Why Wouldn't Everyone Want to Pray in the Spirit? [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

The key to an energetic, effective, joyful, powerful, moving prayer life is to learn what it means when Jude chapter 1 says, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, Filled, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource today. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at pastoralan.org. That's pastoralan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright.

You might understand spirit, soul and body by way of some natural images. A young man is driving in his brand new convertible that he's bought with money from his new job that is prospering him. It's a beautiful spring day at 75 degrees. The sun is shining.

Music is playing. He's got a cold Coke in his cup holder. He's driving down the road. His body is feeling the warmth, feeling the gentle breezes. He's drinking that delicious Coca Cola. He is listening to the sounds. His body is experiencing in its senses pleasure.

That's pleasure. The body can experience pleasure. And because he's got a new car and a new job and a wonderful girlfriend and everything in life is going just fine. He is happy. His soul is happy. The body can experience pleasure and the soul can experience happiness. But while he's driving down the road, a dark cloud comes out of nowhere, covers up the sun and he begins to be a little chilly, especially when it starts raining.

A flock of geese flies overhead. He thinks it's rain, but it's not. Now he's feeling gross. His radio starts breaking up and he can't hear it and his body is no longer feeling pleasure.

And then the cell phone rings, it's his girlfriend breaking up with him. He's not happy anymore. There's nothing wrong with pleasure or happiness.

It's just they're so fickle. But joy is a different thing. Joy, Paul teaches, is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. A rain cloud can't take joy away. A flock of geese can't take joy away. So much so that he says, his counsel is rejoice, have joy always.

And again I say rejoice. Because joy is a thing of the Spirit, coming from the Spirit and released in the Spirit, we would say joy is a spiritual thing. Think about singing songs like we've done today. And our bodies through the senses, ears take in sound, eardrums work and sound is communicated. And our body experiences the songs. Our soul, our emotions might be touched by the songs that sing. It's good to sing songs, sing songs that encourage your soul.

It's good to have music like that. And so our souls can be encouraged. We can have emotion that goes with it. But Jesus said that worship is something that is done in spirit and in truth. So the worship is not what you're doing with your body.

You can kneel, you can lift your hands, you can do jumping jacks. And that doesn't define the worship. You can have emotion in songs and in a midst of praise, but that is not the worship. The worship is a thing of the Spirit.

I say all of this to make this simple point. Prayer is a spiritual matter. And when prayer is dependent upon thinking about what we're doing with our body or what the soul is doing and the way we're thinking and the way we're feeling, then it may be just a soulish kind of experience, but it is not what God has intended for us in our prayer life. And when prayer becomes exciting and powerful is when prayer becomes spiritual.

Pray in the Spirit at all times. There are, I think, a number of expressions or ways in which the Holy Spirit helps us in prayer. The first to mention is that there is a gift of the Holy Spirit that is called praying in tongues, and this gift is expressed in different ways. When Paul is describing about interpretation of a message in tongues, he is not talking about the gift of a prayer language wherein you're edifying yourself. When he talks that way, he's talking about a prophetic ministry in which someone shares a message that's in an unknown language and someone else, not translating that spiritual language, but hearing in their own spirit what God is saying that is encouraging to the people that are together. But there is a gift of the Holy Spirit that is a gift that is a spiritual gift that releases the prayer of the Holy Spirit, not in English language or what other language you speak. And Paul speaks of this in very positive terms in his letters to the Corinthians, and he says that he speaks in tongues and he longed for all to speak in tongues, but he says, don't put it, don't elevate it too much.

He said, I really want you to be able to edify other people, not just edify yourself. So the position biblically about tongues seems pretty clear. Not everybody has this gift because no person has all the gifts. It's a guarantee that they have all of the gifts, and yet it's a very valuable gift, and it's a gift that you could ask God for. And it's a gift that if you have, then use with great joy, because what the gift of tongues does, which is, I think, a wonderful part of what this gift is all about, is that when your mind, your soul is exhausted, perhaps with sorrow, and you don't know how to pray, the Holy Spirit does know how to pray.

It's a wonderful way in which you experience intimate connection with God through the Holy Spirit, and you can pray. Traditionally, the way the Christian church has looked on the gift of tongues has been, I think, two extremes. Some have said, you must have this one gift or else you don't really have the Holy Spirit. Another has said, this gift died out in the first century and doesn't exist today. Some of you may believe or have been taught in each one of those directions, and if so, I just encourage you to entertain what I'm saying, and I've got a lot more to say about praying in the Spirit.

But I think that the answer is neither of those extremes. It's a valuable gift, but it's not a gift that every Christian is guaranteed, because all the gifts of the Holy Spirit come as the Lord wills. We can ask for gifts, and it's not the one mark of having the Holy Spirit. Praying in the Spirit is something, therefore, that includes praying in tongues, but is a larger idea than that. And there are other ways that the Holy Spirit helps us other than just through the gift of a prayer language. Now, the first way in which this happens is that the Holy Spirit, Paul says in Romans, He, as the third person of the triune God, the Holy Spirit has a capacity, of course, to know our hearts and to know God's heart.

He searches, He knows. So the Holy Spirit, simply put, knows what we need. He knows the desire of our heart. And I think, by the way, when the Bible says that God delights in giving us the desires of our heart, we're not always in touch with what the desire of our heart is. Sometimes we're more in touch with what the desire of my flesh is, or we're in touch with what the desire of my soul is. But what is your deepest heart? What is your spirit really longing for?

The Holy Spirit knows that, and the Holy Spirit knows the mind of God, because He's God. This is an incredible combination for prayer, because what makes prayer vital is to be able to know what your truest, deepest desire is of your own heart, and to be in touch with what God's heart is and what God's will is. That's what makes prayer so powerful when that happens. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series.

It's a great idea to start each day with a dose of good news, and we'd like to help. In James 5, we're given these jaw-dropping words. Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years. Elijah, the man whose prayer called down fire on a water-drenched altar, defeating 450 wicked prophets, and whose intercession revived a widow's deceased son, was just like us, an ordinary man who was used by God for the extraordinary.

God's word is clear. If the Lord could use Elijah miraculously, He could also do wonders in and through you. If you earn to see more of God's power in your life, you'll love Pastor Alan's devotional journal, Everyday Miracles. This beautiful spiral-bound book is the perfect tool to get you into the Word and to build your faith day by day. When you make a gift this month, we'll send you Alan Wright's new devotional journal, Everyday Miracles, as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Also, free digital access to all the Elijah messages currently airing. So please make your gift today and start looking for miracles all around you. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. When we have a connection to the will of God, this is where prayer becomes so powerful. 1 John 5, 14. This is the confidence we have in approaching God. That if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. So the key to our confidence is praying in the will of God. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we've asked of Him. So there you go. All you have to do to have a perfectly effective prayer life is just pray according to the will of God.

Okay. The problem, of course, is what's the will of God in any given situation? Now, you know a lot about the will of God because He's revealed Himself in His Word, and He's not going to contradict His Word. But there are also a lot that goes beyond for daily life and our ministry with others, and we're praying with people. And God has at all times for all people an unquenchable love for people.

But He also has specific intentions in the mystery of His will towards individuals at different times. So if you're praying with somebody, you may not know. Your soul, your mind doesn't know exactly how to pray for that person, but the Holy Spirit does. Because the Holy Spirit knows what the Lord's will, what the Lord wants to do at that point. And the Holy Spirit lives in you. So praying in the Spirit connects us with the heart of God.

So I want to be surrendered to the Spirit to lead me in praying for people. And He does this. He reveals while we pray. He can reveal things to us. He can bring about individual words of knowledge and revelation.

This is all part of the revelation of God. He is moving on our hearts sometimes. There are people that intercede and they'll experience emotion for the person.

They don't even know why. It's like when you get a burden to pray for somebody. When we say I've got a burden to pray for somebody, we don't mean it's like I'm taking a heavy yoke on me and coming under condemnation. What we mean is that it's like the same desire that God has is being placed in our heart and sometimes you can't do anything about it except pray it. Sometimes God won't let go of you until you pray that and you just pray it. That is the Holy Spirit leading you and moving you so when you pray the burden that the Lord gave you, you're praying in the Spirit. Some people express it in their emotions because they begin to feel things that God is feeling towards people. I know some intercessors, they'll weep a lot. Somebody will say they're weeping.

Why are they weeping? But they don't even know why, but it is part of the expression of the Holy Spirit. It may come in different ways. But here's the powerful thing. When the Holy Spirit is connected in our prayer life knowing the will of God, when you know that you're praying in accordance to the will of God, you know He's hearing you.

And if He's hearing you, you know it's going to come to pass. You may not know the timing of it. You may not know.

But I gave this example some years ago and I need to repeat it because I can't think of a better example of this. A revelation came to me some years back as my daughter Abigail, who's now 11, had been continually campaigning for a guinea pig. Now her mother is definitely, was, is, and ever shall be, definitely opposed to the guinea pig idea. Her theory being that the mother in the family is the one who ends up cleaning the stinky cage when nobody else is doing it. So she's definitely opposed. And I had not totally stated my position on the matter except that your mother and I will need to be in agreement about this. So this is a very small chance of a guinea pig coming into the right household.

But Abigail, as she is gifted to be, is relentless. And so she wisely, instead of asking me for a guinea pig, she started asking for lesser things. She started asking, could we get a book on guinea pigs? And we got a book on guinea pigs and she would like to just snuggle and read about guinea pigs. And that turned into dreaming about what color guinea pig is the cutest of guinea pigs and what length of fur and so forth. And I would turn her towards the pages of maintenance and care of guinea pigs.

She would turn back to find the cutest pictures. Then it began to become, could we just go by the pet store, not to get one, but to look at guinea pigs. And so we looked at some guinea pigs and then it became, could we just hold a guinea pig?

Well, one night at our prayer time, she asked one of the most intelligent questions I ever heard. She finally, after various things about how much she wanted a guinea pig, she said, Daddy, do you want me to get a guinea pig? That was brilliant because if she could just find out whether I ultimately, it was in my will to get her a guinea pig, then she would know that she could then ask and would be heard. And she also knew that if I really wanted her to get a guinea pig, that I could probably override the mom factor and get the guinea pig in the house being the dad.

And so I avoided answering that question. But a revelation came to me that day about praying the will of God. If I had said, you know, I do want you to get a guinea pig, that would have not caused her to cease asking for a guinea pig. It would have energized her asking for a guinea pig.

She would never stop asking for a guinea pig if she thought it was my will to get her a guinea pig. So why would we be confused and think, as some people do, that if God's will is going to be done, why do we even need to pray, he's just going to do his will? Discovering in the Spirit the heart of God, the will of God, does not remove us from a prayer life. It moves us into prayer life. And the Holy Spirit leads us in prayer in this way.

He is God. He knows the will of God. Let us be filled with the Spirit and not let our prayer life be fueled simply by our own fault life. Now, another way that we pray in the Spirit is that the Holy Spirit has filled the Word of God. Scripture says of itself that all Scripture is God-breathed. So in the same way that your breath fills words, so the Spirit of God fills his Word.

So every part of God's Word has been inspired by God or means that the Spirit has infused and been breathed into God's Word. The other thing that every child figures out early on is that if you can get your parent to make you a promise, that it's much more effective to remind your parent of a promise than it is to simply ask for something. So instead of just saying, can we have ice cream today? And then I say, well, we'll see about that. The wise child, the clever child has learned to follow up with that and say, well, do you promise that we can have some ice cream? And if I say, okay, I promise we'll have some ice cream, and then I forget about it, and everybody forgets about it, and now it's 10 o'clock at night. And the child says, can I have some ice cream now?

And we say, no, it's 10 o'clock at night. I'm not going to give you a big glop of sugar and throw you in the bed. And the child says, but you promised.

What is that? Even in an earthly father, sinful as I am, it pulls something on me because I made a promise. How much more your father in heaven, if he makes a promise, should we not appeal to him on the basis of his promise? Alan Wright in today's teaching, why wouldn't everyone want to pray in the spirit from our series filled? And we're coming in for a closing here soon. And Alan is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and today's final word. It's a great idea to start each day with a dose of good news, and we'd like to help. You'll love Pastor Alan's devotional journal, Everyday Miracles. It's a one month journey through the stories of Elijah and his successor, Elisha, that include daily devotionals from Pastor Alan, questions for reflection, space for journaling, and a daily prayer of faith. This beautiful spiral bound book is the perfect tool to get you into the word and to build your faith day by day. When you make a gift this month, we'll send you Alan Wright's new devotional journal, Everyday Miracles, as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Also, free digital access to all the Elijah messages currently airing. So please make your gift today and start looking for miracles all around you. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Alan, as we're focused on praying in the Spirit, I know a lot of times we'll say, well, I don't even know how to pray. I don't know what to pray. And that would be an opportunity there, praying in the Spirit.

But even when we think we do know how to pray. Right. And I think that part of today's message is so important to realize that the Word of God is inspired. God breathed. He breathed out that Word. So His Spirit's in that Word.

Right? So the Word of God is full of the Spirit. So when you pray the Word of God, you're praying in the Spirit. You are praying what the Spirit's already breathed out. And you're praying it back to God, like a child bringing promises back to the Father. So if you're wanting to really jumpstart your prayer life, I suggest really learning to pray the Word of God back to God. And you'll find incredible power in that. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.