PRAYER

in the Spirit's power

ver.: 18 March 2008

On This Page :
prayer and the Holy Spirit
prayer and charismatic renewal
pray instead of wish
no star system
the heart stuff

Also :
Bible verses on prayer
quotes on prayer
what is prayer?
good books on prayer
good links on prayer
in pdf document download form
(much more at end)

(Please, use this link for personal prayer requests.)

PRAYING AND THE SPIRIT

Traditionally, when Christians have prayed involving the Holy Spirit, we've prayed an epiclesis. That's fancy God-talk for saying that the prayers are a plea to the Father to fill us with the Spirit. In liturgical churches, the key epiclesis is found in the thanksgiving prayer before Holy Communion is given out. In some charismatic churches, an important epiclesis happens right before the sermon. The worshippers will come forward to make a huddle around the preacher, praying that the Spirit moves through the preacher and sermon. Every once in a while, a song will give praise to the Spirit, but most churches only do that once we've already said praises to the Father and to the Son. Almost no other churchly prayers or songs directly address the Spirit. This gives many people the impression that the Spirit is somehow third-rate. Today's liturgists and worship leaders have a long way to go to change that picture.

Christians don't pray to the Spirit to confess our sins nor do they plea to the Spirit for forgiveness. As Jesus taught in the Lord's Prayer, prayers go to the Father, so that the Son may step in for us now as He did when on earth. The different persons of the Trinity do different things. The Spirit moves you to turn to God in prayer and repentance, brings to your mind that there is hope in doing so, and makes you aware of the truth and the need. The Spirit prays with you, and when you reach the point where your prayers get stopped by human limits, the Spirit picks it up and keeps it running, "with sighs too deep for words". But don't think rigidly about these roles. All of the Triune God is at work in your prayers. If you pray to the Spirit, God responds just as well as if you prayed to the Father. The pattern is there not for God, but for us and our feeble grasp of the mysteries of how God works in prayer.

Prayer and Charismatics

The early years of the charismatic renewal were especially prayer-packed. An outsider could easily have seen the charismatic movement as a prayer movement. The prayer meeting was the charismatic renewal's beehive. It was the main activity for their gathering, their nurture, and for their spreading around. Several people would gather, often at someone's home, on their own accord, just to pray. Eventually, the groups got larger as more people came, and the scene shifted to churches. In the movement's heyday, there was a prayer group praying somewhere in many major cities, at any time, every day. Even on the overnight shift! (Shades of the prayer vigils of the Herrnhut of Zinzendorf's followers!) After many years of quieting down, once again young Christians from all over the world are holding every moment in prayer. There aren't as many of them as some published reports would lead us to believe, but then it has always been the work of the few. They've just returned to work.

The charismatic movement is prayerful before it is anything else. However, they're finding it harder to keep it up nowadays, because there's so much more to do : conferences and books and videos and web sites and programs and classes and church activities and stadium meetings and worship music CDs and visiting preachers and politics and warfare strategizing. Let's not forget WWJD bracelets and angel-on-my-shoulder jewelry. Oh yes -- all sorts of stuff about prayer and about someone else's powerful prayer ministry.

The Devil will do anything to get our mind off of our really praying or really serving.

Praying vs. Wishing

Some think praying is a form of wishing. A wish is a desire or longing for some specific thing. It is expressed as a petition : I wish I could have it. This is said aloud mostly so that the wish can be fulfilled by someone -- anyone -- who hears it. A wish is not often rooted in reality; it is as often as not something the wish-er knows they can't or shouldn't have. You want your wish to come true because it's something that would pleasze you. A wish is not entirely a bad thing; it may be the way you dream of what is to come. But if the dream is stuck at the level of being a wish, it will not become real.

In prayer, the pray-er specifically trusts God with the matter. You're calling on God to act, trusting that God will do what is ultimately best. It is a "Thy will be done" way of being. You're asking God to expand your understanding and insight, to give guidance, to grant forgiveness, to show you what gifts have been given to you, or to act for the sake of someone else. This is not about longings or fleeting concerns or self-puffery. Prayer is a crucial step in your doing your part of what God is doing in this world. For in it, you discover what your part is. Your will may not be done; something better may well be done instead. God makes what is prayed for become real, by working in you and in others to make it happen.

There's nothing at all wrong with asking God to let you know if and when what you pray for is done. Just understand that you might never know; God is under no obligation to you, nor do you have any 'right' to know.

THERE'S NO STAR SYSTEM

Prayer heros are all around us

Throughout Christian history, there have been stories of people whose prayers are astoundingly effective, lead to amazing insight, and bring about the smaller turning points that make up the meat of history. In the Book of Kings, Elijah prays and God makes incredible things happen. Revivals were started by prayer leaders, whether it be the renewal ministry of Francis of Assisi, or the start of Luther's Reformation, or the first Great Awakening of Jonathan Edwards, or the birth of the Charismatic movement. Today, there are some leaders whom many people look up to as powerful "prayer warriors". Yet, the star syndrome is not what any true pray-er is about. In his letter, James (5:16-17) writes in praise of Elijah's powerful prayers, but then says that Elijah had "a nature like us". Nothing was essentially different about him, save that Elijah was a righteous man living his calling, who passionately prayed to the God he served and loved. When I think of modern-day prayer heroes, I sometimes think of the grandmothers of Russia who, since their youth, had kept their nation in prayer and quietly tended to the fires of the church while the Communists oppressed and tried to kill the church's public life. These women had little else but faithful prayer, but they kept it up. And won. Anyone can be a mighty prayer warrior. You can be one. But you can't hear that and just say, 'That's what I want to be right now'. It takes hard work to be God's. You don't name it and claim it, you grow and mature into it.

The 'Heart Stuff'

A lot of people have in their mind the stuff of faith. But how can you move from that 'head stuff' to a living faith? Prayer, before anything else. In prayer we go from thinking about or talking about God or even talking to God, to talking with God and listening when God calls. It's a trust commitment in one whom we cannot see and will not hear, who we cannot by normal earthly means even know is there. We pray trusting, or maybe just hoping, that God will act on what we pray about. We respond to the Lord's proven love by depending on God to respond within our daily lives. The life of faith is a life of trusting that God is at work on your concerns, or is at least working on you.

When you rediscover that the world around you is both natural and supernatural, then it makes sense that prayer has great value as spiritual communication. You begin to want to pray, and look forward to private or group time in prayer.
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(Please, use this link for personal prayer requests.)