Build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. —Jude 20
There will be no praying in heaven. We may regret many things at the judgment seat of Christ—how we used our time, how we spent our money, the friends we chose, the decisions we made; but I can safely promise you one thing you will not regret: the time you spent alone with the Lord. If Jesus, who was the Son of God and was filled with the Spirit without limit (John 3:34), felt the need to do this, how much more do you and I need it?
Praying in the Spirit is a vital part of spiritual warfare. This seems to be what Paul means in Romans 8:26: “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
Praying in the Spirit is praying in the will of God. It is the only kind of praying that matters, because it is only when we ask in God’s will that we are heard. We are fools if we think we can upstage God’s will, as if our idea would be better than His.
Here is a principle you can count on for the rest of your life: God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with Him. The reason is this. He already has a plan for you. It has been carefully thought out. The same wisdom that entered into God’s plan for creation and redemption is the brilliance and care that lay behind His thoughts toward you. This is why only a fool would try to come up with a better idea than the one already conceived in God’s heart and mind. Therefore to pray the will of God is the best thing we can do when it comes to prayer.
So I ask you, “How much do you pray?”
Excerpted from Pure Joy (Charisma House, 2006).
