The Baptism with the Holy Spirit and the ability to pray in tongues enhances your ability to connect spiritually with the Lord. Let me go into more detail on what I mean.
When I pray in the spirit, my human spirit is talking to the Lord without the involvement of my mind. This direct spiritual connection to the Lord is so vital to effective prayer, for it enables you to pray the perfect will of God over a person or situation. It’s make prayer limitless!
But another part of this is that when I pray in the spirit, it helps me to tune into the voice of God in my human spirit. Notice again 1 Corinthians 14:14 (Amplified): For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit by the Holy Spirit within me prays, but my mind is unproductive; it bears no fruit and helps nobody. You see, the Holy Spirit is in my spirit. That’s where He contacts me. His first contact with my human person is not with my mind, but with my spirit. And praying in tongues regularly helps me stay sensitive to my human spirit. And since the Holy Spirit is in my spirit, I become sensitive to Him too by praying in tongues.
Here another interesting tidbit about praying in tongues. It also helps me sort out the will of God in general for my life as well as the details of daily choices. 1 Corinthians 2: 9 (J.B. Phillips) reads: For who could really understand a man’s inmost thoughts except the spirit of man himself. How much less could anyone understand the thoughts of God except the very Spirit of God. God’s Word Translation of this verse reads: After all, who knows everything about a person except that person’s own spirit. My spirit intuitively knows things that my mind does not know, because the Holy Spirit is in my spirit. So praying in tongues helps me tap into the wisdom of God for life’s particulars.
1 Corinthians 14:13 tells us to ask for the interpretation of what we need to know when we pray in the spirit. Therefore let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret. So I regularly remind the Lord that I want to know what I’m praying about when I’m praying in tongues when He desires to tell me.
Back in November of 1993 I was praying in tongues one morning and thinking about what the Lord wanted me to do in my future. At the time I was pastoring a church for a pastor while he took a year away to start a church in another country. His time to come back to his church was approaching and I was wondering what the Lord had for me. After I finished praying in tongues for an hour, the words already existing church just seemed to float up to my mind from somewhere. I knew this came from my spirit and that the Lord was talking to me about my future after this pastor came back.
I kept this phrase already existing church in my heart for six months and it evolved into you will go to pastor an already existing church. And that already existing church is where I having been pastoring for the last almost 15 years! How did this come about? It happened because I took time to pray in the spirit and ask the Lord to bring to pass what He revealed to me while I prayed in tongues those months before.
Don’t underestimate the value of praying in tongues. Making it a daily practice will tune your spirit to hear the voice of God more clearly. And if you keep it up, then one day your future and God’s plan for your life will l blend into one!
Thursday, April 16, 2009
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Thank you Pastor. I do pray in the spirit but never have ask God to reveal exactly what is was that I was praying in the spirit about. Starting today, that will change!
ReplyDeletePastor,
ReplyDeleteAct 2:6-8 indicates that tongues are languages that can be interpreted. On this specific occasion all of the believers were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
In I Cor 12:29-31, indicates that not all possess the gift of tongues. And, I Cor 14:13-15 we are told that we should pray for the understanding of this gift.
Jude 20-21and Eph 6:18 exhorts us to pray in the Holy Spirit.
In Roms 8:26-27 we are told that the Spirit makes intercession for us when we are weak with groanings that cannot be expressed by words.
In Acts 2, I understand that all were filled with the Holy Spirit, but were all speaking in tongues? If not all believers have the gift of praying in tongues (I Cor 12:29-31), is it correct to think that the Spirit of God will lead a believer to pray with their own language(i.e english) if they do not have the gift of tongues (Jude, Eph 6 & Roms 8)? (Prayers that come out of waiting and spending time with God and just not off the top of our heads – a prayer of faith). One last thing, is this gift given to us by asking and believing or by the laying of hands, or both?
Thanks,
Meera
ALL who are baptised with the Holy Spirit can and should expect to speak with other tongues as a part of that experience. Praying in tongues is primarily a devotional gift for the private life of a believer.
ReplyDelete1 Corinthians 12:29 -31 is speaking of another use of other tongues, that is, its use with the sister gift interpretation of tongues. Not everyone will be used in the gifts divers kinds of tongues and this "sister" gift interpretation. These are for use in a public meeting of believers. And again, this is what 1 Cor. 12 is referring to.
But, every believer should expect to speak in other tongues as a result of receiving the baptism with the Holy Spirit. And as Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 14:13, every believer that prays in tongues in his or her private life should ask the Lord for the ability to know what they are saying in tongues when the Holy Spirit deems this necessary!
Please don't confuse Paul speaking of the spiritual gifts of Diver kinds of tongues and interpretation of tongues with the private use of other tongues that comes with the Holy Spirit baptism. They are thet same in essence (where they come from, but they are different in use. One for public assembly, and not all will be used this way. The other use of tongues is for private personal praying, and ALL may receive this!