The Secret of Spirit-Led Prayer

The only kind of prayer that is acceptable to God is one directed by the Holy Spirit. Actually, this goes far beyond our prayers. It applies to every area of the Christian life. The only kind of Christian life acceptable to God is one directed by the Holy Spirit.

Paul brings this out in the eighth chapter of Romans. In Romans 8 and 14, he says,

“For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.”

That's what constitutes a person a son or a child of God: that he's being led by the Spirit of God.

You see, to become a child of God, you must be born of God's Spirit. That's the initial experience, without which you cannot enter the Christian life. But to live as a child of God, you must continue to be led by the Holy Spirit, God's Spirit. Now, many people who've been born again really don't know how to be led by the Holy Spirit when it comes to Christian living. This is perhaps particularly true when it comes to praying.

But later on in this chapter, Paul applies this principle specifically to prayer. In Romans 8:26 and 27, he says,

“And in the same way the Spirit, capital S, the Holy Spirit, also helps our weakness. For we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he, that's the Spirit, intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

Paul says that we have a weakness. We all have a weakness. It's not a physical sickness, it's not even a mental sickness, but it's just part of our old carnal nature. And the weakness is this: we don't know how to pray as we should. There are different versions of that verse. Some say we don't know what to pray for, others say we don't know how to pray. I believe both are true. We don't know what to pray for, we don't know how to pray. Sometimes we think we know what to pray for, but we still don't know how to pray about it. And other times we don't know either what to pray for or how to pray. We're at a loss.

God's remedy for this is to send us the Holy Spirit to help us. He's the comforter, the helper, the one who comes to help us lead the kind of life and pray the kind of prayers that we need. And so Paul says here that when the Holy Spirit comes in, in a certain sense, he takes over for us. And as we yield to him, he does the praying that we need through us.

Paul's language is very personal here. He says the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And again, in the next verse, he, the Spirit, intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. In a certain sense, the secret of successful praying is turning over to the Holy Spirit, yielding intelligently but voluntarily to him, and letting him pray through you the kind of prayer that really needs to be prayed.

Notice that Paul says this kind of prayer can come in various ways. One way that he speaks about here is in groanings too deep for words. Now, I've been present when people were given that kind of prayer. It's very moving, it's very solemn, it's almost frightening. It's important to understand that many of the things that we really need to pray about are too deep for words. The ordinary words of our normal expression just are not adequate for the things that we need to say in prayer.

You see, deep down inside every one of us, there's something that's much bigger than our little minds. It's what the Bible calls our spirit. Our spirit is always hungering and thirsting for God. Our spirit longs to reach out for God. Our spirit has things locked up within it that it longs to express to God in prayer. But as long as we're limited to what our puny little minds can censor and accept as reasonable and valid, our spirit cannot fully express itself. So one of the ways that the Holy Spirit liberates our spirit to pray effectively is with groanings that are too deep for words. That's one kind of prayer.

Now, another way that the Holy Spirit can help us is by giving us the right prayer in our own language, but it's not a prayer that we would have ever have prayed if left to ourselves. I remember very vividly how this first happened to me. I was a soldier in the British army, and I did not yet know the Lord Jesus in a personal way. And a family, a Christian family in the town where I was stationed, invited me and a fellow soldier to have supper with them in their home one Sunday evening.

So we went along to their home, and they were all committed Christians, and I'd never been in a home like that. They started by asking God to bless their food. I'd never been in a home where anybody ever did that. But after I got adjusted to that, the supper was delicious and the meal went on, and I thought I was really getting settled down. And then at the end of the meal, without any warning, everybody started to pray. And there were about seven or eight people around this oval table, and I noticed quickly that they were praying in turn, one after the other. And calculation showed me that my turn was coming and very quickly. And I had never prayed aloud in public in all my life. I was literally paralyzed with fear.

And when my turn came, I had no idea what was going to happen. I just opened my mouth and I blurted out these words:

“Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.”

I didn't even know they were in the Bible. But that was perhaps as good a prayer as I've ever prayed. I take no credit for it. The Holy Spirit gave it to me.

I've spoken about two ways in which the Holy Spirit can help us to pray. The first is with groanings too deep for words. The other is by giving us a prayer in our own language, but it's not one that we ourselves could ever have thought of. Now, there's a third way in which the Holy Spirit can help us to pray, and that is through a prayer language in an unknown tongue. This is spoken about, of course, many times in the New Testament. Some people find it hard to understand. The truth of the matter is, it can't be fully understood. It's one of those activities of our spirit which goes beyond the ability of our little minds fully to comprehend. But thank God that Christian experience is not limited to what our minds can comprehend. Thank God that we have a God that's bigger than our little minds. And one of the ways in which God liberates us from the tyranny of our mind over our total lives is by giving us through the Holy Spirit a prayer language. We are praying in a language that's very real, but it's not a language we ourselves understand. We've just handed over to the Holy Spirit and let him pray through us what needs to be prayed in this new prayer language.

Today, all around the world, millions of people are entering into this experience and finding it corresponds exactly to what's written about it in the New Testament. Listen to what Paul says about it in 1 Corinthians 14, verses 2 and 4:

“For one who speaks in a tongue, an unknown tongue, does not speak to men but to God. For no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries… One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself.”

So what are we doing when we pray in this prayer language, this unknown tongue? Paul says we're doing three things. First of all, we're speaking direct to God, not to man. That's a privilege in itself, to be able to speak directly to Almighty God. Secondly, he says, in our spirits, we're speaking mysteries, things too deep and profound for our little minds fully to grasp. Thirdly, he says, when we speak in a tongue, we are edifying or building ourselves up spiritually, even though our mind doesn't really understand all that's going on.