This is another question about the Holy Spirit which has recently been posed to me. Once again, I am reluctant to discuss such a ‘shy sovereign’, who is more to be experienced than analysed. Nevertheless, I offer a few thoughts:-
The Bible does teach a certain order in the operations and activities of the members of the Trinity. For example, according to Jn 14:26, the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father in the name of the Son.…
The first reference to prayer in the Bible occurs in Genesis 4, which records the time when “men began to call on the name of the LORD”,. The last reference is in the last verse but one of Revelation, which is itself a prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus”. In between the Bible is full of prayer. Even apart from the Psalms, whole chapters record the prayers of God’s people. Abraham would pray under a tamarisk tree. Jacob famously wrestled in prayer. …
General characteristics of Paul’s prayers:-
1 Cor 1:4 ‘I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.’
2 Cor 1:3 ‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.’
When Paul would pray for the peace of the church at Thessalonica, he says: ” Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way.”…
Wayne Grudem takes, I think, a scripturally balanced view of this sensitive subject. To summarise:-
It is right to pray for healing, Mt 6:13; 3 Jn 2.
Jesus frequently healed all who were brought to him.
A high expectation of healing is implied in our regular use of ordinary medical remedies. We do not usually argue, “I won’t take this treatment, because it’s better for me to suffer than to be well!”
It is right to pray believingly for healing. …
At last, scientific research seems to have proven what many people have suspected all along. Prayer does not work. Prayer does not change things.
A recent study led by cardiologists from Duke University Medical Center tested whether heart patients recovered more readily if they were prayed for. The three year study involved 750 patients from throughout the USA and 26 prayer groups from different part of the world, including Christians in Manchester, Buddhists in Nepal and Sufi Moslems in America. …
We now move on to consider a vital element of our subject, namely, the indissoluble link between prayer and the coming of revival:-
…[It] is God’s will, through his wonderful grace, that the prayers of his saints should be one great and principle means of carrying on the designs of Christ’s kingdom in the world…It is revealed that, when God is about to accomplish great things for his church, he will begin by remarkable pouring out the spirit of grace and supplication, Zech 12:10.
To pray is to be identified with God’s will. (Alan Redpath)
Prayer is nothing but the promise reversed. (William Gurnall)
Prayer is something more than asking God to run errands for us. (Anon)
Prayer is the key of heaven; faith is the hand that turns it. (Thomas Watson)
Prayer in its simplest definition is merely a wish turned Godward. (Phillips Brooks)
Prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God and a scourge to Satan. …
E.C. Hoskyns put it forthrightly: ‘When a Christian man declares that the four times repeated response in the Litany of the English Church – “Have mercy upon us miserable sinners” – has no meaning for him, he proclaims that he has as yet no understanding of the Christian religion or that he has apostasized from it.’ (Q in A Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, 308)
Confession of sin may be general. Examples are found extensively in the Bible, and also in most liturgies.…
A bit of light relief. Here are a few of my favourites from Children’s Letters to God:-
Dear God…
‘I would like all the bad things to stop.’
‘My father is mean. Please get him not to be. But don’t hurt him.’
‘Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones why don’t you just keep the ones you’ve got now?’
‘Please send me a pony. I never asked for anything before. You can look it up.’…
‘Prayer is the conversation of friends. It is not a mere convenience for letting God know what we are thinking or what we want.’ So writes Tim Chester, in The Message of Prayer. The development of this ‘conversation’ may be traced from Genesis to Revelation:-
Genesis 1:26-27. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” …
