pray. Uplift our prayer life. Save us from merely praying in a routine way. Save us from repeating the same words and asking the same things from You. May we pray for God’s sake, for God’s kingdom and His will to be done. May we join ourselves to You to pray for God’s authority and benefit today. Amen, Lord, may we learn to pray a most lofty and spiritual prayer, the prayer of authority! Amen!
If we are to continue steadfastly in prayer, we need to know what prayer is. We may think we know what it means to pray; we know how to pray, and we pray quite a lot; however, we need to continue to be open to the Lord concerning the matter of prayer.
We want to be men of prayer. The real significance of prayer is to contact God in our spirit and to absorb God Himself.
Prayer is not merely for us to ask God to do things for us or to help us; neither is prayer merely to thank the Lord for all the things He has done for us.
Prayer is to contact God the Spirit with our spirit and remain in the mutual organic union between God and man. In this oneness with the Lord in spirit, we pray, and our prayers are His prayers.
When we contact the Lord in the mingled spirit, when we are one with Him, God and man are mingled together, and God initiates the prayer. He’s the Initiator, and He’s also the Motivator.
He initiates our prayer and He motivates us to pray. As we pray in this way, we absorb God and inhale God, and we are filled with genuine prayers, for our prayers issue out of our being mingled with God.
We may start our time of prayer by praying for our needs, the needs of the church, and the needs of our family, but as we touch the Lord and are one with Him, we will sense what He wants to pray, and we will utter His prayers.
We absorb God, we inhale God, and then we speak what we sense from God. In this way, God has a way to pray in us, and we pray in God.
We are mingled with God, and God is mingled with us.
We release our spirit, and as our spirit flows, God has a way to be released through us. We sense His will and pray it, and God has a way to carry out His will.
Being Purified in our Heart and Intention to Pray for God’s Sake, for God’s Authority and Benefit
As we live our Christian life, we may not pray that much, but even the little time that we pray, we pray a lot for ourselves.
Our main prayer is related to our benefit, the benefit of those around us, and the benefit of the church.
But a prayer up to standard according to God is one in which man is not praying for himself or for others but for God.
We may pray for sinners to be saved, we may pray for the brothers and sisters to be revived, and we may pray for our family members with their situations, but as we do this, we actually should pray for God’s authority and benefit.
We need to relate our needs, our wants, our requests, and our desires to what God wants. The highest meaning of prayer is that it is a means for God to gain His authority and benefit.
Apparently, we may be praying for people, things, or even for ourselves, but actually, we need to get to the root of the matter and tell the Lord,
Lord Jesus, even though we pray for our problems, our needs, and the needs of the church, we want all our prayers to be for Your sake! Amen, Lord, may our prayers be for God to do what He wants to do, not for us to gain what we want to gain. May Your kingdom come and Your authority be carried out. May You gain Your authority and Your benefit in all things. Oh Lord, even as we pray for things related to the saints and the church, what we want is for Your testimony to be built up and for Your kingdom to come! We don’t merely pray for a revival in the church but for Your authority and benefit! Amen!
We need to learn to pray in this way. A person who prayed in this way was Daniel, as seen in Daniel 9:19.
There he said, O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! Do not delay, for Your own sake, O my God; for Your city and Your people are called by Your own name.
Daniel was praying for the return of the captives to Israel and the rebuilding of the house of God, and he appealed to God’s own sake, His city, His people, those called by His name.
He prayed for God’s authority and benefit in this situation. He was a man of preciousness, for his prayers touched God’s heart, and because of his prayers, God had a way to move and do something in regard to His people.
Today we need to be purified in our heart and intention as we pray. We may be in great need, either in a particular suffering or in material need, and we may kneel before the Lord to pray.
May the Lord shine on us as we pray, and may we let Him purify our heart and our intention so that we pray not only for our sake but even more, for His authority and benefit.
We do have a great need; we do go through sufferings, and we need the Lord’s supply in our situation; as we pray, however, we want to pray for His authority and benefit.
We ask for material things for His sake, not just for our sake. We ask Him to give us the bread we need for His sake, for us to live for Him and with Him, for His kingdom to come.
May we touch this deep and tremendous principle and may we allow the Lord to measure our prayers by it.
Then, we will discover how much we are still filled with ourselves, how little we have passed through God’s purification, and how much we care for ourselves, expect God to do things for us, and are mixed in our heart.
On the one hand, we pray to God, but on the other hand, in our heart we are praying wholly for our own sake.
May the Lord be merciful to us and purify our heart and our intention as we pray so that we would no longer beg or implore God to give us His mercy but pray one with Him for His authority and benefit in our life, in the church life, and on the earth.
May we open to the Lord concerning this and ask Him,
Lord Jesus, purify our heart and our intention. Grant us to have a heart for You and Your economy. May we learn to pray one with You for Your kingdom and Your authority. Oh Lord, save us from merely praying for our own sake; may we learn to pray for God and release prayers for God’s sake! Cleanse us, Lord, and purify us until there’s no place for us in our motive, intention, and expectation. May we allow You to pass through us and may we pass through You in our prayer. Lord Jesus, may our prayer speak forth Your intention and express Your heart’s intent! O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! Do not delay, for Your own sake, o my God! Lord, we lay our needs before You: grant us the supply we need for Your sake! We give You our health and the health of those in our family: May Your will be done and Your kingdom come! Amen, Lord, may You gain Your authority and benefit in our prayer. We are here for You. We are joined to You. We want You to gain all the glory! Amen!
Learn to Pray the Prayer of Authority – Pray Binding and Loosing Prayers!
The Bible contains a most lofty and spiritual prayer – the prayer of authority (see Matt. 18:18-19; Mark 11:23-24; Eph. 1:20-22; 2:6; 6:12-13, 18-19).
This is a very particular prayer, even the most spiritual prayer, for it cooperates with God to carry out what He desires on the earth.
First, we ourselves are under authority; we are under God’s authority and we are under His deputy authority in the Body and in the practical church life.
As we remain under authority, our prayer is related to authority. We learn to pray the prayer of authority, and God will do something very particular and powerful in a thorough way.
If we want to be a man of prayer, we have to learn to pray with authority; this is the kind of prayer described by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 18:18. It is a binding prayer and a loosing prayer.
On the one hand, the prayer of authority binds, and on the other hand, it looses. In Matthew 18:18, there is a prayer that is called binding prayer and a prayer that is called loosing prayer; to bind and to loose is to pray with authority.
We may think we understand this, we may agree with this, but we all lack the experience of this.
This is not an audacious or presumptuous prayer; this is the prayer of authority. As those who want to be men of prayer today, we need to learn with authority.
Many times this kind prayer is uttered in the prayer meeting or in small group meetings, in vital group meetings, when we are one with the Lord and one accord together to pray prayers that bind and loose.
We may think that we bind on earth, and what we bind, the Lord will bind in heavens; and we may think that we loose on the earth, so the Lord will loose it in the heavens.
But this is the upside down; the prayer of authority is not us praying here and God doing what we tell Him to do but God doing something in the heavens and we releasing His will and intention on the earth.
God on the throne is the source; He initiates the prayer of authority.
The prayer of authority comes from the throne of God; God wants this prayer of authority to be carried out on the earth in the church meetings.
When we speak of authority, we may think that God has authority, the elders have authority, and the church has authority, so we may pray for God to exercise His authority.
However, we need to realise that, in the matter of authority, authority is only with God; God is the supreme authority, and whoever on earth has authority has it because God flows His authority to him and through him.
The elders have authority because they take God as their Head and allow His authority to flow through them.
The church has authority and the church can exercise God’s authority when the church submits to God’s authority and allows God to flow His authority through the church.
God wants to do many things, and as we see in Matthew 18, He wants to recover many sinning saints; however, He is waiting for the church to exercise and pray the prayer of authority.
We pray the prayer of authority when we are one with God and sense what He has bound and loosed in heaven, so we bind and loose on the earth.
When we pray in oneness and in one accord, especially in the prayer meetings and in the vital group small meetings, we touch what is in God’s heart.
We realise that He wants to do something. We then pray to bind and to loose, being one with the Lord to do it, for we see that He has bound and loosed in the heavens.
We don’t pray for people or situations directly; we pray with authority to deal with the enemy who is operating to hinder God’s work in people and persons.
The Lord wants and even invites us to command Him concerning the work of His hands.
He infuses His heart’s desire into us, we sense what He wants to do, we see what the problem is, and we exercise to be one with the Lord and one with the saints to bind and loose on earth what has been bound and loosed in the heavens.
May we learn to pray with authority as seen in the word of God.
May we pray the prayer of authority one with the Lord and in one accord in the Body.
May we be the men of prayer who not only pray but even more, move God’s hand by uttering prayers of authority before Him.
May this be our experience in the church life again and again, even as we see that the Lord wants to gain many lampstands in Europe before He returns.
Our prayer should be His prayer, and His prayer needs to become our prayer, for we pray one with the Lord to bind and loose on the earth what has been bound and loosed in the heavens.
Lord Jesus, we want to learn to pray the most lofty and spiritual prayer – the prayer of authority! Amen, Lord, teach us to pray in such a way that we are one with You to bind and loose on earth what has been bound and loosed in the heavens! Oh Lord, release Your will on the earth. We stand one with You today. We want to be men of prayer who learn to pray with authority. Amen, Lord, as we see some saints who sin and backslide, as we see the needs in the church, and as we realise how much You desire to spread and gain the lampstands, may we pray the prayer of authority today! We place ourselves under Your authority. We take You as our Head and we obey those through whom You are flowing as authority today. We are one with You, Lord, and we want to pray the prayer of authority to bind and loose on earth what You have bound and loosed in the heavens! Amen, Lord, gain this binding prayer and loosing prayer for You to do what You want to do today! Amen!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1959, vol. 4, “Lessons on Prayer,” ch. 3, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Ministry of the Word and God’s Dispensing for God’s Economy (2026 March ITERO), week 1, “Steadfastly in Prayer and in the Ministry of the Word” – day 3.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Pray to touch the throne of God, / Touch the throne of power too; / In the name of Jesus Christ / Deal with what you have to do. / Pray to touch the throne of God / By the hand of living faith; / Exercise authority / Over all the pow’r of death. (Hymns #783 stanzas 4-5)
– Teach us to pray and use Thy rod / In strong, prevailing prayer, / Beneath Thy blood to shake the earth / And powers of the air. / By prayer and faith, O may we learn / To labor, Lord, with Thee, / To know the victory is ours / And Thine authority. (Hymns #767 stanzas 3-4)
– Keep on wrestling in the Body, / Mighty vict’ry you will see, / Bind and loose, God’s will fulfilling, / And the foes your food will be. / Fight the battle in the Body! / By the virtue of the Head; / Standing firmly with the Body, / Into vict’ry you’ll be led. (Hymns #885 stanza 7 and chorus)
