Over the next 6-weeks, to support our mid-week 'Together' meetings on The Holy Spirit, we will be looking at the person of the Holy Spirit in our devotionals. I hope you find these helpful in deepening your relationship with God.
Each of the persons of the Trinity have all the attributes of God equally. The Father, Son and Spirit are ‘Almighty’ or omnipotent. I bring this up because we are all confronted by many challenges and discouragements. Are you aware of your access to the Spirit’s resources of strength through prayer? It’s God’s will that we not presume on His presence; He wants us to actively know Him, walk with Him and be sustained by Him each day.
LET'S PRAY FOR THE STRENGTHENING OF THE SPIRIT
I wonder if the reason that we are often discouraged and lacking hope and faith is because we fail to ‘pray in the Spirit’. Here are two biblical prayers that show us how to pray for the Holy Spirit’s strength in the church and our lives.
‘For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being...’ (Ephesians 3:14-16)
‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.’ (Romans 15:13)
Gordon Fee comments,
‘In the light of such a text (Rom. 15), especially with its repeated emphasis on “power” one can easily fall into the trap of thinking of power especially along these lines – of more visible and extraordinary (miraculous) manifestations of the Spirit’s presence. But this text should stand as a corrective to that kind of ‘one way’ thinking. The presence of the Spirit always presupposes power for Paul, but being filled with “joy and peace” and “overflowing with hope” are equally “accompanying and attesting” evidence of the presence of “the Holy Spirit with power”.
Many tend to think of the Spirit’s empowering as relating to the more miraculous things of life. Do you see that you and I need Him for every day, every relationship, every circumstance? How much richer and healthier our family life, friendships, work relationships… would be if we were filled with the Spirit. We would all agree that the Holy Spirit is strong, but do we see Him as our strength? Are we living our lives in active dependence upon the empowering of the Spirit?
RESPONSE
It would be revolutionary to pray and make a habit of praying for the Holy Spirit’s strength. May we begin each day and pray repeatedly through each day for His help. Why not spend some time meditating and praying out of this wonderful text from Zechariah.
‘So he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.’ (Zechariah 4:6)
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