If God be for [you], who can be against [you]? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? (Romans 8:31–32)
God and you are working together in carrying out His dream for the redemption of the world.
He can’t get along without you, any more than you can get along without Him.
Jesus’s illustration of the vine and the branches perfectly illustrates this. The vine can’t bear fruit without the branches and the branches can’t live without the vine.
Now you can understand the next two verses: “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?”
Not the Master, and He is the only One who has the legal right to do it.
This is a part of the conclusion of the first eight chapters of Romans. It shows the absolute oneness of the Father and His children and of their perfect fellowship and cooperation with the Father. It also shows their mastery over the forces of darkness and circumstances.
He climaxes it with, “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors” (Romans 8:37).
This is the background for a prayer life.
We have little groups of people who are making prayer a business. They are intercessors.
One group takes the requests for prayers that come in through the mail from our correspondence course and our books.
They have become experts in prayer.
They are getting the things that are being requested.
You see, God is active on your part.
He is standing up for you.
He is fighting for you.
He is supplying your needs.
Out of the treasury of His grace, He is giving you His wisdom and ability.
Second Corinthians 3:4–6 (ASV) likely has become very precious to you:
And such confidence have we through Christ to God-ward: not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God; who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant.
You see, we aren’t common folks.
We are tied up with omnipotence.
We are united with God Himself.
We are carrying out His will here on the earth.
We are the channels through which He is pouring Himself upon the world.
So, it is perfectly normal that He should become our sufficiency, and that His ability should become our ability.
LIMITLESSNESS OF PRAYER
Now we can understand this Scripture: “Working together with him” (2 Corinthians 6:1 ASV).
This is fellowship with the Father. He is supplying strength, grace, and ability to the intercessor.
It is working with all wisdom and ability.
Now you can understand, “For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Colossians 1:9).
The Greek word translated as “knowledge,” you may remember, is epiginosis. This is something that He is supplying to you who are entering the prayer life.
It is a perfect knowledge of His will.
You can’t make a success of the prayer life unless you know His will; unless you have His own wisdom and understanding, you are going to fail.
No matter how much you pray, your prayers will not be effective until you know His will.
And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. (1 John 5:14–15)
That settles the issue.
If we are in His will, our prayers are heard and answered and we get the thing for which we are praying.
So it is necessary that we have this perfect knowledge of His will for our prayer ministry, in order to “walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10).
We are thinking of a prayer fruit now.
Jesus illustrated that, saying, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples” (John 15:7–8).
This is very precious to me. He lets me see my legal standing and rights; now I can go to the Father and get the thing that my neighbor or brother needs.
When they send a handkerchief to us to pray over, we know that our prayer is going to bear fruit, and that the request is granted when I pray.
You see, this is not walking in darkness.
This is having an exact knowledge of His will in all spiritual understanding.
This is moving up into the realm of the recreated spirit, where you fellowship with Him who raised Jesus from the dead.
You learn to pray for the thing that He wishes accomplished.
You are in the groove, the current of His will.
You become His mic. He speaks through you.
You are His transmitter, His willing instrument through which His will can be done.
What He wishes done is done. You see that His will is carried out.
He can cast out demons through your lips now.
He can heal the sick through your lips. Your lips become His transmitter.
The Word on your lips is a living thing.
Jesus’s name on your lips becomes omnipotence.
You take His place and do His work.
You have His “all authority” that was given to Him after He arose from the dead.
It thrills you, doesn’t it?
You have His ability; that is love’s ability.
You will love even as He loved.
His nature, that love nature, fills you.
His name is like a checkbook with a limitless account in the bank.
His Word—who can describe it?
The heart melts as it contemplates it.
His Word!
It is the Master speaking: “Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7).
His Word is the sword of the spirit, one moment slaying unbelief, doubts, and fears, and the next moment, it is the sweet force of love to heal the broken-hearted, to give courage and strength to the weak.
His Word on your lips is like the Father’s Word on Jesus’s lips.
It defeats the forces of darkness.
It strengthens those whom Satan has made weak.
I hardly dare give you the next sentence: His Word on your lips makes you a superman.
You have all authority over the power of the enemy.
It is love that has been delegated to you.
It is love pouring itself through your lips.
You can enter the throne room at will. You are always welcome.
You are master of the laws of nature that would hurt and hinder.
You stand quietly in the presence of humanity’s needs, knowing that you have authority to open the floodgates of grace, life, and love, and let them pour over the wounded broken-hearted men and women struggling in life’s uneven fight.
SHARING WITH HIM
The highest order of prayer is a love affair: two lovers meeting, sharing with each other.
Not slaves and the master, neither servants and an overlord, but a Father and His children.
We come together as suggested in Matthew 18:19–20: “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
This is not talking at Him. Much praying is merely talking at the Father.
This is a meeting together. Jesus said, “There am I in the midst of them.”
It is a business meeting. It is a meeting in loving council.
You speak, telling your needs, and then wait, listening for Him to bring to you the Word of assurance.
The highest order of prayer is a dialogue: you and He conversing about His work.
You are there to talk things over with Him.
You are a son taking a son’s place.
You are not conscious of your standing or righteousness.
You are intent upon doing His will, carrying out His will.
You and He are working together.
You see, He has made you not only a new creation and a son, but He has made you a partner in this work.
You are the fruit-bearing part of the company.
You are the hands and feet and the voice of the company.
Ofttimes, you are asking for another. One of His children is in distress, and you are asking His cooperation and His ability to meet that distress. One of His children has been injured in an accident and you are coming to Him for healing for the injured one, and for strength and courage for the loved ones.
You know your place in Christ and you are taking it now boldly.
You have gone beyond the period when you think of faith or your ability to stand in His presence. That is all of the past.
You know what you are in Christ, and you are assuming the responsibilities that belong to you.
YOU ARE MAKING A BUSINESS OF THIS
PRAYER LIFE
You and He have gone into business together. He has furnished the capital and the wisdom; you furnish your ability, time, and talents, with His blessing upon them.
You recognize the gravity of it. It is an eternal thing; you are dealing with eternal issues and eternal spirits.
You are doing business with Him to carry out His will in the redemptive work that was wrought through Christ.
You realize that He cannot work without human aid. Angels can’t do the work, nor any other heavenly being.
It devolves upon us, and you are taking your place as a junior member of the firm.
You are His contact man.
It may be that you are in the ministry, or a layman, or an official in some organization. You are taking your place now, representing Him.
You are bringing to Him the needs of your friends.
He is bringing to you the assurance that He will meet the needs.
THE SEATED CHRIST
Jesus did not sit down at the right hand of the majesty on high until He had finished the work of redemption.
Some of the outstanding features of this redemption are His absolute mastery over Satan. He dethroned the adversary. He stripped him of his authority and power.
And you understand that in that substitutionary work of Christ, we were identified with Him.
The Spirit makes it clear in Galatians 2:20 (ASV): “I have been crucified with Christ.”
Colossians 2:12 says, “Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.”
Not only were we crucified with Him, but we died with Him.
We were buried with Him.
We suffered with Him.
We were justified with Him.
We were made alive with Him.
We conquered Satan and stripped him of his authority, with Him.
And then, Ephesians 2:5–6 (ASV) says God “even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places.”
Not only were we made alive and raised, but in the mind of justice, we are seated with Him today.
What does that mean?
It means absolute dominion over our enemies.
It means utter oneness with Christ. As the branch and vine are one, so are the individual and Christ one.
His victory was our victory.
His mastery over the forces of darkness was our mastery.
And so when He sat down, He entered into His rest, for His work was finished.
When we understand, we enter into His rest with Him.
Then we have entered into our rest. Our days of want, fear, and anxiety are over. We have cast all our anxiety upon Him, for He cares for us. (See 1 Peter 5:7.)
So, if Jesus is seated, His work is finished.
All we do when we accept Him as our Savior is enter into the benefits of the work that He has done for us.
We are healed the moment we say, “He has borne our pains and carried our sicknesses, and with His stripes, we are healed.” (See Isaiah 53:4–5.) Our anxiety ends and our healing becomes real.
“My God shall supply every need of yours” (Philippians 4:19 ASV). The fear of want ends.
We have entered into our rest with Him.
OF HIS FULLNESS
“Of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16).
“For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2:9–10).
Another wonderful Scripture is Ephesians 1:22–23: “And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.”
Again, Ephesians 3:19 says, “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”
What is this fullness?
Colossians 2:2–3 may help us. Here is Paul’s prayer for the Colossian believers:
That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
All the fullness and riches that belong to the believer, which were purchased for us in Christ’s great substitutionary sacrifice, are in Christ.
“Of his fulness have all we received.” Every believer has received a portion of that fullness, that completeness.
Among the great treasures of this is His love nature. Every one of us has received eternal life, the nature of the Father, and that nature is love.
“God is love” (1 John 4:16).
We have never majored this fact that we were a love product, that we are begotten of love, or that we have received the love nature, and we have never realized that we have in us the greatest thing in the world.
Now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13 ASV)
Love is the greatest because it is the nature of God.
One stands mute in the presence of a fact like this, that we have in us God’s nature.
The thing that hurts is that we have never given that nature sway. We have held His nature in bondage. God has been a prisoner in us.
Paul was no more a prisoner in Rome than the Holy Spirit has been a prisoner in us.
The second greatest thing that comes to us in the new birth is joy.
This is something that makes trouble lose its grip upon us, makes poverty lose its terror.
It is the joy of the Lord.
And you remember that He said, “The joy of the LORD is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). That was a prophecy.
Now Jesus said, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full” (John 15:11).
You understand the difference between joy and happiness. Happiness depends on the things that we have, or own, like property or loved ones. But joy is a thing of the spirit. It is the one quality that has made Christianity attractive to the world.
Joy is an artesian well in the spirit that bubbles up and overflows. It is the thing that Jesus said the Holy Spirit would give us.
He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (John 7:38)
This is joy unhindered, pouring out from us with a joyous spontaneity that attracts at once and captivates.
A person is speaking on the street, holding a meeting, and his voice is filled with a joy that grips the hearts of careless hearers. They draw near and listen. Out from his inner life is gushing torrents of living water full of divine laughter. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory.
Speaking to the early church regarding Jesus, Peter says, “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). This is the attractive feature of the divine life.
Another one of the fruits of His fullness is “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding” (Philippians 4:7).
It moves up out of the realm of the senses into the realm of the spirit.
No matter what the persecutions may be, peace like a river flows through the spirit.
No matter what turmoil is around you, the peace of God rules.
Jesus said, “My peace I give unto you” (John 14:27). That is one of the most outstanding features of the divine life.
Speaking of a martyr who had been bound to the stake, someone said, “Her face shone with a heavenly joy and her spirit seemed to be held captive by a peace that passed understanding.” She had joy in the midst of death, and peace in the midst of agony.
This fullness not only has love, joy, and peace, but all the fruits of the recreated spirit seen in Galatians 5:22–23.
“Of his fulness have all we received” (John 1:16). It doesn’t belong to just a few, but it belongs to every believer.
E. W. Kenyon, In His Presence: The Secret of Prayer (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2025).