What role does the Holy Spirit play in our prayers? “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions,” Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus (Ephes. 6:18). What does that mean? Paul told the believers in Rome that the Spirit helps us in our prayers by interceding for us through wordless groans in accordance with the will of God (Romans 8:26-28). Some believe that prayer in the Spirit uniquely involves praying in another language given as a gift by the Holy Spirit. I believe it has more to do with our surrender to the Spirit as we pray.
Remember, Lorne Sanny says that a day spent in prayer should ask and answer two questions: “Who are you Lord? And what do you want me to do?” The believers’ prayer after Peter and John’s arrest reveals their knowledge of God’s sovereignty. They also ask God to enable them to speak his word with boldness. In response to their prayer, God shook the place and filled them with the Holy Spirit so that they spoke the word of God boldly.
The believers received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Time and again, Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit filled them. The pattern is we receive the Holy Spirit once, then we are filled many times. When Paul commands the Ephesians to be filled with the Spirit he contrasts this filling with being drunk (Ephesians 5:18-19). To be filled with the Spirit is to live “under the influence” of God, or better, under his control. Count Von Zinzendorf called the Moravian Brethren a God-intoxicated people. When Wesley saw these devoted Christ-followers pray during a storm on a trans-Atlantic journey, he recognized his own need for salvation.
As we pray today, God can fill us with his Spirit. This may be manifested in many ways. We may be filled with joy and peace. In our text, we see that the Spirit grants boldness to speak God’s word. British Pastor David Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said to his congregation, “I know that we received all of the Holy Spirit you will ever receive at salvation. If that is true, what in the world have we done with him?” We can grieve the Holy Spirit and quench the Holy Spirit, but not lose the Holy Spirit. Whatever we have done with the Spirit, he is not done with us. No one has a monopoly on the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit can have a monopoly on us. May it be so today, as we pray.
