Prayer is Your Place of Safety (Part 12)

Praying in the Spirit

5.10.2020

Review

Since the first of the year, I have been teaching a series on prayer.

I took a few Sundays to address the Corona crisis since we have been unable to meet together.

You never live past your prayer life…

In this series, we are addressing the importance of prayer in 2020, and how your prayer life can become the most important part of your day.

Week 1, we saw that Jesus lived out of His prayer life, and that He spent a lot of time praying before ministry.

We talked about the importance of our praying about everything, and how prayer can prepare us for the things that are in our future.

Weeks 2 through 4, we talked about why we must pray.

God cannot legally do anything unless He gets cooperation through His people. God must go through the church before He does anything on earth today!

Then, we started looking at: Eight Different Kinds of Prayer

Ephesians 6:18 – NIV

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

Different kinds of prayer have different kinds of rules, i.e. sports examples.

1. The prayer of faith (primarily a prayer for yourself)

2. The prayer of consecration (relinquishing personal control)

3. The prayer of supplication (prayer for others)

4. The prayer of intercession (taking another’s place)

5. The prayer of agreement (when your faith needs a boost)

6. The prayer of worship (focusing on God)

7. United praying (tremendous power)

8. Praying in the spirit (beyond your own knowledge)

Follow the rules for each kind of prayer!!

Last week, we looked at the prayer of worship.

The prayer of worship is a great way to fulfill God’s admonition to us through Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to pray without ceasing!

Today – Praying in the spirit.

Through praying in the spirit, God has given us a means of prayer when we pray beyond our limited knowledge, and are enabled to pray the perfect will of God about anything or any person!

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You can swim in a kiddie pool, or you can swim in the ocean!

On September 12, 1976, two things happened to me: 1) I gave my life back to Jesus. 2) I received an experience called the Baptism with the Holy Spirit.

According to Acts 2:4, Acts 8:14-16, Acts 10:44-46, and Acts 19:6, when a person receives this experience, he or she can and should expect to speak in unknown tongues.

That happened to me. Speaking in unknown tongues, or praying in the spirit, are terms for the language the Holy Spirit gives a person who is baptized with the Holy Spirit. And when I received the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, I too spoke in a language I did not learn. And every day since that day, I have spent time praying in the spirit.

Today marks the 15,936th day that I have spoken in other tongues in my life!

Today, I want to talk about the enhancement in your personal prayer life that will occur with the Baptism with the Holy Spirit and the ensuing ability to speak in other tongues.

There are ten things about praying in the spirit that will enhance your prayer life:

1. It is God’s will for every believer to pray in tongues

 

It’s the will of God for everyone to receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and with that experience comes the ability to pray in other languages.

1 Corinthians 14:5

I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more that you prophesied; for he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless indeed he interprets, that the church may receive edification.

 

1 Corinthians 14:18

I thank my God I speak in tongues more than you all.

1 Corinthians 14:19
But in a church meeting I would rather speak five understandable words to help others than ten thousand words in an unknown language.

2. It helps unseat the control the unrenewed natural mind exerts over your spiritual life.

Praying in the spirit helps elevate the spirit above the mental in you. It helps unseat the control the unrenewed natural mind has over your spiritual life.

Let’s go back to the book of Genesis for an observation about Adam and Eve and their original relationship with God.

Adam and Eve related spiritually to God before their fall into sin.

After their fall into sin, their minds, emotions, wills, and bodies were elevated to a position above their relationship with God. Now, our reasoning rules us. Our emotions often rage out of control. And our will is stubborn in allowing us to live independently of God.

With the New Birth, our relationship with God is reinstated. And with the baptism with the Holy Spirit, there comes a heightened awareness of the spiritual life.

Praying in the spirit, or in tongues, helps us elevate our spiritual person above our natural mind, emotions, and will.

And praying in the spirit enables us to talk to God from our spirit. It is our spirit talking to Him bypassing the mind. It’s amazing!

Now what this does is that it helps unseat the control the mind has over life, and helps restore that spirit to spirit communion with God that was available before man sinned.

You may ask – why would God include praying in other tongues with the baptism with the Holy Spirit? It seems so crazy to the normal person!

James 3:2

For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.

Proverbs 18:21 – Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

 

What controls the tongue controls the life!

God taps into the faculty of speech in the baptism with the Holy Spirit to help Him get control of your natural person.

Praying in the spirit on a regular basis will help you keep spiritual things first place in your life.

*1 Corinthians 1:26-29

For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. (27) But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; (28) and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, (29) that no flesh should glory in His presence.

Isaiah 55:8

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways”, says the Lord. (9) “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.

 

1 Corinthians 2:14

But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

*1 Corinthians 14:14 – AMPL

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].

Since God is a spirit, and since the Holy Spirit resides in our spirit, when you pray in the spirit, you are praying prayers that originate with God!

You don’t always know what you are praying, but you are being totally effective.

3. It provides a way for you to pray about things you don’t know about.

1 Corinthians 14:2 – AMPL

For one who speaks in an [unknown] tongue speaks not to men but to God, for no one understands or catches his meaning, because in the [Holy] Spirit he utters secret truths and hidden things [not obvious to the understanding].

1 Corinthians 14:13-15 (Passion Translation)

So then, if you speak in a tongue, pray for the interpretation to be able to unfold the meaning of what you are saying. (14) For if I am praying in a tongue, my spirit is engaged in prayer but I have no clear understanding of what is being said. (15) So here’s what I’ve concluded. I will pray in the Spirit, but I will also pray with my mind engaged. I will sing rapturous praises in the Spirit, but I will also sing with my mind engaged.

 

1 Corinthians 2:11

For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.

Examples

Action Points:

To receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit, you must be a born-again Christian. You can receive alone or with someone ministering to you.

1. To receive alone:

Luke 11:11-13 – NKJV

If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!

In faith, pray and ask the Father to baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

Father, thank you for saving me from my sins and making me a child of God. As your child, I ask you to baptize me with the Holy Spirit, from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. Fill me with the Holy Spirit now. I believe that I will speak with other tongues as the Holy Spirit enables me, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Lift your hands to the Lord in thanksgiving, take a deep breath and open your mouth and begin to speak in the language the Holy Spirit gives you from deep within you.

2. To receive with some help:

Call or email our offices and ask for an appointment with Pastor Mitch or another staff member. (Phone – 919-779-5180; Email – [email protected]).