The Holy Spirit said to me up on the inside:
“Many of my people need to be muted and others unmuted.”
Stay with me and I’ll explain how the Spirit of God unveiled this mystery to me.
First, I must say that the following thoughts are some new, wonderful, and heavenly thoughts about the devotional prayer language the Bible refers to as tongues. This will not be your basic, foundational teaching that rightly divides the public gift of divers tongues with interpretation, from the personal devotional tongues all Spirit-baptized believers should receive. This is not necessarily a new teaching, but these are heightened insights that I’ve received that I’m willing to submit to leading elders and ministers in the body of Christ. Your thoughts and comments are welcome.
THE LAST DAYS COMPANY CALLING
You see, I’m part of a company of last days preachers that are called to prepare the way of the Lord and make His paths straight. Part of that calling is to help restore certain elements and truths of the work and move of the Holy Spirit back to the body of Christ, lest it be lost to a generation. This is one reason the Lord dealt with me to conduct Holy Ghost Forums where seasoned ministers can teach and demonstrate the move of the Spirit. Some still think it’s just a bless-me-time, typical to some Charismatic junkies who always seem to be chasing the sensational. Far from it! It’s a school of the Spirit for saints and young ministers to glean and learn from. Some things are better caught than just taught.
Another part of that calling, alongside my wife, is to help restore elements of prayer and intercession that must be passed on to the next generation. These two things are an ever-increasing burden on our hearts, especially mine.
My purpose in writing this piece is to motivate you far beyond the so-called seeker-friendly movement that underemphasized the work and power of the Holy Spirit and greatly devalued the utmost importance of tongues. IMHO, it was one of the greatest crimes against the Holy Spirit in recent times.
SO WHY IS TONGUES SO INVALUABLE?
After all, it has caused so much controversy and division among Christians so why push the point?
I know not all will receive this, but we need to first understand that God the Father, for the most part, functions by invitation in the earth, while maintaining His rights as Creator. In other words, He didn't become involved in my life until a Christian friend and his wife began praying for me, and I decided to surrender my life to Jesus and give Him control of my life. In other words, I invited Him to be involved in all my affairs. The world is in a mess because they’ve kicked God out. He must be invited back in, and we will see change in our world.
We have to understand that the earth has been delegated to man, so a person must make Jesus Lord and invite Him and His Spirit into their life. Yet the Father wants His will to be done on earth, but man doesn't know how to pray. His knowledge is very limited.
The Father had to find a way to by-pass man's LIMITED knowledge so He could impart His UNLIMITED knowledge and will into a person, so that person could pray it back to Him, completing the exchange and making it a legal transaction. You see that?
For on the Day of Judgment no human being will be able to bring any accusation against God and blame Him, saying He was not fair and just in all things. All things will be revealed in the end, and God will have been proven faithful and true in all things. So the Father gives a person a language they never learned, and fills it with His will and His thoughts and at times His own emotions, allowing man to pray it back to Him, thus accomplishing His perfect will on the earth.
Isn’t that just so grand of a plan?
Yet ignorant and misled people fight against this prayer language called tongues, choosing instead to continue to pray only with their limited knowledge in their own understanding. Actually, that’s offensive to God when He has given us a much higher way to pray — a way that bypasses our puny little brains and little limited knowledge.
PRAYING CAN BE OFFENSIVE TO GOD
Do you remember how Peter pulled Jesus aside and rebuked Him for telling His disciples that He was going to suffer and be killed?
Notice Jesus’ response:
“But Jesus turned away from Peter and said to him, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are in My way [an OFFENSE and a HINDRANCE and a SNARE to Me]; for you are minding what partakes not of the nature and quality of God, but of men.’” (Matt. 16:23)
What Peter said under the devil’s influence was offensive to Jesus! Even so, many things we say and pray are offensive to Him. Jesus said the words Satan spoke through Peter were of the nature and quality of man. This is exactly how it is when we pray with only our puny limited knowledge and refuse the higher way of praying in tongues. One way can be very soulish and according to our own natural understanding, and the other way is spiritual and according to God’s understanding. One is very limited, and the other unlimited. Here’s a great verse filled with spiritual truth:
“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.” (Rom. 8:26)
This verse basically says that we don’t know how to pray as we should. But the Spirit helps us. Here it is:
The Greek word for 'help' is very interesting. It is 'synantilambanetai', a compound word meaning 'to take hold together with us against'. Paul said: "The Holy Spirit takes hold together with us against our weakness of not knowing how to pray as we should."
That’s so fantastic!
So often we pray amiss because we are not allowing the Holy Spirit to help us. For instance, I can be praying for my brother or a friend or someone I don’t even know, and actually begin to feel the Father’s or Jesus’s emotions for them, and even weep or laugh in joy, knowing the answer is coming, or that I’ve prayed through on the situation, to even actually understanding through interpretation what I’m praying about and why tongues is so beneficial, and why it feels so good on the inside. I can say, "Father, I pray for my brother or sister this morning, or a sinner and then go into tongues, knowing I am praying His perfect will for their life this day." We can do this when praying for presidents and governments or the body of Christ, or any number of things and situations.
PRAYING ONLY FROM OUR SOUL AND WITH OUR OWN UNDERSTANDING IS A BIG REASON OUR PRAYERS ARE UNFRUITFUL
This answers so much as to why so many of our prayers are unfruitful. Let us stop
praying with only our limited understanding in mere languages of men, whether it be English or Spanish, or French or Portuguese, and begin utilizing our prayer language of tongues that surpasses our natural mind.
“Therefore let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding.” (1 Cor. 14:13-15)
Notice that praying with your own understanding should follow praying with your spirit by the Holy Spirit. (The Amplified version brings that out). In other words, the apostle Paul is implying here that we can and should ask God to help us interpret our prayers in the spirit or in tongues), so that our minds can be fruitful. We can cultivate our prayer lives and move into praying with tongues and interpretation. But it’s not always necessary, because inexperienced Christians are prone to put their own interpretation on it. This must be taught and demonstrated by experienced people of prayer who know how to move in those realms.
There is much more to say about this.
Stay tuned for Part 2.