Keys to praying in the Holy Spirit (2)

It's becoming more obvious that nothing in the Christian life works without the backing of the Holy Spirit.

In Olympia, Washington at the state capitol where the governor allowed a nativity scene (and other religious symbols) to be displayed, she also allowed atheists to place a sign near the nativity expressing their view.

According to Fox News, the sign read: "There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens our hearts and enslaves our minds."

So it's clear that we live in an unbelieving age, which is becoming progressively more secular. Which reminds me (or anyone else with even a casual interest in history) of the French Revolution.

During that revolution, Christianity became illegal in France. You can often find articles today written about the "dechristianization of France" that took place in 1789-93. So, how did the revolutionaries attempt such a goal?

They destroyed churches, murdered priests, made worship and Christian education illegal, destroyed crosses, bells and other outward symbols of Christianity, changed the days of the week to exclude Sunday, developed the "Cult of Reason" based on atheism and secularism, and wrote laws giving the death penalty to priests who wouldn't resign, and to people who harbored them. Then, they celebrated the Goddess "Reason" in Notre Dame cathedral.

But the cultural atmosphere of the French Revolution wasn't that different from the situation into which the early church was born. The First Century church found herself in a culture that couldn't tolerate her stand on revealed truth. Civilizations that pride themselves on being tolerant often can't tolerate anyone who claims to know truth. (Sound familiar?)

So today's church faces a rerun of the same cultural bias and bigotry that reigned in the past. We live in an increasingly secular (and hostile) world that has no use for us. (For more information on worldwide persecution of Christians, see Voice of the Martyrs website.)

There are two possible reasons they have no use for us: one could be that we're standing on revealed (inconvenient) truth. But another, more frightening, reason could be that we've become like the church that triggered such hatred during the Revolution - a hypocritical, self-serving, arrogant, tradition-bound, unloving group of religious people.

Without a personal walk with God, through prayer, we all can become what we detest most.

So, we'll never succeed at being light and salt without the power of the Holy Spirit. Dead churches will continue to wither away (with lots of help from a mocking culture) while churches that are full of the Holy Spirit's life and leading will flourish.

Read the Book of Acts, where the Holy Spirit gets mentioned 57 times in 28 chapters (NIV). What does that tell us?

And those references to the Spirit show Him leading, empowering, setting policy, rooting out church hypocrites, choosing mission fields, revealing future dangers and testifying to the risen Christ - the only hope for a culture saturated with evil and blinded by unbelief.

Since the Holy Spirit has been sent to the church on earth to lead, teach and empower her, hasn't He also been sent to teach her to pray?

"But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth." (John 16:13 NIV).