Scripture: "We are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." —PHIL. iii. 3.
The foregoing remarks serve as preparatory to the prayer itself. We have come to the Father with the prayer for the Holy Spirit. We have invoked the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Now we begin to pray.
First, we pray to God the Father, thanking Him for all the blessings of this life. We acknowledge our entire dependence and impotence, and express our trust in His love and care for us. We wait before Him until we have the assurance that He sees and hears us. Then we direct our prayer to the Lord Jesus, and ask for grace to abide in Him always, for without Him we can do nothing. We look to Him as our Lord, our Preserver, our Life, and give ourselves into His keeping for the day. We give utterance to our faith in His infinite love, and the reality of His pres¬ence with us.
Lastly, we pray to the Holy Spirit. We have already prayed to Him for guidance. We now ask Him to strengthen us in the faith, that what we have asked of the Father and the Son may be truly wrought in us. He is the Dispenser of the power and gifts of the Father and of the Lord Jesus; all the grace we need must be the result of the working of the Spirit within us.
Our text says: "We serve God in the Spirit, we glory in the Lord Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." We have no power to do the thing that is good. We count on the Lord Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, to work within us. Let us take time to think and meditate on these things. It will help to strengthen our faith if we repeat the text of Gal. v. 22, asking God to grant these fruits in our lives. As we surrender ourselves wholly, we shall have boldness by faith to accept the working of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
