Tuesday: Prayer for One Thing: The Holy Spirit
WEEK 42
TUESDAY
PRAYER FOR ONE THING: THE HOLY SPIRIT
Luke 24:45-49
We saw yesterday that the people in the Acts showed the sanest and most effective use of prayer that has ever been seen. Let us study how they used it and learn their secret.
First of all, we find them starting out as a group in prayer and praying for one thing: the Holy Spirit. “All were united in their devotion to prayer, along with some women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers” (Acts 1:14). They were not praying for their safety, for their loneliness now that Jesus was taken away, for revenge upon their enemies who had crucified Jesus, for their needs to be met, for the power to perform miracles—none of these. They were praying simply for the Holy Spirit. And for the Holy Spirit unconditionally. They weren’t praying that the Spirit might come and make them a success or give them power to do miracles or even to witness; they prayed for the Holy Spirit and the Spirit alone. And in order for the Holy Spirit to take them over unconditionally, they surrendered unconditionally. They wanted the Spirit for nothing but himself.
That is the purest form of prayer known. And they did this as the first step, off the bat, as it were. They didn’t grow into this purified form of prayer; they began with it. That struck a note, set a standard. Prayer was not primarily for things—for success, for healing, for power—prayer was a person wanting a Person. Prayer was wanting that Person so much that they were willing to surrender everything, including themselves especially, if only that Person would come in and take over. The Holy Spirit did, and how! “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:4). The hands of God were untied; God could do anything, everything, for people who didn’t want anything except for God to come in and take over.
What a corrective to a great deal of modern praying, which makes prayer into a success cult, a healing cult, an ego-expanding cult! All this is making ourselves the center; we’re using God. Prayer is prostituted. People try to capture the holy to serve them. Here God is the center. Humanity is surrendered to God. That is the right relationship. Anything can now happen.
O God, my Lord, I thank you that you have set our faces in the right direction, toward you. Give me yourself and only yourself, and then all I need will come as a by-product. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: My praying today shall be for the highest object, for the Holy Spirit.