July 26 I Friday

Psalms 40-42

Acts 27:1-26

“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”    —2 Corinthians 13:14

When it comes to prayer, some of us may have a deep fear that if we tell God, “God, have Your way with my life,” He will probably respond with, “I am going to make the last thing you want happen with your life. I am going to give you something you think is bad!” When it comes to surrendering our lives and asking for God to have His way with us, we may pray with this mentality because we fear He would give us something vile.

When Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, He told them, “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13). We should have comfort when we pray because God not only knows how to give good gifts to us but He would not hold back from giving us even the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said the Father would always give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him because the Holy Spirit is God’s agent in our lives for our sanctification and growth in Christ-likeness. The Holy Spirit enables God’s work in people’s lives and will always be the means of bringing about things that we intercede for. When we pray for people’s salvation, we are asking for the Holy Spirit to do something that only the Holy Spirit can do, which is to reveal Christ and to convict sin. All of that is the work of the Holy Spirit and never the work of the person witnessing or even the preacher—it is supernatural. When we pray, we are saying, “God, intervene in this person’s life.  Make this a divine event in their experience.”

If we take a look through Paul’s 13 epistles, we will notice that when he prays for people, he almost always prays for the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Paul prays in that manner because God’s answer to us, through our prayers, is to send His Holy Spirit to enable and equip us to be better people.

The fullness of the Holy Spirit is not some experience somebody has one day. It is not only something we need if we are going to be a missionary or if we are going to be involved in Christian service. We need to live every day in the fullness of the Holy Spirit by surrendering to the Holy Spirit and giving Him the freedom to implement His will and purpose in our lives when we pray.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for giving us Your Holy Spirit when we ask. Teach me to pray with confidence that You are a good Father who knows how to give good gifts to Your children.