18.How do we learn to yield to God’s Spirit

By "praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit."

It is not enough for the conquering saint to pray. He or she must learn to pray in the Spirit. In some churches praying in the Spirit means praying in tongues. Praying in tongues indeed is a valuable part of spiritual warfare. But we suspect that Paul here is not limiting this expression to praying in tongues, as helpful as such activity is.

Praying in the Spirit is distinguished from praying in the energies and wisdom of the human personality. It is a good practice to pray always; and the believer grows in Christ as he prays and reads the Scriptures on a daily basis.

As we make the effort to pray we learn by experience how to follow the prayer and burden of the Spirit. "The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered" (Romans 8:26). Praying in the Spirit means "getting into the groanings" so we are directing our prayers in cooperation with the Holy Spirit rather than in the blindness of our human personality.

We learn by experience how to follow the Spirit in prayer. We learn how to enter and flow with the burden of the Spirit. We may speak in tongues and prophesy in our time of prayer, seeking the mind of the Spirit.

The will of God in our heart begins to emerge so our Christian walk is the outward expression of the inward prayer and burden. Every saint is to become the visible expression of the resurrection life of Christ, as the Father works in him both to will and to do His good pleasure.

There is a time to stop what we are doing and to pray for the vital needs that the Spirit is pressing upon us and that we know to be important. As we enter the burden of prayer we reach heavenward for the will of the Holy Spirit so that our prayer may begin to conform to the will of God.

The wisdom and energy of the Spirit enter our prayer giving it effectiveness in binding and loosing the conditions in the heavens, in the realm of spirits. The Holy Spirit makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Christ Himself makes intercession for us in the Presence of the Father and knows the mind of the Spirit.