The Bible never says praying is easy. In fact praying is not a natural thing to do. It could be a natural thing in an emergency. But in normal regular life when things are going on smoothly it is an unnatural thing; it cuts against the flesh. We need help if we want to pray willingly and effectively.
In the days of His flesh people could go to Jesus to get help. His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples" (Luke 11:1, NKJV). We cannot go to Jesus for help now. But before Jesus left the earth He promised His disciples that He would send the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said, "Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you" (John 16:7, NKJV, emphasis added).
The Helper that Jesus spoke of is the Person of the Holy Spirit. One of the functions of the Holy Spirit is to help you and I at the point of our greatest need, which is how to pray effectively.
"Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him" (1 John 5:14, 15, emphasis added).
The key to effective praying is praying according to the will of God. The Holy Spirit will help us to pray according to the will of God. Therefore we must always pray in the Spirit. God does not want us to struggle but wants to help us. The Father wants to help us by listening to us all the time. The Son wants to help us by praying for us all the time (Hebrews 7:25). That is not when the help ends. The Holy Spirit helps us at our end by having our prayers going in the first place.
What more help could you ask for; with the Holy Spirit praying in you; Jesus listening to your prayer and passing on to the Father who is waiting to receive it?
Praying in the Spirit
We can learn from the apostle Paul concerning praying in the Spirit. He knew the secret of effective praying. He had been praying in the Spirit all the time during His walk with God.
He said, ".... praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints ...." (Ephesians 6:18, NKJV, emphasis added).
Praying in the Spirit means having two advocates to help you - one, the Advocate on high, the Father; two, the Advocate within you, the Holy Spirit. Your praying should always be like this: Pray to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit (note the prepositions used).
If we don't pray in the Spirit we are going to face many difficulties. We are like talking to someone we cannot see, nor hear nor touch. Then there is the difficulty of knowing what to say when we feel we do get through to God in our prayer. What we want to ask may not be what we really need or it may be even be bad for us. Then there is the problem of lack of focus and lack of concentration.
The difficulty of knowing what to say would disappear when we ask the Lord to teach us to pray. The Lord's Prayer was given to the disciples in response to this difficulty.
The role of the Holy Spirit in prayer is like that of a divine letter writer. In the Middle East and in some Asian countries many people seek the help of a letter writer when they want to send a letter to someone. Even if you know what to say to someone, the letter writer still can help you to express yourself. That is exactly what the Holy Spirit does when He becomes your divine letter writer. He takes what you want to say, but you cannot express yourself, and writes it down according to the will of God and sends it on.
Two aspects of praying in the Spirit
There are actually two distinct aspects (or forms) of praying in the Spirit. In both aspects the Holy Spirit does not pray for you but His job is to help you to pray:
"Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, ...." (Romans 8:26).
In other words, the Holy Spirit prays with us but not prays for us.
1. The Holy Spirit takes over your mind
In this aspect the Holy Spirit takes over your mind (the soul part) and gives you the right thoughts. But you are responsible to express your thoughts and translate your thoughts into words to be spoken by your mouth. You are in full control of what words to use in your prayer.
I call this the mental prayer because of the influence of the Holy Spirit on the mind. Your mind is fully involved with conscious thoughts the Holy Spirit placed there. These thoughts either come through an impression, a burden, a memory, a situation or a circumstance. The Lord Himself through the Holy Spirit has put within your mind that which you ought to pray. But He would not force the prayer burden upon you unless you allow Him to. Therefore, if you don't know how to pray or what to pray for you should ask Him. When you know someone is in need and you don't know what the need is, why don't you ask Him?
The problem of this aspect of prayer has something to do with our personality - our heart (spirit), mind and will (soul). The first problem is with the heart - we don't have enough burden and desire to pray. The second problem is the lack of concentration which leads to wondering thoughts. The third problem is the lack of passion, persistence, and discipline in our prayer life. The Holy Spirit can help in all these three areas.
Without the Holy Spirit taking over your mind, you are likely to start your pray like this - "If it be they will, please ....."! Furthermore, most of our prayers are merely "quick fix" requests - like a shot fired blindly in the dark! This is the result of failing to understand God's will in our prayer. If the Holy Spirit is in our mental prayer then the glory of Jesus will be in it too, because the Holy Spirit comes to glorify Jesus (John 16:14).
Praying in the Spirit has a connection with the Scripture too. When you are praying in the Spirit, into your prayer will come echoes of God's Word, because the Holy Spirit wrote the Bible and He never contradicts Himself!
2. The Holy Spirit takes over your mouth
In this aspect the Holy Spirit does not take over your mind at all, but He takes over your mouth directly. He bypasses your mind but you have the responsibility to move your mouth and your tongue. This was precisely what happened at the Day of Pentecost as recorded by Luke:
"And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:4, NKJV, emphasis added).
For those who have hang-ups with the word "tongue", the original Greek word actually translated as "language". Whether we have hang-ups or not Paul said:
"For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful" (1 Cor. 14:14, emphasis added).
The word "unfruitful" means "unproductive". In other words, you don't understand what you pray when you pray in a tongue. There is no thought at all in this kind of prayer. The Holy Spirit takes over and offers to God a prayer, through utterance of your mouth, a prayer that is beautiful and pleasing to Him. Furthermore, this is a prayer that you don't have to think up; you don't have to wrestle through with the Spirit to get a thought from Him. This is especially useful when you are tired or when you are driving. You are still able to pray without losing your concentration in doing other things.
Paul's secret in praying
Paul gave us further understanding regarding praying in the Spirit, for he said:
"I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding" (1 Cor. 14:15, emphasis added).
When Paul said he would pray with the spirit (small 's') he meant he would use his own spirit (heart) led by the indwelled Holy Spirit to pray. When he said he would pray with the understanding he meant he would use his intellect (part of the soul) as prompted by the Holy Spirit to pray. In either case he would always pray in the Sprit. We should do likewise in our prayer life - always in the Spirit.
Paul said, "..... praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints" (Ephesians 6:18, NKJV, emphasis added).
The above passage of Scripture includes all kinds of prayer in the Spirit - prayer, watch and pray, petition, intercession, supplication (entreating God's favor and mercy), groaning (Romans 8:26) and tears.
The Psalmist's secret in praying
The psalmist's prayer of faith includes groaning and tears:
"I am weary with my groaning; all night I make my bed swim; I drench my couch with my tears. My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows old because of all my enemies" (Psalm 6:6, 7, NKJV).
Verse 8 says, "The Lord has heard my supplication; the Lord will receive my prayer".
The psalmist's prayer was heard and received because he prayed in the Spirit!
"Put my tears into Your bottle; are they not in Your book" (Psalm 56:8).
God has a bottle for your tears and my tears. Furthermore, every drop of our tears is recorded in His book. The reason God keeps a book is He wants to remember to answer our prayer! Sometimes His anwer comes later.
Ask and receive the Holy Spirit
Jesus said, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him" (Luke 11:13, emphasis added).
The difficulty is not in asking but in receiving by faith what God has to offer. Receiving by faith involves grasping of something, involves getting over hang-ups, psychological hurdles like hearing your own voice and strange sounds you don't understand as a result of infilling and Baptism in the Holy Spirit.
This eperience is like Peter's experience of walking on water (Matt. 14:18 - 29). Jesus didn't ask Peter to get his Bible cout, pray and claim the promise! Jesus just said, "Come"! In the same manner Jesus commanded a lame man at the Pool of Bethesda, "Take up your bed and walk" (John 5:12). Jesus just wants you to receive the promise of the Father (the Holy Spirit) by faith.
That is how Spiritual gifts are discovered. You don't know you have the gifts of healings until you go and lay hands on someone. If your spirit receives a strong impression that you could do something why not just step out of the "boat" and do it?
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