What is THAT?

"...the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."   Romans 8:26 

Believe you me... I do NOT know it all {can you believe it?!!}, but this is just my experience with the Lord in this area and I admit that there is still a lot for me to learn!  But I KNOW this one thing!!

There are others out there who can go into a lot more detail about it and there are also a lot who will go to even greater lengths to explain it away. 

"But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit." 

What is praying in the Spirit?  What I am referring to is one of the 9 gifts and it is, 'speaking in tongues.'  Don't drop me like a hot-potato... hear me out!  Satan has crippled the Church with lies about speaking in tongues. 

Let me remind you of the following Scripture:

Isaiah 28.11  For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.  To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.

"Yet they would not hear..."  Didn't they want a refreshing and to be able to cause the weary to rest?  I guess not, maybe it went against what they believed and they didn't want any part of it.  But Paul said:

1 Corinthians 14:5 Now I wish that you all spoke in tongues, but even more that you would prophesy; and greater is one who prophesies than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may receive edifying.

A lot who disagree with 'tongues' will use the following Scriptures to prove they don't need the gift of tongues anymore:

1 Corinthians 12:30 Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?

1 Cor 13.11  When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

The Word does not even allude to this conclusion at all!!  It was made up by "men."  Oh yes!  They'll also say that they Church needs special powers to be established during that time, so therefore now that it's established... we don't need it anymore.  Wrong.  

Be encouraged to pray in the Holy Spirit! :)

John 14.17-18: 

...that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you.  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

If you're a believer, the Holy Spirit is with you... period.  No questions asked!!  Praise God!  But there is a such an indwelling in you that there will be manifestations!  

Mark 16.17 And these signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues;... And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them, and confirmed the word by the signs that followed. 

Questions to ask yourself:

1.  Will you go to hell if you DON'T speak in tongues?    NO WAY!!

2.  Will you go to hell if you DO speak in tongues?  Twice NO WAY!!

3.  Will God be ashamed of me for not speaking in tongues?  Absolutely NOT!

4.  Is speaking in tongues in the Bible?  YES!!

5.  Is it the gift of tongues one of the nine listed in the Bible?  Yes!!

6.  Wasn't it Paul who said, "I thank my God I speak in tongues more than you ALL?"  {A true Southerner!}

Now onto the point of this essay!!

If you are a Christian who truly loves the Lord and you want more in your life, more of Jesus, more of the Father, more victory, more peace, more love... then seek the Lord for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit!!!  He will not withhold any good thing from you!!  I promise and even better... His Word promises!

Psalms 84:11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The LORD gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

I've heard many people say, "Well, if He wanted me to speak in tongues, then He'd give it to me!"  But they are missing the whole point...  He wants YOU to want it.

He doesn't want you to be a passive receiver because you think you have to accept it.  If that happened then possibility at sometime in our life, we would begrudge Him ever giving it to us.

Tongues is a sign to the unbelievers AND most importantly, they are our prayer language, the language we communicate to our Father with!  Do we even understand what we are speaking?  No, not unless you can interpret!  That's why we are to pray for the gift of interpretation.

"For he that speaks in an unknown tongue speaks not unto men, but unto God: for no man understands him; yet in the spirit he speaks mysteries."

The Father gave us 9 gifts of the Spirit, tongues being only one of them!  When we receive the gift of the prayer language, we are then instructed to pray for interpretation of tongues!  He keeps us busy, doesn't He?!  

then please provide me with the Scripture where God was not strong enough to keep what was His from the beginning and let Satan take it from Him?

This is how the Lord showed it to me, I ramble so follow close by... we've never been this way before!!

I grew up in Dayton, Ohio where there are at least 5 General Motor Plants.  If you worked for GM, you made a minimum of $25.00 an hour from benefits and insurance.  GM paid for everything {this was when I was growing up, mind you.  I don't think they do that now!}.  They paid for your sick days, your vacation days, your emergency room visits, your hospital stays and when you retired - you didn't lose anything at all!  You got to keep ALL your benefits!  Wow.  And they paid you approx. $15.00 an hour to work for them!!  Awesome!

Then there were the factories that fed GM, and it was like pulling teeth to get full benefits from them.  You were lucky to make $7.00 an hour and get your emergency room visits paid in full!  You pulled teeth to get any benefits you did have.

Do you know how easy it was to work for GM?  All you had to do was have a family member work there and give Human Resources your name and GM would call you!!  Whoa!!  Was that not cool?  I almost worked for GM, myself, but I moved down to here to the beautiful East Tennessee!  What was I thinking??    No, I love it down here, most of the time!  

And the Lord showed me that that was what the baptism of the Holy Spirit was... a fringe benefit.