Making your Prayers acceptable to God
“ Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought:
but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit,
because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the
will of God.”
Romans 8:26-27
We pray one way but praise be to God His Holy Spirit prays another. He is the translator for us as God’s children to sort out our carnal prayers and bring to the Father the proper prayer to fit our needs on our behalf.
Jesus said that we pray and do not have answers because we “ask amiss”!
When you think about it it is a curious thing that we think God needs to be told what to do.
Our prayers are filled with our own carnal desires. We are interested in what we want and how we want things to be done. We treat prayer as if it were Aladdin’s lamp and God is the genie that must fulfill all of our wishes.
If God granted all of our carnal prayers no one we know would ever suffer sickness or death and we would all be rich and successful in this world at whatever thing we think we should do.
One of the primary purposes of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us is to filter out everything carnal from our supplications and petitions and to take our true needs directly to the throne of the Father.
We don’t know how to pray as we should this verse tells us.
There are abominable preachers instructing their followers to shout their demands to God like spoiled little children. They say you must name it and claim it.
Is that what a child must do? Or is a child to trust his father and mother to know what is best for him?
Some of our greatest sins would be in the form of our carnal selfish prayers.
So the Indwelling Spirit intercedes for us. He interjects and purifies our prayers, thankfully before they ascend to heavens throne.
Your prayer life is carnal if you are carnal. The more you yield to the Indwelling Spirit of God the more “in tune” your prayer life will become until your prayers become spiritual and spirit filled.
The purpose of a prayer life is to attune us to the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. When we pray “in the Spirit” all of our prayers will be answered because we have learned to pray according to the will of God and not of ourselves.
The Lord’s prayer is a pattern for the believer to follow. That is why it is important to not only memorize the Lord’s prayer and repeat it often but to study it and to pattern our prayer life accordingly.
I will save discussing the Lord’s prayer for the next devotional.
For now, go to the Lord in prayer and humbly ask as the disciples did, “Lord, Teach me to Pray.” Then take time to listen, to be moved. He will bring something to your heart and it might be some sin or some idol or some resistance to Him or some other thing that has been a stumbling block between yourself and His Spirit… those things in your life that grieve the Holy Spirit – those are the first things to be dealt with in true prayer.
Clear the obstacles. It is always the right prayer to ask God to examine your heart, mind and actions and to convict your heart of what is unpleasing to him. Start there. More tomorrow.
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