Hosanna Restoration Church

Jesus once asked a man if he wanted to be healed; it seems like a silly question to ask a person who is even a little sick, let alone someone who is paralyzed, but Jesus asked anyway. If you are familiar with the story, you know that instead of shouting, “yes please,” the man began to make excuses and finally Jesus just told him to get up.

In this scripture, God shows the way to be built up in our faith. If you are like me, when you look at all that God has for us and desires of us sometimes it is a bit overwhelming. Well, we really should be overwhelmed. The sooner we come to understand that we cannot do even a small part in our own strength, the sooner we turn to God and begin to do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Well, by the time we get to the book of Jude, we are pretty close to the end of the Bible. We are not to the end of what God has to say to us, but we are near the end of the written word. Right after Jude comes Revelation, which causes great distress to some folks. I mean there is a lot of stuff there that is difficult to comprehend. There are those that are pretty sure they have it all figured out, but either way, we better be strong in our faith before we come to the end of this world.

So, how can we be built up? How can we possibly be all that we know God has called us to be? How will we survive in this world full of hate, stress, war, rumors of war, and a multitude of unrighteousness? It seems the answer is to pray. But what do we pray? How should we pray? How do we know we are praying right?

There are many prayers written in the Bible that we can use. Jesus gave us instructions in what we call the Lord’s Prayer. We can look at the prayer Jesus prayed in John chapter 17 along with Paul’s prayers, etc. All of these are most certainly good prayers. But lets face it, sometimes we have things going on inside us and around us that are just not satisfied by anything we can read or say. Sometimes there is just a stirring on the inside of us and we are at a loss for words or understanding. Jude says to pray in the Holy Spirit or as another translation tells us to, “pray as you are directed by the Holy Spirit.”

There is a heavenly language that God has given to all who believe and receive the Holy Spirit and are willing to pray as the Lord directs. Some, when they hear this begin to be like the man Jesus asked if he wanted to be healed, and they make excuses. But there is no need to do that. The question is do you want to be built up? Do you want to be able to stand after you have done everything to stand? Well, then pray as the Spirit directs.