Should we pray for God to send the Holy Spirit and for whom should we pray this –- the unsaved, or for those already saved?  If the latter, how can that be needed if Christ has already sent the Holy Spirit.” 

It is mainly for believers that we pray for the Holy Spirit.  We ask God to spiritually empower us to worship him and to profit from that worship.

In asking for the Spirit we are consciously following the example of the Bible in its treatment of people who are already Christians.  The apostle Paul prays for the Christians in Ephesians 1:17-19 that, “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened.”  Paul is asking that God would reveal himself to the believers and that the Spirit would open the eyes of their already regenerated hearts.  As he explains, he wants them to know God and the blessings he gives to his people; our ability to understand the Scriptures and perceive the reality and presence of God is dependent on the active, present work of the Holy Spirit, and for this we should pray.

One principle that is helpful here is that everything in the Christian life involves a once-for-all fulfillment and an on-going application.  You are saved once for all by believing on Jesus Christ, but you must believe on him day-to-day as well.  You are brought into the church by baptism, which is received only once.  But that same reality of acceptance with God is acted out over and over again in the other sacrament, the Lord’s Supper.  So also, you are saved by being born of the Spirit, once for all.  Yet you need the on-going work of the Spirit, day-by-day so that you may “walk in the Spirit” and be “led by the Spirit.”

When we pray for the Spirit to come into our lives and to come to the church when we gather for worship, we are praying for people who have already received the Spirit in an ultimate sense.  Nonetheless, we need a fresh application of the Spirit’s work.  We need his renewed energy and activity in our lives.  We need an increase of his range of influence.  When you first became a believer you may have needed the Spirit to help you stop using foul language.  Since he has done that, you now need him to teach you how to be less self-centered and to minister more sacrificially to your spouse.  When progress is made there, you will be aware of your need for the Spirit to make you gentler, more self-controlled, and more generous.  It never ends.  We need more of the Spirit!  It is the Spirit who changes our hearts, once-for-all and in an on-going basis, so that we stop loving sin and are conformed into Christ’s image.  Jesus assures that God, being a far better heavenly Father than our earthly fathers are, is eager to “give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13).
When we pray for the Spirit, we know that powerful as God’s Word is, it only works savingly when the Holy Spirit opens our sinful hearts and illuminates our minds.  Yes, we are praying for unbelievers to be converted. “I am the vine, you are the branches,” Jesus said.  The Spirit is the life flowing from the vine to the branches, once-for-all and daily, and it is for this that we should regularly pray, certain that God is eager to answer that prayer.

Rev. Richard Phillips is the chair of the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology and senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church Coral Springs, Margate, Florida.

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