The Wondrous Spirit (1)

Often when we pray for Muslims, we focus on them knowing God as their loving heavenly Father and Jesus as His divine Son who won their salvation by paying the price for their sin. Today I want to focus on the work and the benefits of the Holy Spirit. When I began to sense I was to write about this, I felt excited, even joyful! The encouragement of the Spirit is precisely why we need to remember Him. And today, He gave me a demonstration of His power and usefulness.

I’ve been leading a prayer team for a short-term mission. The leader and I message back and forth, and he sends photos of rallies and training sessions. Powerful moves of the Holy Spirit have been happening, but the most recent set of photos cued me that things were suddenly not going well. I waited on the Lord and then sent a voice message about an impression I had. His response: I was “absolutely right”. As I prayed, a scripture passage came to mind and I “happened” to remember a vision someone had when we met to pray four months ago. I texted that information to him, and he was immediately encouraged by what the Spirit knew he needed to receive hope and increase his faith. Then I alerted the intercessors about how to pray for an event happening halfway around the world. Oh, wondrous Spirit!

Following are some of the ways in which the Holy Spirit helps us as we pray for and minister among Muslims.

“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:23-24).

• Spirit help me be a true worshipper of the Living God. Let my unveiled face reflect Your glory, and transform me into Your likeness (2 Co 3:18).
• Spirit direct me to those You are seeking, Muslims whose hearts desire truth, and use Me to reveal the One who is worthy of worship.

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (Jn 14:26). “[D]o not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Mt 10:19-20). 

• Thank You Spirit for helping me understand Jesus’ words and teachings and for bringing them to my remembrance at the right time in the right situation. Thank You that I don’t have to be anxious because You are continually with me.
• Spirit, I pray the words I speak to Muslims will be “like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Pr 25:11) because they come from You, and that they will be alive and full of power in them (Heb 4:12-13).

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Ro 8:26-27).

• Thank You Spirit for interceding for me according to God’s will even when I don’t know what to pray. Knowing this gives me confidence!
• You know what my Muslim friends need before I do, and even before they do, because You have searched their hearts. Help me give my amen to the way You are working in each one and work with You as You draw them to Yourself.