Day 13 – Words Attract: Praying Spirit Words

“But you, beloved, building yourselves up in you most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit” Jude 1:20

We must come face to face with our tendency to try to pray on our own. Praying in the Spirit is the polar opposite of praying in the flesh. The latter relies upon the human ability of words carrying the prayer forward. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said: “We all know what it is to feel deadness in prayer, difficulty in prayer, to be tongue-tied, without nothing to say, as it were, having to force ourselves to try. Well, to the extent that is true of us, we are not praying in the Spirit”

Praying in the Spirit means that the Holy Spirit empowers the prayer and carries it to the Father in the Name of Jesus. The words in your prayer have a living quality characterized by warmth, freedom, and a sense of exchange. The Holy Spirit illuminates our minds, moves our hearts, and grants a freedom of utterance and liberty of expression. But praying in the Spirit will not always feel electrifying, sometimes it will feel like groaning, all depending on what you are praying on. The result of the Holy Spirit’s work is that we bow before God as humbled children in the awe of God and expressing this feeling through the words in our prayers.

“Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” Romans 8:26-27.

Prayer: Father, teach me to rely on the Holy Spirit when praying. To concentrate on what words I am praying. Please forgive me for the fleshly prayers that left my lips. Let my words of prayer be filled with Your Spirit – speaking Your Word back to You. Amen.