The Significance of Praying for Excellent Blessings

Seek The Spirit in Prayer: Aligning our desires with God's will

Epaphras Prays is a newsletter about personal and intercessory praying. We encourage the People of God to pray from the Word of God for other People of God. Sign up here:

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We are starting out a new year. Twelve months await us—seasons, holidays, events, successes, failures, growth, life—all await.

Each ought be covered, in prayer, soaked in pleas and requests on promises of blessing, grace, and favor from our Lord Jesus and His heavenly Father.

The first thing this year we are asking for is the one good gift promised by Jesus. Let’s start this year asking: how much more!

Prayer Insights … from Johnathon Edwards

The Spirit of God is the chief of blessings, for it is the sum of all spiritual blessings; which we need infinitely more than others, and wherein our true and eternal happiness consists.

Edwards says this is the sum of the blessings Christ purchased, and is the sum of the blessings Christians have to pray for—that is the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, when the disciples came to Christ in Luke 11, asking him to teach them to pray, and he gave them particular directions for the performance of this duty; he adds this” “If ye then, being evil [earthly], know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13).

According to these teachings of Christ, requesting the divine gift of the Spirit from our heavenly Father is a highly encouraged form of prayer. The words suggest that God is particularly inclined to grant his Holy Spirit to those who ask for it.

In other words, He gives what we ask when asking is according to His will.

Edwards: The more excellent the nature of any benefit is — which we stand in need of, the more ready God is to bestow it, in answer to prayer.

Let’s realize the significance of praying for the most excellent blessings as part of God's redemption plan. By doing so, we align our desires with God's will, which he is more inclined to grant. This pleases God's infinite goodness, ensuring greater success in Jesus Christ's redemptive efforts.

According to Edwards, if the Holy Spirit is the greatest of blessings we could receive, then this should be of utmost priority for all believers to pray for. The inducement to pray — or the promise for asking, is the gift of the Holy Spirit given to us.

May the church be in prayers for the Spirit of the living God be given to the people of God!

• Let us ask to bear the fruit of the Spirit

• Let us ask to use the gifts of grace in the Spirit

• Let us ask for the wisdom of the Spirit

• Let us ask to live by the Spirit

• Let us ask to be led by and keep in step with the Spirit

Jesus Promises The Holy Spirit

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, [Counselor] to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. John 14:16-17

If Jesus tells us to ask for the Spirit—and He himself asks for us—then we should keep this command and ask Him to keep this promise.

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Edwards was instrumental in two seasons of revival, including the Great Awakening of the 1740s. We can learn much in our days about praying together for the Lord to pour out the spirit of grace and supplication, resulting in a season of united and earnest prayer on the part of his people, for a great revival across the lands.

It is God’s will through His wonderful grace, that the prayers of His saints should be one of the great principal means of carrying on the designs of Christ’s kingdom in the world. When God has something very great to accomplish for His church, it is His will that there should precede it the extraordinary prayers of His people; as is manifest by Ezekiel 36:37. and it is revealed that, when God is about to accomplish great things for His church, He will begin by remarkably pouring out the spirit of grace and supplication (see Zechariah 12:10).

This revival- this awakening, is His kingdom come—that is, a great many people come to know the Lord in repentance and belief in the Gospel. There will be growth in the Church and many born again, having been transferred from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of Christ (Colossians 1:13).

Edwards taught that we have a duty of prayer, considering how it is expressly and repeatedly mentioned, and how many passages speak of fervent, struggling, continuous prayer that precedes and introduces those glorious revivals—both in the days of God’s people (Old Testament Israel) and again in our days.

Even if, in these days, a widespread geographical revival does not come, and there is no next great awakening—we who believe need how much more of the Spirit of the Living God infilling us, to sustain us, guide us, and remain steadfast in faith.

And so we ask.

Until next time, grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ…