Dr. F. J. Huegel in Bones of His Bones, says it this way:
“When we come to consider prayer in the light of ‘co-crucifixion,’ as this position may be called, we find that prayer truly comes into its own on this basis. Prayer is nothing if it is not communion, and true communion is only possible when the ‘old life’ which cannot have fellowship with God is terminated.
The reason why many are finding prayer so unsatisfactory and the life of prayer so unattractive is because they have attempted to enter into the celestial realms of prayer in the strength of the ‘old man!’
True prayer can only be offered on the basis of ‘co-crucifixion.’ This is the prime condition. ‘If you abide in Me and I in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.’ We must be ‘in Christ.’ But we cannot be in Christ in the fullest sense unless in the power of the Savior’s death we commit to death the ‘old life.’
It is when we realize our oneness with Christ in death and resurrection that prayer becomes the marvelous force that we find it was in the life of the Savior, the invincible dynamic that it reveals itself to be in the book of Acts, and the ineffable experience of the great saints of the ages. It is then that our spirits as well, liberated by the power of the cross from their fleshly and soulish entanglements, ‘mount up on wings as eagles.’ It is then that the communion with God comes spontaneously and naturally to its fullest expression.
Prayer then becomes a working out of the will of God, and therefore must prevail—be the difficulties what they may, however staggering the problem, however great the need. It is then that the great disparity between what the Master said prayer would accomplish and the miserable caricature that it is in the actual practice of millions, is removed, and prayer blossoms out in all the glory of its true nature!
Seeing prayer in the light of the cross and our participation in the Savior’s death and resurrection, we are not the least surprised over the achievements of some of the great prayer warriors of the church.”