I.　To pray means to realize that we are nothing and that we can do nothing—Mark 9:28-29:

A.　Prayer is the real denial of the self; therefore, to pray is to deny ourselves, knowing that we are nothing and that we are not able to do anything—8:34.

B.　To pray is actually to declare, "No longer I but Christ"—Gal. 2:20.

II.　The governing principle of our prayer should be that prayer brings us into God—Luke 11:1-13:

A.　Whenever our prayer does not bring us into God, it is wrong, and we should not continue to pray in this way.

B.　The issue of proper prayer is that we find ourselves in God—vv. 2-4.

C.　We need to pray ourselves into God, and then, as those in Him, we receive the life supply from the Father—vv. 11-13.

D.　If we would remain in God to receive the life supply to feed ourselves and others, we need to pray persistently—vv. 5-10.

III.　We should not pray anything that is not real prayer—John 4:24; 3 John 3-4:

A.　Many prayers that we pray actually are not prayers but repetitions of statements according to our tradition.

B.　Our prayers, even our personal prayers, are mostly a religious form and a kind of performance.

C.　The blind man was burdened to contact the Lord Jesus so that he could see, and the Lord answered his prayer; this was a real prayer out of a real burden—Luke 18:35-43.

D.　We need to be vital, and to be vital is to have the real burden for prayer; there is the need of real prayer among us.

E.　The real prayer life stops our natural being; a prayer life is a life that revolts and rebels against our natural being.

IV.　The way to experience the indwelling Christ and to live Christ is to pray in a genuine way—Col. 1:27; 3:4; Phil. 1:20-21a:

A.　We need the kind of prayer which brings us into contact with the Lord, prayer that causes us to be one with Him in our spirit—2 Tim. 4:22; 1 Cor. 6:17.

B.　As we persevere in prayer, the living person of Christ becomes our experience and enjoyment.

C.　To live Christ it is necessary to persevere in prayer, to pray without ceasing— Col. 4:2; 1 Thes. 5:17.

D.　If we would experience Christ and live Him, we need to remain in an atmosphere of prayer:

1.　Only in an atmosphere of prayer is it possible to live Christ, for in this atmosphere Christ is real, substantial, practical, and even touchable.

2.　As we remain in an atmosphere of prayer, we are one with the Lord, He is our life, and we are spontaneously holy, spiritual, and victorious—1 Cor. 6:17; Col. 3:4.

V.　The experience during times of genuine prayer gives us a taste of the normal Christian life and enables us to touch the reality of the one new man—1:3, 9; 4:12; Phil. 1:20-21a:

A.　During times of genuine prayer, we are in our spirit, and we are one spirit with the Lord; it is at these times that we live Christ—1 Cor. 6:17; Phil. 1:20-21a:

1.　Our daily living should be the same as our experience in times of genuine prayer.

2.　Our experience in prayer should become a model of our daily Christian life.

3.　When we pray, we enter into fellowship with the Lord and become conscious of the fact that we are truly one spirit with Him and that He is actually one spirit with us—1 Cor. 6:17.

4.　If we keep ourselves in a praying condition, we will be outside of culture, and we will be one spirit with the Lord, enjoying His presence and spontaneously living Him.

B.　Whenever we experience genuine prayer, we are outside of our culture; in particular, we are outside of our cultural opinion—Col. 3:10-11:

1.　The more genuine prayer we have, the more we will have the experience of being outside of our cultural opinion.

2.　When we pray with others in a genuine way, we are truly one in the praying spirit:

a.　Then we touch the reality of the one new man.

b.　Then we realize that the new man is constituted with Christ alone and that in this realm there are no differences of culture.

C.　"We all know from our experience that the more we pray to the Lord, the more we contact the Lord, the more we allow the Lord to impart Himself into us, on the one hand, the more we will become spiritually alive, and on the other hand, the more we desire to terminate our self. After our proper prayer, the issue is always that we become living and at the same time we are put to death. This kind of experience produces the new man" (The God-Men, pp. 18-19).

VI.　We should forget about how to pray and simply pray; we learn to pray by praying—Luke 11:1.

VII.　When we open to the Lord and admit that we do not know what to say to Him, we breathe in fresh spiritual air, and we are preserved in the Lord's grace—Rom. 8:26; 1 Cor. 15:10.