According to our physical life we could understand and we could see a full illustration that to live is simply to breathe. Now we need to discover what is our spiritual breathing. No doubt our spiritual breathing is just our praying. But this does not mean prayer in the traditional way. Prayer in the Bible in actual practice is calling. I don’t believe you can pray adequately without calling on the name of the Lord. At the very beginning of the ministry in this country, I strongly said that we don’t need to exercise our mind merely to study the Bible that much. Some dissenting ones argued, saying that the Bible says we need to meditate. They pointed out that Psalm 1 and Psalm 19 use this word meditate several times. That really bothered me so I spent further hours to study the word meditate in Hebrew. I found out that this is not a simple word. It is a very complicated word. Young’s Concordance tells us that this word includes bowing down. Then Darby in his New Translation for Psalm 55:17 translates this word into pray. So according to the biblical usage, to meditate is to bow down, to worship, and to pray. It is not just a kind of mental exercise to think about something, to ponder something, to consider something. At the end of Genesis 24, Isaac at the evening time went to the open air to meditate. Some versions translate this to pray. If you didn’t know the original Hebrew word, you might be bothered. How could one version translate it meditate and another translate it to pray? It is because this one simple word meditate, in biblical use, includes bowing down to God and implies praying.
In the same principle, when the Bible says to pray, it implies to call on the name of the Lord. How could you pray without calling on the name of the Lord? When you hear the word call you may understand that this means a kind of loud cry. It does mean this, yet many times we may call without crying out. But still we are calling. In Ephesians 6 this term is used: “By means of all prayer.” This little word “all” bothers the expositors. “All” surely indicates many prayers or many kinds of prayers. The best word studies all agree that “all” here in Ephesians 6 means all kinds of prayer. But what are the different prayers? I would say this: the kinds of prayers should have no limitation. You may say we have only three kinds of chairs, but you cannot say and you should not say that we have only ten kinds of prayers or eight kinds of prayers. The number of the kinds of prayers should be innumerable. There are many kinds of prayers. You should not limit yourself in the kinds of prayers. You have to pray in any way. And to pray is to call. When you say to pray you may not realize praying is a kind of breathing. But if you go on from prayer to calling, calling surely indicates some amount of breathing. So in the spiritual life to pray is to breathe, and to breathe is to live. What I have learned this past week is that to live Christ is to pray unceasingly, and to pray unceasingly is just to call on the Lord while you are doing anything.
Now I would add a word which is very crucial. You may ask: For what do you need to call on the Lord? During the last meeting I indicated that you have so many members of the church to pray for. That is right, but let me tell you that according to what I have discovered in this past week, while you are doing anything you should pray. You should call on the Lord. While you are doing anything you must spontaneously check with yourself: are you doing this very thing or is the Lord doing this very thing with you? Are you doing this very thing by yourself or are you doing this very thing by the Lord with you? We need to build up this good habit. As you talk with your wife and your children, you must exercise this habit: “Lord, is this just myself speaking or are You speaking with me?” You must have such a spontaneous checking habit. That checking is the calling, and that calling is the prayer, and that prayer is the breathing. Even you have to drive your car with such a habit: “Lord, are You driving? Are You driving with me?” Previously I told you not to do anything without first praying. But now I would add another word: don’t do anything without praying. You have to pray. And to pray is just to call on the name of the Lord. And to call on the Lord is just to breathe. By this you will live Christ.
I would like to cut a way so that this word may have an entrance into you. Don’t look down on such a word, considering that it is nothing. You need to breathe. If you look down on and despise this point, you will die spiritually. For so many years you haven’t been living Christ because you have been lacking in this matter. You have learned so many things—how to do this and how to do that. But not one of the how-tos is workable. You learn how to overcome, but you have no overcoming. You learn how to be holy, but you have no holiness. You learn how to be patient, but you have no patience. You may have learned many how-tos but you have neglected one thing, that is, you don’t live. All the time, instead of living, you die. This simply means you don’t pray unceasingly. If you are an accountant working on your books, you have to keep praying. Don’t do your accounting work by yourself. Do it with the Lord Jesus. Do it by having the Lord with you. The best way to have the Lord with you is by calling on Him. It is here you have the victory. It is here you are sanctified. It is here you have everything you need, not only constantly but even instantly. If you live such a life, doing everything by having the Lord with you, how could you lose your temper? How could you gossip? How could you speak an idle word?