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Praying in
Spirit & in Truth
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Key Verse
“Yet a time is
coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the
Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the
Father seeks.” John 4:23
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Scripture
Read the account
of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4
Study
The Samaritans
worshipped in spirit but they lacked the truth about God, Jews had
the truth of God but lacked spirit in their worship. When praying,
we can pray with spirit but receive little of what we ask for
because we lack truth – we don’t understand the will of God and ask
for things outside of God’s will. On the other hand, we can pray in
truth but lack spirit – our prayers lack faith that God can do
anything and we are bound by a narrow view of what God is willing to
do
Are you lacking
in your prayers in either spirit or truth? Do you know what God’s
will is when you pray and do you pray with full faith that God can
answer your prayers?
For our prayers
to be effective, we need to be praying in accordance with God’s will
but also in faith that he can do anything. Jesus tells the
Samaritan woman that a time would come when true believers would not
be confined to worship in a certain place such as the nearby
mountain or Jerusalem. Our prayers are not affected by our location
likewise. There is no “holier” place to pray. God will answer a
prayer the same way if it is prayed at home or at church.
Have you ever
felt that you needed to be in a certain location to pray?
Not only do we
have the ability to go to God anywhere, we can go to God at any time
in prayer – it is never too late (see Nehemiah 2 for an example of a
quick last minute prayer)
What are
your thoughts on what Andrew Murray says in his book?
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“Let
our attitude in prayer be the deep confession of our
inability to bring God the worship that is pleasing to
Him, the childlike teachableness that waits for Him to
instruct us, and the simple faith that yields itself to
the breathing of the Spirit. Above all, let us hold on
tightly to this blessed reality – the secret of prayer
in spirit and truth is in the knowledge of the
Fatherhood of God, the revelation of His infinite
fatherliness in our hearts, and the faith in His
infinite love for us as His children.” |
If we have been
Christians for any length of time, it is easy to be comfortable with
one method of prayer, but we must seek to pray in both Spirit and in
truth. Our prayers should not just be focused on one thing, but on
many things we’ve been told to pray about. The next lesson will
give us an example of exactly how to pray by showing us how Jesus
prayed.
We can get in a
rut with our prayers. We either concentrate on physical problems
and forget the spiritual, or the other way around. If we want to
pray in spirit and in truth, we need to remember both the physical
and spiritual needs of others. We need to recognize that while we
pray for people who are sick and hurting, we need to pray for
spiritual growth of ourselves and our church. Conversely, if we are
growing as Christians, our love of mercy and compassion should grow
as well and we should remember those who are sick and hurting – but
we need balance and need to remember both.
Adapted from
“With Christ in the School of Prayer” by Andrew Murray
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