“Praying for and with the Spirit”
Pastor David Moore
Old Testament reading: Psalm 42:1‐11
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.
Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.
My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.
New Testament reading: Ephesians 3:14‐21
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work in us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Today’s theme is about the greatest distance in a human’s body (life). The distance from the head to the heart, which is approximately 18 inches. Converting head knowledge to a heart‐living, a Spirit‐ directed life with God’s love overflowing in that life.
James 5:16: “The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.”
Three things Paul asks for:
1. Christ would dwell in their hearts.
2. They would know the love of Christ.
3. They would be filled with the fullness of God.
Paul is willing to seek the three things he has asked for. Paul’s point to the Ephesians; is that they have been given the fullness in Christ. They have only been living in the intelligent dimension of Jesus’ love. The head knows something the heart experiences. ~D. Moore
The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him. ~Blaise Pascal
Presbyterians are conceptual people; we love ideas and knowledge to a fault. But there can be a disconnect between principles and experiencing God’s love in our lives. ~D. Moore
You are the person that has received an amazing inheritance, but if you don’t recognize it, you will never use it. If you never rely on the Spirit, you may never tap into God’s love. Then effectively we are Christians getting poor and hungry as if we were living in a cave. ~D. Moore
So what is the power of the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is preparing our inner selves so that we can grasp love. The Spirit sensitizes our heart to the Gospel of truth. ~D. Moore
Psalm 34:8: O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.
It is possible to believe all the right things of God and have never tasted the Holy Spirit working in our life. ~D. Moore
Three things that may impede the Holy Spirit in our lives.
1. Focus on doctrine and theology learning and a fear of experiencing the Christian life.
2. God is blocked from working in our life by us being unwilling to submit to Him.
3. We need to be part of a community to better understand and see God working in our lives.
Read Psalm 42 and see David wrestling with God. This wrestling with God is how we understand God’s word and truth, and it becomes a part of our heart.
The normal Christian life is a life of regular, daily answer to prayer. In the model prayer Jesus taught His disciples to pray daily for bread, and expect to get it, and to ask daily for forgiveness, for deliverance from the evil one, and for other needs, and daily to get the answers they sought. ~John R. Rice
James 4:7: “Submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.”
Only if you are part of a community of believers seeking to resemble, serve, and love Jesus will you ever get to know him and grow into his likeness. ~Timothy Keller
Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
1 John 3:2: Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
This week: contemplate the concept of allowing the love of God to fill your heart. Think about Spiritual dimensions of God’s Spirit living in your heart (length, width, depth, and height). Pray that the Christ will help you grow in all dimensions of your life.
God bless. Submit to Christ’s prompting in your heart.