How do I pray in the Spirit?
Answered by New Wine
Praying in the Spirit means letting the Holy Spirit pray through you — most concretely, praying in tongues, your personal prayer language, bypassing the limits of your own understanding to intercede on a level your natural mind cannot reach.
The Biblical Case
Paul commands it as a continual discipline, not an occasional experience:
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit
Ephesians 6:18
Jude gives it as the way believers stay anchored in a hostile world:
Praying in the Holy Ghost
Jude 20
According to Derek Prince, Jude's context is godlessness, mockery, and cynicism — the very atmosphere many believers live in daily — and prayer in the Spirit is God's appointed means of staying pure, strong in faith, and kept in his love. Prince also points to Romans 8:26-27, where the Spirit helps us in our weakness because we do not know what to pray as we ought, and to 1 Thessalonians 5:19, where quenching the Spirit is what shuts this down — as long as the fire of the Spirit burns, unceasing prayer, constant thanksgiving, and continual rejoicing become possible.
This is not a technique you perform with effort.
It is a surrender you make.
What's Actually Happening
Prince frames it plainly: when your own physical strength and mental faculties run out — because no one can literally pray every waking moment in their own understanding — you turn the task over to the Holy Spirit, and he prays through you without ceasing. According to Bob Mumford, this is the same anointing that rested on Gideon, Samson, and Peter — the enabling of the Spirit that turns "I would" into "I can," made available to every believer through the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
- Ephesians 6:18 — prayer "in the Spirit" is set alongside taking up the sword of the Spirit, meaning it is armed, Word-saturated prayer, not emotionalism.
- Jude 20 — praying in the Spirit is explicitly tied to keeping yourself in the love of God and building yourself up in faith.
- Romans 8:26-27 — the Spirit intercedes through you precisely at the point of your own ignorance about how to pray.
- 1 Corinthians 14:2, 4, per Mumford, shows tongues addressed to God, not men — mysteries spoken in the spirit that build up the one praying, which is why Mumford calls neglecting this gift not selfish but necessary.
- Ephesians 3:20, according to Prince, is where Paul runs out of human vocabulary describing what God can do — "exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think" — and the power behind that abundance is explicitly the Holy Spirit working in us.
Practically, How
Start where your own words run out. Prince describes it as simply giving the Holy Spirit a mouth and letting him fill it — he is not reluctant, he is longing to pray through you.
You do not need eloquence or a felt sense of readiness first.
You need to yield your tongue and let the Spirit take it, trusting Romans 8:26 that he knows what you cannot articulate. This is available to any believer who has received the baptism in the Holy Spirit — it is not reserved for the platform gift of tongues that requires public interpretation in 1 Corinthians 12, but the personal prayer language Paul assumes every Spirit-filled believer can use.
The Spirit doesn't just want to fill you once — he wants to pray through you continually. Quench nothing, and let that fire keep unceasing prayer alive in you.
Sources
New Wine drew this answer from these teachings.
- An Unknown Tongue - Occasional, Continual — Derek Prince
- Seven Basic Conditions For Answered Prayer — Derek Prince
- The Spirit of Obedience — Bob Mumford
- Daily Life of the Local Church - Part 1 — Derek Prince
