The prayers of the people

I was totally caught off guard in church yesterday because our pastor said something I have been mulling around in my mind and I never thought a leader in our church would agree with it.

He said that the prayers of the people (followers of Christ) unleash the provision of the Spirit in the world.

Did you catch that? What does that mean to you? I have been struck by the huge implications of this simple truth! WE unleash the Spirit to do it's work! As I have thought about this, I know that the Spirit CAN of course work on It's own to accomplish the God's purposes. In the Trinity, all 3 parts of God act in one accord, with one purpose. So there is definitely movement done by the Lord Himself. But so much CAN be accomplished by our prayers! And He WANTS us to ask Him!

Think about the apostles' work in the early church after they had received the Holy Spirit. They literally healed people and raised them from the dead (both Paul and Peter do this in Acts). How did they accomplish this? Not by magic or by being a physician with training and tools - by prayer. Jesus told His disciples, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." (John 14:12)

Chapter 2 in Acts is an amazing summary of what happened when the Spirit was planted in the first group of believers. The primary purpose that I glean for the Spirit's work is to enable believers to effectively share the Gospel and to bring people to faith in Christ. Part of this is accomplished by the enabling of speaking in tongues. Now there is a lot that I do not understand about tongues, but I do know that here it is clearly explained as people speaking in true foreign languages that they hadn't been able to speak in before. It makes me think of John Travolta's character in the movie Phenomenon when he suddenly learns Portuguese in like 5 minutes. Anyways, I think one of the purposes of this miracle is to enable the band of believers to spread out into the world and share the Gospel in the heart language (the native tongue) of people across the world. The Lord scattered the people to the far reaches of the earth during the tower of Babel catastrophe as a means of disrupting their plans to make a manmade way to reach heaven. Then he pours out His Spirit to enable man to communicate again with one another in order to bring people from every tribe and nation back to Himself. WoW!

So you have two things at hand already from the work of the Spirit in a believer's life. The ability to heal and perform miracles and the ability to communicate the Gospel to others.

This motivates me so much more to "PRAY in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests." (Ephesians 6:18)

I have a thousand more thoughts on this, but I'll leave you with what I have here.

How can I pray for you?