Praying in the Spirit
“Praying in the Holy Ghost.” Jude i :20.
OHE mystery of prayer! There is nothing like it in the natural universe. A higher and a lower being in perfect communion. A familiar intercourse, yet both as widely distinct as the finite is from the infinite. More wonderful even than that we should be able to hold converse with the insect that crawls beneath our feet, or the bird that flutters on the branches at our window! Marvelous bond of prayer which can span the gulf between the Creator and the creature, the infinite God and the humblest and most illiterate child!
How has this been accomplished? The three Divine persons have all co-operated in opening the gates of prayer. The Father waits at the throne of grace as the hearer of prayer; the Son has come to reveal the Father, and has returned to be our Advocate in His presence. And the Holy Spirit has come still nearer, as the other Advocate in the heart, to teach us the heavenly secret of prayer, and send up our petitions in the true spirit to the hands of our heavenly Intercessor.
1. The H’oly Spirit reveals to us our needs. This is always the first element in prayer, a painful consciousness of failure and necessity. The Spirit of prayer is the spirit of dependence and conscious need.
2. The Holy Spirit next awakens in the soul holy desires for the blessings that God is about to give. Desire is an element in prayer. ‘’Whatsoever things ye desire,” our Lord says, “when ye pray believe that ye receive them.” These deep, spiritual longings are like the rootlets by which the plant draws the nourishment from the soil; like the absorbing vessels of the human system, which take in and assimilate nourishment and food. The desires give intensity and force to our prayer, and enlarge the heart to receive the blessing when it comes. God, therefore, often keeps His children waiting for the visible answer to their petitions, in order that they may the more ardently desire the blessing, and be thus enabled to receive it more fully and appreciate it more gratefully when it comes.
3. The Holy Spirit lays upon the heart wherein He dwells the special burden of prayer. We often read in the old prophetic Scripture of “the burden of the Lord.” And so still the Lord lays His burden on His consecrated messengers. This is the meaning of the strong language of text, “The Spirit maketh intercession within us with groanings which cannot be uttered,” Sometimes this burden is inarticulate and unintelligible even to the supplicant himself.
It is not necessary that we should always know; indeed, perhaps we shall never fully know what any of our prayers wholly mean; God’s answer is always larger than our petition, and even when our prayer is most definite and intelligent there is a wide margin which only the Holy Ghost can interpret, and God will fill it up in His infinite wisdom and love. That is what is meant by the significant language of the text, “He that searched! the heart knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, for He maketh intercession for die saints according to the will of God.” The Father is always searching our hearts and listening, not to ur wild and often mistaken outcries, but to the mind of the Holy Spirit in us, whom He recognizes as our true guardian and monitor, and He grants us according to His petitions and not merely our words.
The sensitive spirit grows very quick to discern God’s voice. That which would naturally be considered as simple depression of spirit comes to be instantly recognized as a hint that God has something to say to us, or something to ask in us for ourselves or others. If we were but more watchful we would find that nothing comes to us at any moment of our lives which has not some divine significance, and which does not lead us in some way to communion or service.
4. The Spirit brings to our hearts, in the ministry of prayer, the encouragement of God’s Word, the promises of His grace, and the fullness of Christ to meet our need. It is He who gives us such conceptions of Christ as awaken in us confidence of blessing. He opens to our vision the infinite resources of the grace of God, and shows us all the rich provision of our Father’s house.
Thus He is in us the Spirit of faith, the Spirit of adoption, the Spirit of liberty in prayer, the Spirit of holy confidence and enlargement of heart, and the witnessing Spirit, who, when we pray in faith, seals upon our soul the divine assurance that our prayer is accepted before God, and that the answer will be surely given. Our Lord always requires this faith as the condition of answered prayer. ‘‘Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” “Let him ask in faith, nothing doubting. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.”
5. .The Holy Spirit will also teach us when to cease from prayer, and turn our petition into thanksgiving, or go out in obedience to meet the answer as it waits before us, or comes to meet us.