Prayer should be ‘in the Spirit’

“praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—” (Ephesians 6:18 NKJV)

Although the scriptures refer specifically to praying in tongues as praying ‘in the spirit’, more generally it refers to all prayer. God is a Spirit (John 4:24) and must be addressed as such. All truly effective prayer proceeds from the heart (the spirit) of man, not the head. Intelligence is involved, but a purely ‘mental’ prayer will not affect the spiritual world at all. Our mind may conceive the request we desire to make to our Father, but when expressed it must come from our spirit, not just our head. In this way all prayer is ‘in the spirit’ because all prayer is essentially spiritual.

Mary Alice Isleib says: “Praying in the spirit doesn’t mean to pray just in tongues. What does is mean, then? It means to pray out of your spirit, aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit. It means to pray all prayer – all the different kinds of prayer – in the presence of the Holy Spirit, in the realm of the spirit, out of your inner man.”