Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit. Sometimes one hears the expression: 'I need all the help I can get'. Ever said that?

Well, if Christians are to exercise their rights and privileges at the place of prayer, achieve great victories and reach new spiritual heights, then they are going to need all the help they can get.

We have all the help we need in the Person of the Holy Ghost. Who is the He?

He is the third Person of the Trinity and His executive function is to minister the resources of God and Christ to the weak and helpless believer.

Listen to what Paul says on this subject in Romans 8.26: 'Likewise, the Spirit also helps our infirmities; for we know not what to pray for as we ought but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered.

He helps us in many ways of course, But His chief aims and purposes is to enable us to pray and pray effectively. John Wesley once said, God does nothing in this world redemptively - except through prayer.

' Think of that for a moment. If it is true that God does nothing redemptiveIy except through prayer then it means whenever God wants to do something important in a community, or even in a nation, He lays a prayer burden deep in someone's heart and brings about change through the process of human/divine co-operation.

God does nothing independently, but seeks to bring about change by working through His redeemed people in the place of prayer.

Can you see therefore how prayer is vital to the running of the world? But what if we don't feel greatly inclined to pray? Or we feel the burden is too great for us?

Well, God gives us the help we need through the Person of the Holy Spirit. Take a look with me for a few moments at the Greek word for help. It is a combination of three words: sun - 'along with'; anti - 'on the opposite side'; and lambano - 'to take hold of.

When put together the words reads thus sunantilambanotai which means 'to join together and take hold of something on the other side.' It might be worth mentioning in passing that Greek scholars point out this word is in the indicative mood and represents a fact.

It is in the middle voice, indicating that the Holy Ghost is doing the action; it is in the present tense, that speaks of continuous action.

In other words the Holy Spirit is always available to take hold on the other side of our prayer burdens and take the heavier end, so that with His co-operation and ours God can bring about change in the world.

The more you allow the Holy Ghost to flow into and through your life the greater will be your prowess in prayer. The great preacher of a past generation, C. G. Spurgeon, once declared, 'We shall grow cold, unholy and worldly ... and Christ will be dishonored unless we obtain a larger measure of the Holy Spirit.

' Samuel Chadwick, one time Principal of Cliff College, said, 'Go back! Back to that Upper Room; back to your knees, back to searching of heart and habit, thought and life; back to pleading, praying, waiting till the Spirit of the Lord floods your soul with light and you are endued with the power from on high'.

Andrew Murray, another great prayer warrior, emphasized the need for utter dependency on the Holy Spirit when he wrote: 'In every prayer the triune God takes a part; the Father Who hears, the Son in Whose Name we pray, and the Holy Spirit Who prays for us and in us.

How important it is that we should be in a right relationship to the Holy Spirit and understand His word!' There are, of course, many doctrinal differences on the subject of the Holy Spirit. Some say we have the Spirit at our conversion and there is nothing more to seek.

Others say we receive just one operation of the Spirit at conversion (regeneration) and we need to seek a further encounter with the Holy Spirit, which they describe as the baptism in the Spirit.

At this moment I am not interested in arguing a doctrinal point, but to encourage you to open your life to all that God has for you. If you believe that you received all of the Holy Spirit at conversion then what steps are you taking to ensure that His Spirit if flowing in your life to the extent He should.

And if you believe that the Spirit came to you subsequent to your conversion and you were baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire, then how up to date is that experience? Is He flowing in you now with much force and energy as He once did?

If we are to experience greater power in prayer then we must see to it that we take Paul's admonition seriously 'Be filled with the Spirit' (Ephesians 5.18).

You will no doubt have heard someone say that the verse just quoted is in the present continuous tense in the Greek and should be read 'Be being filled with the Spirit.

' Whatever our experience in the past, let our eyes be uplifted, our hearts wide open for a greater supply of the Holy Spirit to flow in us and through us than we have ever known before.

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