Prayer - pray in the Spirit

One hot August day in 1906, Norwegian American Ole Evinrude and his fiancée Bess Cary went on a romantic picnic on an island in the middle of a Wisconsin lake. By the time they had rowed out to the island, they were parched and hot.

“Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a dish of ice cream!” sighed Bess.

In the next moment, Ole was back in the rowboat heading toward the mainland for that ice cream, a round-trip row of five miles in the blistering sun. The oars creaked in the locks, Ole’s back bent in labour and sweat poured down his face. At the end of a mile, he dropped the oars to rest a minute and thought, Gosh, why doesn’t somebody invent a motor for these boats?

There are now millions of outboard motors around the world which bear the name Evinrude!

A different way of doing things! For every task there are nearly always alternative approaches and some are more effective than others

Eph. 6:10-18 Pray in the Spirit

Paul doesn’t just say pray – he says pray in the Spirit – a particular way of praying

What does he really mean here?

Pentecostal approach has often been to assume he means praying in tongues

Others have taken the view that it is trusting the Holy Spirit to remind you of the things that need praying about

I believe it is neither and both of these

• Neither, because both of these definitions are far two narrow
  
• Both, because both of these can be a part

Read the Bible and you will often find a contrast between the spiritual and the natural, godly vs. human wisdom, man’s own strength or the power of God, the spirit of man and this world or the Holy Spirit

V18 All kinds of prayers and requests – there is variety here but underlying this variety there is an empowerment by the Holy Spirit

Rom. 8:26-27 What is this about?

It is not tongues – tongues are languages – unknown and often strange but still languages

Three mentions of groaning in Rom. 8

V22 ever since the fall of man creation has groaned – all is not well

V23 for us who live in this sinful world there is a groaning as we wait for the glorious things that are to come

V26 groans of intercession

Groaning is a deep heartfelt thing – groaning prayer is when our hearts are moved – groaning prayer is when our spirit connects with the Holy Spirit and is moved with a godly passion

Holy Spirit prayer affects our whole being

Two words to help us: natural and Spiritual

• Natural is what we naturally do – the human solution
  
• Spiritual is what is God inspired and empowered – not obvious and not always humanly possible

Natural prayer primarily affects the mind – spiritual prayer affects the whole of us

A groan is an emotional thing – they come out when our guard is down – when we are not being neatly in control of everything

Natural prayer is tidy, it is civilised, requests are made in an orderly fashion and measured language

Spiritual prayer comes from deep within – a heart cry

It causes people to cry out, to stand up, to kneel down, to fall on their faces, to weep, to groan

Don’t confuse this with the noisy prayer of the pagans who feel the need to shout and fuss to get the attention of their gods

Noisy pagan prayer has its origin in man trying hard rather than man overcome by the Holy Spirit

Invite the Holy Spirit to fill you and use you – it’s an obvious one but one that we easily miss

1 Cor. 14:1-18 Overall this passage is about what is useful to others in the church

There are also some insights into the use of tongues

V14 Tongues bypass the mind – their use is a spiritual activity that does nothing for your mind or the mind of others around you

They do however have an effect on the person speaking

V4 they edify (strengthen) the individual

Two mistakes believers often make is thinking that tongues are everything – just pray in tongues or that tongues are nothing – no real need to pray in tongues, better to pray in you own known language

What is Paul’s approach though?

V15 He chooses to do both!

Tongues are great (v5, v18) but he will not use them exclusively

Praying in tongues is a part of praying in the Spirit – it is not all, it is not unimportant

It will equip and empower your praying

Learn to mingle tongues with understood words of praise

Remember too that other gifts are going to flow as you spend time allowing the Holy Spirit to empower you

Expect words of knowledge that lead your prayers, expect gifts of faith that will enable you to pray for big things

Jude 20 The and here is possibly not helpful

You actually build yourself up by praying in the Holy Spirit which in turn enables you to pray in the Holy Spirit

Starting an engine – especially one with a handle or a pull cord – there is a certain amount of input needed before the power really becomes available

We are the same when we pray – we become like an idle engine, cold and lacking movement

We need to build up spiritual momentum – three things that are powerful: the Word, praise and tongues

Without this spiritual momentum our praying will be natural rather than spiritual

A few differences between natural and spiritual praying:

Natural begins with a problem – spiritual begins with praise

Natural often begins with exasperation – spiritual begins with inspiration

Natural springs out of our understanding – spiritual springs out of the Holy Spirit’s understanding

Natural worries about getting the words right – spiritual can be a groan that words cannot express