Keep Yourselves in the Love of God Part 3

As we look again at our great diamond in our Jude 21 text above, we have looked at one of three jewels that surround it in the text of Jude 20, and 21. It was building yourself up on your most holy faith. It is showing us to keep placing one block of Godly living upon another. A good example of what that would like is 1Peter 1:5-11. Then we looked at the phrase on our most holy faith. The Holy Spirit is a key person in helping us do this. This is the work of progressive sanctification that helps us become mature in the faith. With faith being the foundation that our whole Christian life is built on, we continue building on this foundation. We do not just float, and let go and let God, but know that the only preventative of falling away from steadfastness is that of continual progress. So, we build as has been mentioned, and today we look at praying in the Holy Spirit, so that we can keep ourselves in the love of God.
Prayer is a means of divine grace, simply meaning we cannot keep ourselves in the love of God by ourselves. Jude 3, and Jude 24, others like 1Peter 1:5, all state that God does the keeping of us. Without Him we can do nothing. To pray in the Spirit means to pray that the Holy Spirit is the MOVING and GUIDING power in our prayers. It is He who motivates(moves) and enables you to pray what you pray for. And when you pray in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit guides you as to how you pray and what you pray for. We see this very clearly in Romans 8:26,"The Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and verse 27, and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."
So, it could be summarized to say that if the Spirit moves you to pray, He will certainly guide you to pray according to His will and Word. To contrast that, if we would pray like that in James 4:3, asking with wrong motives so that we can spend it on our own pleasures. That would not be praying in the Spirit, but instead praying in the flesh. We are told to do something by the power of another, the Spirit. Look at Gal.5:16,"Walk by the Spirit", Rom.8:13,"Put to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit", Phil.3:3,"Worship by the Spirit." We are commanded to do things with the help of another. And this another helper is another kind of helper just like Jesus was to the disciples. We look to God in faith by trusting Him by His mercy to help us pray by His Spirit.
To pray in the Holy Spirit, it greatly helps us to pray according to His word, the Bible, that which He inspired. Our prayers will be more and more shaped by the Spirit by our knowing God's word more and more. Meditating, memorizing, hiding it in our hearts to be praying more of not my will be done, but Your will be done. We pray in His strength and wisdom, and He moves our hearts and directs our petitions. Zech.12:10," I will pour out on the house of David, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and supplication. English Puritan Thomas Manton states," Where there is grace, there will be supplication. As soon as we are born, we fall a-crying; "behold, he prayeth, Acts 9:11, is the first news we hear of Paul after his conversion." So, build yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, so that you can keep yourselves in the love of God.

Elder Randy Slak
09/06/2021