Pray in the Spirit

“What a man is on his knees before God, that he is— and nothing more.” In that coming day when the hearts of men are revealed, a day which is now nearer than when we first believed, there will be some “big men” who will appear very small, and some we had thought small will appear as spiritual giants. How different are spiritual values when God takes them from the balances of human judgment and weighs them on the balances of the sanctuary.

“How?” is a question that the believer is forever asking, even if only deep in the heart. To our every “How?” heaven gives the same answer as Gabriel gave to Mary—“ The Holy Spirit.”

to pray effectively, how to prevail in prayer. “The Spirit helps us in our weakness,” replies the apostle. “The Spirit Himself intercedes for us” (Rom. 8: 26). The gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit is God’s complete answer to all our weakness, ignorance and inability in the realm of prayer.

In the Upper Room discourse (John 14– 16) our Lord gave His followers their fullest unfolding of the promised Holy Spirit. In five great declarations He revealed what the Holy Spirit was to be to them and to do for them. It is significant that in the same passage we find some five or six great prayer promises. It was through the Holy Spirit that they would find the prayer promises fulfilled. Further, the distinctive title our Lord gave to the Holy Spirit was “The Comforter” or “The Advocate,” a title that would have suggested to the disciples a ministry of intercession. Our Lord wanted them to know that the Holy Spirit was an intercessor, and that He would accomplish this ministry in them.

If someone should ask, “How do you know what spirit came upon you?” I would reply, “By the fruit produced. I soon discovered that the Spirit that had come upon me was an interceding Spirit.”

“Praying in the Spirit” summarizes in a phrase the New Testament norm for the believer’s prayer life.

Paul could never have asked the Galatians, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?” if their experience of receiving the Spirit had not been at least as clearly defined as their experience of receiving Christ.

THERE is only one place in the Bible where we are given any insight into the work of the Holy Spirit as intercessor, and that is Romans 8: 26– 27:

A few verses farther on we are introduced to Another who also intercedes for us: Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. (8: 34) So the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, and Christ Jesus intercedes for us. It is important to see that these two intercessions, though related, are quite distinct.

Suppose a man decides to settle some dispute by litigation. His case may be good, but he knows nothing of court procedure, or how to carry his case by debate and argument. He is incapable of presenting the facts so as to convince the judge, so he calls to his aid a lawyer who accepts the man as his client, and conducts the case on his behalf. So do these two divine Advocates, though in different ways.

Notice that there is a difference in the location of these two intercessors. Christ intercedes “at the right hand of God” (Rom. 8: 34). He is our “Advocate with the Father” (1 John 2: 1). The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, intercedes in the hearts of men (Rom. 8: 27). Christ’s intercession is apart from us; the Holy Spirit’s is within us.

Nothing we do can touch that intercession, for it proceeds on the ground of what He has done for us, His death and resurrection, not what we have done or are doing for Him.

Though Christ does not require us for His intercession, the Holy Spirit most assuredly does for His.

The Holy Spirit prays for us in the sense that He makes us the vehicle of His praying. He prays on our behalf by enabling us to pray— helping us in our weakness— who do not know how to pray as we ought.

through the believer. This is emphasized in Romans 8: 15– 16 in the Revised Standard Version by an interesting variation in wording from the King James Version: “When we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit Himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” Notice what Paul is saying, “When we cry . . . it is the Spirit.” We do the crying, but the Holy Spirit does the inspiring of the cry. Compare this with the day of Pentecost when “they began to speak . . . as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2: 4).

TO correctly understand the expression “Pray in the Spirit” we must first understand what Scripture means by “in the Spirit,” for it is used not only in connection with prayer. We need to define our terms carefully, because there has been a tendency in some quarters to assume too readily that praying in the Spirit and praying with the spirit are identical terms. This latter expression, found only in 1 Corinthians 14: 15, denotes praying in tongues, as the context clearly shows. By failing to distinguish the two terms, some have concluded that praying in the Spirit is limited to praying in tongues. In fact, praying in tongues is but one of three distinct kinds of praying in the Spirit mentioned in Scripture.

Now prayer is not the only activity “in the Spirit” required of us. The New Testament speaks of living in the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, worshiping in the Spirit, rejoicing in the Spirit, etc. All that is meant is that each activity is performed by the power and enabling of the Holy Spirit.

The first reference concludes that great passage in Ephesians 6 on the armor of God in the believer’s warfare (6: 18). The other, in Jude, follows the exhortation to build ourselves up on our most holy faith (6: 20). So it is in the context of battling and building that we are exhorted to “pray in the Spirit.” These two figures in fact sum up what the Christian life is all about.

He used the twin parables of the man intending to build a tower and the king going out to battle against another king (Luke 14: 28– 32). So discipleship, too, is a matter of building and battling.

• I don’t seem to have any real desire for prayer; I do it more out of a sense of duty than anything else.• When I pray I feel as though God is a million miles away.• I don’t seem to have any real assurance that He hears me, and that I am truly talking to Him.• I pray but nothing ever seems to happen. I get so discour- aged and feel, What’s the use?• I suffer from wandering thoughts in prayer and cannot seem to concentrate. SUCH remarks are commonly expressed by believers both young and old, and provide a living commentary on what the apostle says concerning “our weakness” in prayer, and the fact that “we do not know how to pray as we ought” (Rom. 8: 26). Most of us are very ready to acknowledge the truth of this. We strive to pray more often, more fervently, more believingly.

Even though we have the right of access we are still required to come with clean hands and a pure heart into God’s presence. Only by the confession of known sin and the thorough renunciation of it does the death of Christ and the power of His blood avail for us as we draw near to God. Otherwise, by countenancing sin in our hearts, we stop God’s ears (Isa. 59: 2; Ps. 66: 18). Any form of disobedience may easily produce an impenetrable barrier to our prayers and keep us out of touch with God. Where we are conscious of “something between” but do not know what it is, the Holy Spirit is ready and waiting to reveal it, if we will only seek the Lord. Where we do know, the remedy is simple; we must tread the humbling pathway of confession, renunciation and maybe restitution, and so be restored to God’s fellowship.

What Christ has accomplished for us by providing us with the right of access, the Spirit must now work in us by providing us with the power of access.

It is a fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ effected and maintained by the Holy Spirit.

If a man is summoned to the king’s palace to receive some decoration, the royal summons is his right to enter the king’s presence. It takes him past the sentries and officers of the guard who would otherwise bar him from the palace. But having gained entry he would be at a loss to find his way into the sovereign’s presence if left to himself in that labyrinth of corridors. He needs a palace attendant to conduct him personally to the audience chamber. The work of Christ provides us with the royal summons and constitutes our right of entry, but the indwelling Spirit is also needed to conduct us into God’s presence. It is His work to make access to God a reality; to bring to us the deep conviction that we are not talking into the air when we pray, but communing face to face with a loving heavenly Father.

Here is a basic rule: If intercession is to be effective it must be selective. But here lies our problem, “We know not what we should pray for. . . .”

But we may well ask, “How does the Holy Spirit teach us to pray according to God’s will?” Not by imparting facts and then leaving us to get on with the job, but by interceding for us, with us and in us.

He convicts of sin; He reveals Christ; He creates faith in what was until then an unbelieving heart.

Then He works in us a spirit of submission, so that we accept these divine orderings instead of kicking against the goad. But this is not a passive, fatalistic attitude, the “kismet” of the Muslim—“ God wills it, therefore I accept it.” It is that acquiescence which is the product of an active faith that my very problems will be made the stepping stones to success. It is not simply that God works all things together— the Muslim and the Hindu believe that— but that He works them together for good. Through facing and conquering these very difficulties we had thought were insurmountable, the Holy Spirit will work in us grace and grit, faith and fortitude, patience and perseverance— in fact the very qualities that are needed to make us real intercessors. Glory to God!

We are concerned here with those situations which are not the will of God for us in the sense of demanding our willing submission, but which we are to resist. Such attacks may be made on our spirits, our minds or our bodies.

I did not at this point address the Lord or ask for His help. I addressed Satan, using the authority the Lord had given me, and in the power of the Spirit told him to quit. Immediately the cloud lifted, and later that morning the Lord gave us the victory in prayer for the one in need.

Satan cannot raise his little finger unless first God permits it— but equally that it is the will of God that we resist it.

Like Moses on the mount, our hands hang down and our knees become feeble. The reason is that persevering prayer requires a pure faith, and so often our faith is the sort that too easily rests on the visible and the outward.

As we have pointed out earlier, praying in the Spirit is not necessarily praying in tongues, but praying in tongues should always be praying in the Spirit. It is possible for a gift that is truly of God to be operated in a fleshly way.

To return to the matter of praying in tongues, it is not that tongues is a superior kind of prayer, just that it is another very valuable kind. Paul says, “Pray at all times in the Spirit with all [kinds of ] prayer and supplication”— and this, with words unknown, is one of them. It has this added advantage over praying with the mind that the mind can relax, which is a great help when the mind is too tired for prolonged concentration. There is no suggestion here of making the mind a blank, for that can be dangerous.

Someone may be quick to warn us, “Seek the Giver, not the gifts— the Person, not the power.” This may sound very spiritual, but it is not in accord with Scripture. We are to “seek the Lord and His strength” (Ps. 105: 4). We are to seek the Giver and His gifts. It is certainly wrong to seek gifts for themselves, but right to seek them because we want more of Him; and He comes to us in His gift— they are manifestations of Him. Like everything else, gifts are received simply on the basis of faith. Rest your faith on God’s promises.

Can we groan inwardly and not be aware of it? Can the Spirit groan within us and we not know it? Surely not, if these two groanings are one. What has been said of the other two kinds of praying in the Spirit is equally true of this. It is our praying inspired and energized by the Spirit within us. The believer is praying without words simply because that is the manner in which the Spirit is moving within him.

Now the original does not actually say that the Spirit intercedes “according to the will of God,” but simply “according to God.” This is even stronger, for it suggests that the Spirit’s activity is not merely in harmony with God’s will but actually regulated by God.