Practical Points on How to Pray to Fellowship with the Lord
Do you ever feel that there is some unexplainable lack in your Christian living and service? Possibly a lack of intimacy with the Lord or maybe a lack of purpose and direction in your service to Him. If so, I can share your feeling.
I’m not pointing fingers but identifying a common problem. As it’s been said, recognizing an illness is half of the cure.
Some of the common symptoms might be a lack of joy or vitality, spiritual dryness, emptiness and dissatisfaction. At a certain point, we realize that being “good” isn’t enough; we have to experience God in order to be satisfied. We have to make time, stop our doing, and come back to the Source—God Himself.
Since the source of all our Christian living and service must be God Himself, we first need to learn how to fellowship with Him. In this post we’ll consider the primary function of prayer—prayer to fellowship with God.
Learning to practice the primary function of prayer—fellowship with God
First, we need to see that the prayer of fellowship enables us to be filled with God and to let God flow out of us.
It’s the prayer of fellowship that gives God the way to reveal Himself to us and to transfuse Himself into us. In such a way He is able to gradually saturate our mind, emotion and will with Himself.
It’s also in such a prayer that God exposes and deals with our weaknesses, mistakes and shortcomings.
In Fellowshipping with the Lord for the Mingling of God with Man, Witness Lee says,
When we enter into God’s presence, we must consider fellowshipping with Him to be of primary importance. We should not begin with petitioning. Rather, we should first turn to our spirit, behold the shining of the Lord’s face, and wait for His operating, enlightening, revealing, anointing, infusing, mingling, filling, and saturating. We should also let the Lord expose our weaknesses, mistakes, and shortcomings. If we are willing to thoroughly confess these problems, our conscience will be at peace and without condemnation, and our spirit will be filled with His presence. At this time, we can mention to the Lord the things that we want to pray for. (pp. 7-8)
It is by such deep quiet fellowship that we allow the Lord to reach every part of our inner being.
As a result of such prayer we’re saturated with God and the river of water of life can freely flow out of us (John 7:38).
Second, we need to fellowship regularly with the Lord and learn to live in fellowship with Him.
For effective prayer of fellowship it isn’t enough just to have some daily “devotional time” for spiritual pursuit.
To enter into a thorough prayer of fellowship with the Lord, we need to live in moment by moment fellowship with the Lord (1 Thes. 5:16-18).
But because such constant fellowship isn’t thorough enough, we need to set aside some special times to seek deeper fellowship with the Lord (Mark 1:35; Matt. 14:23).
Third, we need to learn to contact God in our spirit and follow the sense of our spirit.
This kind of prayer is not a matter of human effort or introspection.
Rather than examining ourselves, we should let the Lord shine on us (1 John 1:7), expose our mistakes and shortcomings. We should allow Him to operate in us, saturate us with Himself, subdue, break and gain us. In this aspect of prayer, it is not a matter of petitioning but of receiving.
In such a fellowship we need to learn to pray according to our inner sense.
For example, when we sense the Lord desires to fill us, we can say, “Lord I’m willing for You to fill me. I open that You may saturate my mind, emotion and will with Yourself.”
In such a prayer we confess our sins, surrender to the Lord, and entrust ourselves to Him. The issue of such prayer is thanking, praising and worshipping.
Fourth, we need to consider the following practical points in having a specific time for the prayer of fellowship:
- There is no need to hurry; there are many details in this kind of prayer.
- Be aware that Satan often tries to interrupt such times of prayer.
- We should leave every disturbance behind in order to contact God (Matt. 14:23).
- While we’re waiting on the Lord we can utter words of praise to Him in order to keep our mind from wandering.
- We usually need to wait on the Lord for some time before our spirit can enter into His presence to have deeper fellowship with Him.
- It’s best to set aside at least a ½ hour or even an hour to learn this kind of prayer.
May we all practice to spend adequate time with Lord to learn the lessons in fellowship with Him. This will cause us to be thoroughly mingled with God and enable us to be really useful in His hand.
Lord Jesus, thank you for revealing to us a practical way to enter into deeper fellowship with You. Lord grant us Your mercy and grace to know You in a deeper way that You may fill all our being with Yourself and so that You may flow out of us to supply so many thirsty people with Your divine life.
Praying to fellowship with God is something that we’ll be learning for the rest of our lives. Possibly you’ve learned some lessons that can help the rest of us to advance more quickly. If so, please share them. We’d love to hear from you. If you have questions, ask them. Maybe we can find the answers together.
This post is a digestion or partial chapter review of Chapter One of Fellowshipping with the Lord for the Mingling of God with Man by Witness Lee.
For more on the prayer of fellowship you may want to read my post on 14 Words to Enrich Your Fellowship with the Lord. You may also enjoy reading a related post at aGodman.com. In addition, you might find that praying over a hymn or two may enrich your prayer of fellowship. (Make sure to click “View Lyrics” to link to the words.)
About Tom Smith
Hi. My name is Tom Smith. I'm the writer behind Holding to Truth in Love, and I love the Lord Jesus and His life-giving Word. Please feel free to send me an e-mail through the contact page if you have any questions. I hope you'd take a moment to subscribe to the Holding to Truth blog. Then you'll be sure not to miss a post. Thanks!
I really enjoyed your practical points on prayer, especially that there is no need to hurry and that we need to spend time to wait on the Lord. Keep encouraging us brother! And may you also be encouraged!
I really am concerned for many young people, college-age, and young adults that may have “inherited” their Christian faith but with very little first hand experience. Without personal transactions with the Lord, our faith may not have deep enough roots. We need deepen our spiritual roots that we may stand the trials of human life and storms in our Christian life and church life. Without intimate fellowship with the Lord and learning to know the Lord in our spirit, it may be easy to stumbled and fall away from the Lord. May we take these words to heart and learn the lessons in having fellowship with Lord and help younger believers to follow our pattern by entering into this life-long practice.
Thank you for the post. Nothing can replace time spent in fellowship with the Lord.
Amen. Thanks for the encouraging comment.
May the Lord grant us to have many first hand experiences of coming to Him to have adequate, personal and intimate fellowship with Him.
Yes, may we can never be contented with where we are. May we come to the Lord again and again for adequate personal, intimate fellowship with Him. “Lord, call us all more deeply into the inner chamber with You til we’re thoroughly mingled with You and flow You out to others.”
How encouraging! Just what I need! “Pray to fellowship with Jesus, In the spirit seek His face…” How we need to exercise to be men of prayer! Thank you, brother.
Glad you enjoyed it. Yes, may we give the Lord our first love, the first place in our lives by being men of prayer who pray to fellowship with Jesus every day.
Thanks for the helpful post. As you indicate, fellowshipping with the Lord takes time, so there’s a need for us to set aside time simply to enter into and enjoy the Lord’s presence.
Related to this matter, I’m reminded of a wonderful hymn, the first stanza of which is:
Lord, in Thy presence silent I would be,
That in the inmost I to Thee may come;
I would not in my own way pray to Thee,
But let Thy prayer in me my prayer become.
The rest of the hymn is available here: http://www.witness-lee-hymns.org/hymns/H0764.html.
Great practical points! Lord help us in our prayer life! Help us become men of prayer!
Amen. Thanks for the encouraging comment. May the Lord lead us step by step into the same intimacy in fellowship that He enjoys with the Father.
Thanks Tom. I recently had a fun experience of joy and vigor from endeavoring to pray, and enjoy him while doing a painting project. It is also very good to pray w/ thanksgiving.
I really appreciate this practical help. I have some extra time this week and, propelled by this post, I am endeavoring to have such a time as described in this post each day. I had some time today, and feel that I really need to learn what it means to BE with God and have fellowship with Him. I just today came across these quotes when scanning through some old Christians books: “Prayer is the most intimate expression of the Christian life…..Communication with God is among the earliest recorded practices of humankind…God’s evident intent was to be in constant and vital communion with those He created in His own image. He did not intend for people to have to make it on their own. Communion with Him was to be the umbilical cord through which His offspring would be sustained and joined to Deity.”
That first point about prayer, that prayer is to fellowship with God and be filled with God, is really important. It doesn’t matter that much what we say. Really. We can open to God and say just about anything.
One time, I didn’t know what to pray, so I stopped, opened a cookbook, and read the Lord a recipe for a salad dressing. We had great fellowship together. After I closed the cookbook, I felt really revived and energized. Try it. Grab the nearest product or food you have, open to Him, and read the Lord the ingredients and instructions. It’s great!
It’s good to come to the Lord right where we are. One time, I got a traffic ticket and was pretty distressed. I just took it as the opportunity to pray, to open to the Lord to have fellowship with Him. This prayer for fellowship is first to exhale–to pray out all that we are–our sin, our self, our sorrow. Then we can inhale–to breath in all that He is–His joy and comfort, His life and peace. A.B. Simpson’s hymn, “O Lord breathe Thy Spirit on me” has been a real encouragement to me in this matter. This kind of prayer causes us to enter into God and be mingled with Him.
When we’ve been brought into God through such fellowship, we can inquire of the Lord as to what He wants us to pray for. I’m endeavoring to learn the lesson of following the Lord in prayer to allow Him to initiate His burden in me for His move. Such prayers honor the Lord, match the principles of pray, and will be answered by Him.
Dear Br,your posts are highly valuable in Christian life as the fellowship with Jesus is the key for all success especially in ministry.I was earnestly seeking the subject.
Br I need Ur help as I am a baby in this matr.
pls pray for me and send me some more tips to have good fellowship with Jesus.
pls send it to email.
Jose, glad you enjoyed the post practical points on how to fellowship with the Lord. For more help with prayer please visit the Holding to Truth Prayer Life page. Then take a moment to let me know what help you received. I also sent a reply to your email.
Thanks Tom for this very interesting and practical points on prayer of fellowship. but i find myself in need of a bit more of advise. I can’t seem to be in prayer for more than 10 minutes no matter how hard i try, cause i seem to always be at a loss of words and thoughts.
Tosin, I really sympathize with your situation, because often that’s my case as well. It is really difficult to simply remain with the Lord in fellowship. This is when coming to God’s word is so helpful, not mainly for Bible study but for taking the word as the fuel for your prayer. Try reading a few verses from Ephesians, for example, (like 3:16-19) and then turn every word or phrase into your own prayer to the Lord, whether giving thanks, petitioning for yourself or others, or praising God for Who He is. This helpful practice we call pray-reading the Word. Here is a post that will introduce you to this practice as well as a podcast demonstrating how to practice.
God is good, I am inspired and motivated. Thanks and God bless you with more wisdom on this.
Godwin, what a blessing it is to learn to fellowship with the Lord! This kind of practice is a life-long learning. So we should simply give ourselves to practice, setting aside a certain amount of time each day to fellowship with the Lord. Such fellowship is not primarily a matter of asking Him for things but for appreciating Who He is and allowing Him to saturate us with Himself. When His desires are imparted into us, then our prayers becomes a response, an echo, of His will back to Him. Glad you were inspired and motivated by the post.