The Holy Spirit: Key to Prayer

It is encouraging to recall that Paul, probably the greatest human exponent and example of the exercise of prayer, confessed, "We do not even know how we ought to pray.

" But he hastened to add, "The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness... but through our inarticulate groans the Spirit himself is pleading for us, and God who searches our inmost being knows what the Spirit means, because he pleads for God's people in God's own way" (Ro. 8:26-28, NEB).

The Spirit links Himself with us in our praying and pours His supplications into our own. We may master the technique of prayer and understand its philosophy; we may have unlimited confidence in the veracity and validity of the promises concerning prayer. We may plead them earnestly. But if we ignore the part played by the Holy Spirit, we have failed to use the master key.

Progressive teaching in the art of praying is needed, and the Holy Spirit is the master Teacher. His assistance in prayer is more frequently mentioned in Scripture than any of His other offices. All true praying stems from His activity in the soul.

Both Paul and Jude teach that effective prayer is "praying in the Spirit.” The phrase has been interpreted as praying along the same lines, about the same things, in the same name, as the Holy Spirit.

True prayer rises in the spirit of the Christian from the Spirit who indwells him.

"Praying in the Spirit" may have a dual significance. It may mean praying in the realm of the Spirit, for the Holy Spirit is the sphere and atmosphere of the Christian's life. But in fact, many of our prayers are psychical rather than spiritual. They move in the realm of the mind alone, the product of our own thinking and not of the Spirit's teaching. But this is something deeper.

The type of praying envisaged in this phrase "utilizes the body, demands the cooperation of the mind, but moves in the supernatural realm of the Spirit." This kind of prayer transacts its business in the heavenly realm.

But the phrase "praying in the Spirit" may also mean praying in the power and energy of the Spirit. "Give yourselves wholly to prayer and entreaty; pray on every occasion in the power of the Spirit," is the New English Bible rendering of Eph. 6:18.

For its superhuman task, prayer demands more than mere human power, and this is supplied by the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of power as well as the Spirit of prayer. Human energy of heart and mind and will can achieve only human results, but praying in the Holy Spirit releases supernatural resources.