The basic revelation of the New Testament is that we, the descendants of Adam, regardless of whether we are sinful or righteous, of whether we are good or bad, are altogether the old creation. Whether you are good or bad, you need to be regenerated. Even if we were not sinful, we would still need to be regenerated. Many have the concept that we need to be regenerated because we are evil. But all people, regardless of whether they are good or evil, need to be regenerated.
In Genesis 2 we see two trees—the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (v. 9). This shows that good does not belong to life. Good belongs to Satan. God’s intention is not to have a good man. His intention is to make a new man out of the old man. This is why we need to be reborn, to be regenerated with the divine life. The basic thought of the New Testament revelation is that we need to be a new person.
Nicodemus was a moral, high-class person who considered Christ as a teacher who had come from God (John 3:2). This indicates that he might have thought that he needed better teachings so that he could improve himself. But the Lord Jesus responded to him by saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (v. 3). To be born anew is to be born again, which is to be regenerated with the divine life, a life different from the human life received by natural birth.
After being born again, we are still mostly in the old creation, so the Bible continues to show us that after regeneration we need to be renewed (Eph. 4:23; Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 4:16). Second Corinthians 3:18 shows us that as we behold the Lord with an unveiled face, we are being transformed into His image. Romans 8:29 tells us that we need to be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God. The model to which we are being conformed is Christ as the firstborn Son of God. He is altogether different from the natural man, from us. We need to be renewed, transformed, and eventually conformed to Christ’s image. After we have been regenerated, we may be loving the Lord and seeking after Him. We may be very religious, pious, and even “godly,” but we are in the old creation. We all need to be renewed, transformed, and conformed to the image of Christ.
This is why I have done my best to adjust the way you pray. Our former way of prayer was not the prayer from the new creation but the prayer from the old creation according to the old and natural way. Now I would like to read and comment on something Brother Watchman Nee spoke in his fellowship concerning the prayer ministry of the church. Brother Nee said:
During our prayer, we must also guard against the prayers that are not prayers.
Brothers and sisters, in prayer we must be broken. To be broken means to be finished. To be broken means “No more I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20a).
I want to emphasize Brother Nee’s word that we should guard against the prayers that are not prayers. We may pray much, but what we pray may not be real prayer. This is why I have adjusted our prayer. We may think that as long as one prays, that is wonderful. When someone prays, we may feel that merely because he has prayed, that is prayer. But Brother Nee said that during our prayer, we must guard against the prayers that are not prayers.
Brother Nee continues:
Satan will not only take away our time of prayer, but also strip us of the strength to pray. He will come in even while we pray to make us speak many unrelated, confused, unimportant, and vain words. He will cause us to ask in vain and to waste our time of prayer.
These unrelated, confused, unimportant, and vain words can be uttered when we pray long prayers. Long prayers are full of such words. Satan uses these long prayers to exhaust us, to strip us of our energy. We may pray for ten minutes, but these ten minutes could be a waste of our time.
Brother Nee continues:
He will try to occupy our time of prayer so that the effect of our prayer will amount to nothing. Many fleshly, old, long, mundane, heartless, and aimless prayers are time-consuming and wasteful prayers.
The word mundane does not merely mean commonplace but worldly, natural, and fleshly. Something mundane is not spiritual but fleshly, not sanctified or heavenly but worldly. Such mundane and long prayers are time-consuming and wasteful prayers. We should realize that many times in our meetings in the past, our prayers were like this.
Brother Nee went on to say:
It may seem that we are just praying out of habit. But actually within these prayers are suggestions, instigations, and deceptions of Satan.
Brother Nee was more strict than I am. He considered that in these long prayers, there were even suggestions, instigations, and deceptions of Satan.
He said:
If we are not watchful, our prayer will become meaningless and fruitless. One brother mentioned a story he read in the biography of Evan Roberts. Once a few people were in his home praying for something. Halfway through one brother’s prayer, Mr. Roberts went over and covered that brother’s mouth, saying, “Brother, don’t go on. You are not praying.” The brother reading this story said within himself, “How could Mr. Roberts do this?” But later he realized that Mr. Roberts was right. Many words in our prayers are spoken by the flesh through the instigation of Satan. These prayers may be long, but many of them are impractical and useless. Brothers and sisters, this is a fact. Many times in our prayer, we seem to circle around the whole world. Time is wasted and strength is exhausted, yet nothing that is to the point is prayed about. We cannot expect God to answer this kind of prayer. This kind of prayer does not have any spiritual value. Hence, when we pray, we have to be watchful and not spend too much time or give too many reasons.
When we pray, we should not give too many reasons. Instead of giving the Lord a description with many reasons, we should simply tell Him what we want. Recently in a co-workers’ meeting, I told the brothers that their prayer was much improved. But a few co-workers still like to give the Lord many reasons in their prayer. We do not need to give the Lord the reasons why we need power. We should simply pray, “Lord, give us the power.” The reasons are just a decoration to our prayer. We decorate our prayer with many reasons which make our prayer wasteful.
Brother Nee goes on to tell us how we should pray:
Rather, we should speak what is in our heart to God in a sincere way. We must never fill up our prayer with many empty words.
This shows us that we need to be transformed not only in our daily life but also in our prayer in the meetings. A few saints among us were used to praying many times in the prayer meeting with long prayers. This means that their prayer was short of transformation.