Most cities now have signs that post Amber Alerts to help authorities rescue children who have been abducted. At any given time, there are approximately 90,000 missing persons in the U.S.
Pastors are cancelling mid-week Prayer Meetings because of missing persons—church members have stopped attending. But the missing person I’m referring to is not the deacon, Sunday-School teacher, or church member. The missing PERSON in prayer is the HOLY SPIRIT!
On the individual level, as well as the corporate level, there will be no genuine prayer apart from the Holy Spirit. “We know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession…” (Rom 8:26). Samuel Chadwick stated, “Prayer is an impossible task without the Holy Ghost.” In the Book of Acts, we find 38 references to prayer and 53 references to Holy Spirit. Their amazing vibrancy in prayer was due to preeminence of the Holy Spirit “in” and “among” them.
The New Testament makes an undeniable connection between the Holy Spirit and prayer:
- 8:15 “But ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”
- 6:18 “Praying always…in the Spirit”
- Jude 20 “Praying in the Holy Ghost”
We have heard many sermons on the…
- Need of prayer…
- Discipline of prayer…
- Components of prayer…
- Benefits of prayer…
- Power of prayer…
But not many messages on the Person of Prayer. Our entire performance as husbands hinges on our relationship to the Spirit of Christ.
Is it fair to say that the Holy Spirit is the neglected member of the Trinity? In the last 30 days, how often have you thought about, acknowledged, honored, consulted, and talked to the Holy Spirit? Have you ignored and forgotten Him?
It would be preposterous to claim close friendship with an individual but never speak with him. We talk with the people we love, know, and live with. Paul closed out his epistle to the Corinthians with these words: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ…and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14). How can you have communion with a Person without communicating with Him? We are instructed to have communion (fellowship) with the Holy Spirit. He is not only with you—He is literally inside of you. When was the last time you acknowledged His presence within you? When was the last time you spoke with the Holy Spirit?
If a man cannot pray apart from the filling of the Spirit, then the first order of business is to get honest about one’s condition. When it comes to prayer, honesty is not the best policy; it is the only way to reach the ear of God. There are no degrees of honesty. God knew in advance that most of us would have S.A.D.D.—Spiritual Attention Deficit Disorder. He made provision on Calvary for cleansing us from this horrible sin of forgetting and neglecting His Spirit. Thanks be to God that we can get emptied and cleansed from sin—and realigned with the Holy Spirit.
“Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you” (Prov. 1:23). Responding to the Spirit’s call is the path to fullness. Honoring the Holy Spirit is the birthplace of prayer. Your Christian experience will be Supernatural or Superficial depending on your relationship with the Holy Spirit. Your prayer life correlates directly to the Person of prayer.
Walter Wilson was a Doctor, Pastor, and President of a Bible College in Kansas City. A missionary to France was visiting home and asked, “What is the Holy Spirit to you?’’ Dr. Wilson gave the orthodox answer, “He is the comforter, guide, and third person of the Trinity.” The missionary responded, “You have given the place of dishonor and inferiority to the Holy Spirit. What is the Holy Spirit to you?” Wilson let down his guard and got honest—“He is nothing to me. I can do quite well without Him.” This put him on a quest. Later he heard James Gray speaking from Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God…” The text does not say to whom you are to present your body. Gray stated…
- “Jesus has a body…
- God the Father does not need a body…
- The Holy Spirit is looking for a body.
- Will you give Him yours?”
Walter Wilson gave his body to Holy Spirit and became a dynamo for God. Will you give Him your body right now?
Resolutions to pray more are doomed from the outset. Daily cleansing, daily emptying, and daily filling are yours for the taking. To be a praying man, you must get filled with the PERSON of prayer.
You got saved by depending on the death of Christ. You get filled by depending on the LIVING Christ. F. B. Meyer went for years desiring to be filled with the Spirit but did not know how. One day in a prayer meeting, a text jumped out and accosted him—“That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Gal. 3:14). He left the meeting and went out into the street praying, “O Lord, if there was ever a man who needs the power of the Holy Spirit, it is I. But I do not know how to receive Him, I am too tired, too worn out, too nervously rundown to agonize.” Then a voice spoke to him, “As you took forgiveness from the hand of the dying Christ, take the Holy Spirit from the hand of the Living Christ.” Dr. Meyer said, “I took for the first time and have kept taking ever since.”
Further Resources:
- Read “Spirit-LESS Christianity” on our Blog.
- Prayer Secrets by Guy King.
This chapter was written by Evangelist Harold Vaughan
The chapter is taken from The Extraordinary Husband. CLICK HERE for more details.
