Fervent Prayer Devotional #5: Pray in the Spirit at All Times

Over the course of this week, our church has been focused on prayer and we’ve had a number of excellent posts directing our focus.

We began with our need to approach prayer with the concept of seeking relationship over rewards and gifts. Doing so with the perspective of God as Holy, Eternal Creator, All Powerful, Majestic, and all knowing. Having this reverent view of God creates confidence in his ability to handle all things, and will guard our hearts against flippant, selfish prayers.

In another post, we also saw that through the grace of God, he calls us friend, and we are to call him Father. That the “Creator of All” desires for us to have a close, intimate relationship with him, coming as we are.

Yet another post shared the close connection between prayer and fasting, and how fasting can aid our prayers. And yesterday we were reminded to persistently seek God in prayer, even to ask for good things.

Now some people may look at this list and notice “contradictions”. First, see God as Holy, Awesome, All Powerful, but also as tender Father, Friend. The purpose of prayer is to seek relationship, not for gifts… but then also ask him for good things.

When is it appropriate to pray to God as friend? When is it right to ask for good things? When should we fast?

I believe that the answer is found in Eph 6:18: “Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request…” This passage is not talking about praying in tongues with every prayer and request, but rather that all prayer should be in step with the Spirit allowing Him to guide our prayers in every situation and need. We do this by asking God to reveal his will in situations, by asking the Holy Spirit to show us how and what to pray for. In doing so, we will not gratify the desires of our flesh (Gal 5:16) and we will not shape our prayers to our own desires. If we pray in the Spirit every time we approach God in prayer, we do so in submission to our relationship to Him. This will then guide our requests for good things, inform us when it is time to fast, and to see God as Creator, Father, and Friend. It is the epitome of “let Thy will be done” to trust God to guide our prayers and how we should pray in every situation.