How to get God’s help 24/7
by Gloria Copeland
Ever wish you could dial 9-1-1 and get God on the phone? Good news! God has a 24/7 communication plan set up so you can get the help you need. That’s why He sent the Holy Spirit …to carry out that plan. Read on to discover how the Holy Spirit lives inside you and how He can be your help every day.
God has made a way for us to live successful, holy lives. If we will learn to walk in the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:26 tells us how to overcome the weakness of the flesh and walk in the spirit, even while we live in this body. This revelation has changed my life and the lives of countless others.
So too the [Holy] Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up in our weakness; for we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it worthily as we ought, but the Spirit Himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance (Romans 8:26, The Amplified Bible).
The King James Version translates the word weakness as “infirmities,” but the Greek word is singular and should have been translated “weakness.”
Romans 6-8 talks about the weakness of the flesh and the strength of the spirit. It is talking about overcoming the weakness of the flesh.
One way the Holy Spirit bears us up in our weakness is by enabling us to pray in the spirit—in other tongues.
Praying in the spirit causes your spirit to dominate your flesh. Praying in the spirit applies spirit to flesh.
When you pray in the spirit, you pray the perfect will of God. Your prayer knows no limitation. It is God the Holy Spirit speaking through your spirit to God the Father in the Name of God the Son. That is prayer that cannot be overthrown.
The Holy Spirit–Our Strength
The Holy Spirit is our Comforter, Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener and Standby (John 14:16, The Amplified Bible). His ministry is to bear us up, to help us, to strengthen us. God knew that man was weak through his flesh. He said:
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
God does not expect you to overcome the weakness of the flesh, even by your new, born-again spirit. He gave you His Spirit to help you and strengthen you. Ephesians 3:16 says we are “strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.”
The Holy Spirit will strengthen you with might in your inner man to overcome the weakness of living in a natural body. “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Romans 8:11).
The Holy Spirit does not do the work by Himself. He comes to our aid. He is our Helper. When we pray in other tongues, the Spirit of God bears us up in the weakness of our flesh—the part of us that is earthy and natural—and brings us God’s answer to the situation or problem. Through the operation of the Holy Spirit within us, we are no longer held in bondage to the natural world.
So what is our part? Our part is to give Him place by hearing and obeying His word, and then yield the control of our lives to Him as we walk in His ways instead of man’s ways. This allows the supernatural power of God to flow in our behalf to bring to pass the will of God. When we give place to the Holy Spirit and obey Him, we are allowing God to be God in our lives.
The Bible says, “He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself” (1 Corinthians 14:4). The phrase edifieth himself means “builds up himself.” Jude tells us that we are to build ourselves up on our most holy faith by praying in the Holy Ghost.
Whatever weakness of the flesh you have, praying in the spirit—in other tongues—will help you overcome that weakness and give you victory. If you will spend time praying in the spirit every day, you will find that earth’s bondages can no longer restrain you. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes you free from the law of sin and death. The Holy Spirit Himself is enforcing your deliverance.
First Corinthians 14:14 says, “For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.” We are not praying according to our understanding, or our limited knowledge, but according to the unlimited wisdom and knowledge of God.
The Holy Spirit Knows
We have to learn to walk in the spirit, and we learn to do it one step at a time, just like we learned to walk in the natural. When we spend time praying in the spirit, we give the Holy Spirit an opportunity to pray the perfect will of God for our lives.
We may not know what the perfect will of God is, so we can’t pray effectively with our understanding. But the Holy Spirit knows exactly what to pray in order to get God’s will done in our lives. “And in like manner also the Spirit lends us a helping hand with reference to our weakness, for the particular thing that we should pray for according to what is necessary in the nature of the case, we do not know with an absolute knowledge” (Romans 8:26, Wuest).
The Holy Spirit gives us utterance that is founded on absolute knowledge. He goes right to the root of the problem. “And He Who searches the hearts of men knows what is in the mind of the [Holy] Spirit [what His intent is], because the Spirit intercedes and pleads [before God] in behalf of the saints according to and in harmony with God’s will” (Romans 8:27, The Amplified Bible).
What a blessing this is if we will pay attention to the promptings of the Spirit. With our limited understanding of spiritual things, often we only know the result of something wrong in our lives.
For example, you might be asking God to heal your body. You think sickness is the problem, when sometimes it is a result of something more serious. According to this verse, the Holy Spirit is prompting you in your spirit with the answer. He may be saying, You should forgive your sister-in-law. But you pay no attention to that prompting because the sickness in your body is so important, and your sister-in-law is far down on your list of priorities.
The Holy Spirit is going to the root. He is endeavoring to stop the problem at the source.
He will continue to lead you to forgive. If you determine to walk in the spirit, and you spend time praying in the spirit and seeking God’s will for your life, then you will pay attention to that leading. You will obey, not even realizing that your healing is contingent on your obedience. If you go after God and His will, you will learn to make adjustments quickly and cause your will to agree with His.
Every day, as you have been believing God for the healing of your body, you have also been praying in the Holy Spirit, giving Him place and control in your life. While you have been asking for healing, which is merely a side issue, He has been praying the perfect will of God through you in this matter—that you walk in love with your sister-in-law! Walking out of love is what opened the door to sickness.
With your cooperation, He overcomes your weakness. You hear His voice and obey. You forgive. You are back in agreement with God. Sickness loses its foothold. You have victory, and the Holy Spirit has you!
Let Your Spirit Speak by the Holy Spirit
First Corinthians 2:7 says, “But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory.” And 1 Corinthians 14:2 says, “For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.”
A mystery is something we cannot know with our intellect. It is beyond our knowledge. Mysteries are in the realm described in Ephesians 3:20—beyond what we can ask or think.
The Bible says, “We know in part, and we prophesy in part” (1 Corinthians 13:9). But if you are praying in the spirit, you are not praying “in part.” When you pray in the spirit, the Holy Spirit brings the mysteries of the Father into the earth. Praying in the spirit causes the Father’s perfect will to overwhelm the course of this earth.
It is critical that we pray and intercede in the spirit, because God wants to do some things in the earth that we have never even thought of, much less asked for.
The Spirit of God moves in the natural realm when people ask Him. In Exodus 3:7-8 God said, “I…have heard their cry…and I am come down to deliver them.”
God knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations (2 Peter 2:9). He has the way for the Church of Jesus Christ to rise up as the glorious Church without spot or wrinkle. God reveals His plan to us as we pray in the spirit.
There are some things that we don’t know about His plan, and there are some things we do know about it (Ephesians 1-2). But when it comes to fulfilling His plan on a day-by-day basis, many times we lack knowledge of the details.
So the Father sent the Holy Spirit to lead you into all truth and show you things to come. There is only one way you can accomplish the will of God in your life—by obeying His Spirit one day at a time.
The Holy Spirit reveals the wisdom of God to you—it is the “hidden wisdom” which God ordained before the foundation of the world (1 Corinthians 2:7). The Church’s hearing and obeying the wisdom of God will remove the spots and wrinkles, so that this glorious Church will be holy and without blemish.
Pray God’s Will
Since you can only do the will of God one day at a time, you need to find out every day what His will is.
When we pray in tongues, “we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery.” In the spirit we are decreeing the plan of God, which we may not understand or even know in our natural minds. But we know that when we pray in the spirit, we pray the perfect will of God.
If we all would start praying the will of God, He would be able to get His will done in the earth. Isn’t that what Jesus told the disciples to pray? “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” His will must be prayed.
In the spirit, He can use our mouths and our authority, even if we do not mentally know what we are saying. When we pray in the spirit, we give Him place to manifest His glory and fulfill His plan. When we pray in the spirit, we speak forth the mysteries of God—His hidden plans to repossess this earth.
As we pray His will in the spirit, the Holy Spirit begins to reveal to our minds what God is doing and how we individually fit into that plan. Supernatural understanding comes to our minds.
The Bible says if you pray in an unknown tongue, you may pray for the interpretation (1 Corinthians 14:14-15). Many times we pray in tongues and then pray the interpretation in English without realizing we are praying both in tongues and in English out of our spirit.
The same Holy Spirit Who prays the will of God through you in tongues can pray the will of God through you in English, if you will interpret it. That interpretation will come out of your spirit—not your mind—in the language of the Holy Ghost.
As you spend time daily praying in the spirit, it becomes easier for you to hear the direction of the Holy Spirit as He reveals His will to your spirit.
“So now we serve not under [obedience to] the old code of written regulations, but [under obedience to the promptings] of the Spirit in newness [of life]” (Romans 7:6, The Amplified Bible). We are no longer bound to obey written regulations. But we are to serve by obeying the promptings of our reborn spirit, which is controlled by the Holy Spirit.
Grow Up!
I cannot teach you how to walk in the spirit in seven easy steps. Each of us has to mature spiritually day by day. Simply ask the Holy Spirit to teach you how to follow Him. Give Him control of your life and He will reveal to you the will of God, step by step. He knows how to bring you to maturity.
He will not tell you to part the Red Sea the first day you begin to walk as a Christian! You will start where you are. If you are a baby Christian and have not grown spiritually, you will start in kindergarten! (If you do not look just like Jesus, you are not fully grown.)
The Holy Spirit will reveal areas in your life that need to be corrected. He will not send you on some world-changing errand unless you’re ready. But He will lead you to mortify the deeds of your body so you can begin to live in the power of God.
Romans 8:13-14 tells us: “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” Children of God grow up to be mature sons and daughters by obeying the Holy Spirit concerning their own lives.
Many times we receive direction from the Holy Spirit, telling us to make certain changes in our lives. But too often we are not interested in hearing God deal with us on this level—not realizing that this is where walking in the spirit begins. We want to hear something BIG from the Holy Spirit, like “Go to China.”
If we do not follow the Holy Spirit in the area of correcting our own life, we would be of little value to God when we got to China!
Many times we are like Peter was in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was willing to die for Jesus. He was willing to go to jail! He was ready to do something big and important.
But Jesus said, “Watch and pray.”
No, Lord, that is not what I had in mind. Peter did not follow Jesus’ will in something simple. Jesus wanted him to pray so that when temptations came, he would overcome them.
Peter did not follow God in praying, and when the pressure came, he did not follow God in action. He suffered a major defeat. But that doesn’t have to happen to you.
There is no leading from the Holy Spirit that is insignificant. If it is from God, it is priority. Listen to the counsel of the Holy Spirit every moment and obey His promptings.
You’ll soon discover that wherever you’re weak, He’s your helping hand. And He’s ready to give you the help you need!
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