If you remain in Me & My Words remain in you,
ask whatever you wish & it will be given you.

JOHN 15:7

In creation God acts sovereignly & alone.

But in the unfolding of His redemptive purposes, He wills it otherwise.

He chooses to unite with Himself us & He share with us the excitement of creativity.

The incarnation was part of the working out of this plan.
He sent His Son to become man,
God reveals in a new way
His purpose to limit Himself to working in & through a relationship with us.

The vital, indispensable part of this working relationship is prayer.

God communicated His will to the Son in the intensive exercise of prayer that occupied so many of our Lord’s nights in desert places.

Then on earth, working according to His Father’s will, Jesus acted in the performance of signs & wonders, counting on the power he had requested in prayer because His will was one with the Father’s.

This brings us to the basic divine principle in prayer—

God uses us with Himself in whatever He wants to do,
We’re used through God leading us to pray
then giving us the thing for which He burdened us to pray.

God’s will is to send rain on Ahab’s drought-stricken land.
He will not act alone.
He unites Elijah with Himself in His purposes by communicating to Elijah His intention;
then when Elijah prays, God acts.

Elijah could bring a drought on Israel in the first place,
not just because he prayed the rain out of the sky,
but because he could first say,

“As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand.”

He was not initiating some self-conceived idea,
He was acting with God for the performance of God’s will . . .
for just such a situation as prevailed in his days.

The same principle is taught by the Lord Jesus under the symbolism of the vine & the branches.

Abiding in Him is the condition He established for our asking & His acting.

What had been set up as the working arrangement between Jesus & His Father
is perpetuated in our relationship between Jesus & His believers.

It was to be standard operational procedure.

ARTHUR MATTHEWS

Prayer is an impossible task without the Holy Spirit.

SAMUEL CHADWICK

When God intends great mercy for His people, He first sets them praying.

MATTHEW HENRY