Praying in the Spirit
But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Jude 1:20-21
In this section of scripture, Jude gave us three ways to keep ourselves in the love of God:
- Build ourselves up in the faith
- Pray in the Holy Spirit
- Look for the return of Jesus Christ
Yesterday we looked at how we build up our faith (read that post HERE), today we'll be looking at praying in the Holy Spirit.
When some people hear the phrase "praying in the Spirit" they sometimes consider it a "holy roller" thing, where people are stumbling around as if they're drunk, falling over, shaking, etc. While you may find this happening in some churches (not in the bible, but that's another post), that isn't what Jude is talking about.
Praying in the Spirit has two aspects:
1) Prayer guided by the Spirit, and
2) Prayer uttered by the Spirit.
Prayer guided by the Spirit
When we pray, our focus is often what we need God's help with. There's nothing wrong with bringing our needs to God (Phil 4:6), but it's only half the picture. Praying in the Spirit means that we allow our prayer to be guided by the Holy Spirit.
Often when I'm praying, out of the blue a person or a situation will come to my mind. I used to chalk it up to my mind wondering (an easy thing to happen), but over time I've learned that in fact those seemingly random thoughts are actually the Holy Spirit prompting me how to pray. If you think about it, God is omniscient (all-knowing), and so it stands to reason that He knows more about what's happening around me that I do. There may be some situation that I'm completely unaware of, yet God wants to move in that situation, so He'll prompt me with a thought to pray for that person or situation. And it never fails, when I reach out to that person, "Hey, I was praying for you this morning," their response is something like "wow, thanks! I was really having a tough morning…" Bam - GOD MOMENT!
So next time you're praying, and something or someone comes to your mind, consider it a prompting from the Holy Spirit, and lift up that situation in prayer. Then, contact them and let them know you were praying for them… I'll bet that they needed prayer right at that moment!
(check in tomorrow for "prayer uttered by the Spirit")
Pastor Clay
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