How Does the Holy Spirit Help Me Pray?

NATHAN W. BINGHAM: Well, this week on the Ask Ligonier podcast, we’re recording live from Ligonier’s 2023 National Conference, and we’re joined by Dr. Michael Reeves. He’s the president and professor of theology at Union School of Theology. Dr. Reeves, how does the Holy Spirit help us to pray?

DR. MICHAEL REEVES: Well, without the Holy Spirit, there would be no true prayer because Paul writes to the Corinthians; he says, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 12:3). What the Spirit does is two things in us primarily, and if you understand these two things, you’ll understand how the Spirit helps us pray.

So, the Spirit illumines us. He opens our eyes to see who God is truly, and we find our minds then turned. We had a complete misunderstanding of what God was like, and then the Spirit opens our eyes, and it’s a mighty aha moment that actually carries on as we carry on being educated by the Spirit. So, the Spirit renews our minds as we think: “Oh, that is what God is like. I did not think God was like that.”

And by renewing our minds, secondly, what the Spirit does is He transforms our hearts. So, He takes away a heart of stone to give us a heart of flesh. And again, that is an initial work that He does, but it’s also an ongoing work. So, the Spirit gives us a new mind and a new heart, but He ongoingly educates us and affects us. And what that means is, for prayer, that as the Spirit works in me, my mind is enabled to know what to pray for.

So, as a young Christian, I would naturally tend to have a prayer life—“This is a shopping list of blessings for me and my family and my friends,” and it’s pretty self-centered, and then I remember I ought to do some less self-centered prayers. But as the Spirit works in me and transforms my mind, and I see reality differently, and I start seeing the centrality of God and not me, then my prayers start following that. And so, my prayers start becoming more God-centered and less me-centered. That’s the Spirit’s reeducation work.

But the Spirit also, through that, is transforming my affections and desires. So, it’s not merely as the Spirit works in me that I know, “Oh yes, I really ought to be more God-centered, and I ought to try to be less self-centered.” The Spirit’s doing a deeper work. He’s actually making me want, enjoy being God-centered, so that this is just natural to me, and I’m not trying to work at it. It just comes out of who the Spirit’s making me to be. And therefore, I begin to desire to pray God-centered prayers, God-loving, God-adoring prayers.

And so, what the Spirit does is He educates and affects me such that I begin to desire to pray, to desire long communion with God in a way that I thought, “Initially, prayer was just one of those things that I ought to do every now and again, but the Spirit’s work runs so deep that I begin to enjoy communion with God.”

So, it’s those two things, really, that the Spirit does: educating me, transforming my mind, and transforming my affection so that I enjoy prayer and begin to pray more intelligently, more Christian prayers.