Romans 7:6 Amp
All too often when God wants to do something wonderful, miraculous, and powerful, we stop short of it. But it doesn’t have to be that way. As I learned from Kenneth E. Hagin many years ago, we can learn to cooperate better with God by doing four things:
• Praying in the Spirit
• Obeying the Spirit
• Giving place to the Spirit
• Listening to the Spirit
Notice there is a distinction between obeying the Spirit and giving place to the Spirit. Obeying the Spirit is doing something you know to do. Giving place to the Spirit is looking to Him when you don’t know. It’s being sensitive to Him and seeking Him to see how He wants to move.
We need to do that not only in our church services but in our praying. Instead of charging off in some direction in prayer just because we think it’s good, we need to wait on the Holy Spirit more and ask Him for His direction. Rather than praying like a machine gun in tongues, at times we need to slow down and listen to the words we are saying. We need to purposely listen for the Spirit’s leadings so we don’t miss something.
Once we receive His leading, we need to act on it. We need to obey. Recently, I had a vision about that. In the vision, I saw someone kneeling and saying, “Lord, use me. Lord, use me.” When the Spirit would move on them in response to their request, I could see that they heard His voice; but instead of doing what they heard to do, they knelt again and said, “God, use me.”
In the midst of that vision, the Lord said to me, “Heed the voice of the Spirit. Obey the urgings and promptings of the Spirit of God ….”
After He spoke that to me, the Lord gave me another vision of myself driving a car. It wasn’t moving right because the emergency brake was on. Then suddenly, the brake was taken off and the car lurched forward.
So shall it be in this day. There will be a taking off of the spiritual brakes and we will jump ahead. We will begin to respond to the Holy Spirit, and as we do, we will move up higher than ever before.
Scripture Reading: Romans 8:14
On the chilly March night in 1972 when Lynne Hammond took her first step into a life of Spirit-led prayer, she had no idea what was about to happen. All she knew was the hunger in her heart for God wouldn’t let her sleep. In the few short months she’d been born again, her desire to fellowship with Him had grown so strong she could hardly contain it. “Help me, God!” she cried. “I want to know you. I want to be able to talk to you. Please, teach me to pray!”
Suddenly, a heavenly presence flooded the room. Lynne sensed waves of spiritual fire sweeping over her and a beautiful language began to flow like a river from within her. Although she’d never heard of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, she knew instantly, without a doubt—this was God!
What began that night soon blossomed into a life of prayer that ultimately became a ministry of prayer when, in 1980, Lynne and her husband, Mac, founded Living Word Christian Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Under Lynne’s leadership, the prayer ministry at Living Word has become an internationally recognized model for developing effective pray-ers in the local church.
A teacher and an author, Lynne publishes a newsletter called Prayer Notes, has written numerous books, and currently serves as the national prayer director for Daughters for Zion. Her passion for inspiring and leading others into the life of Spirit-led prayer continues to take her around the world to minister to believers whose heart cry, like hers, is “Lord, teach me to pray!”