Praying in the perfect will of God pt.3.

Messages for August 2017: Our Month of Divine Opportunities

Message for Sunday 27^th of August, 2017

Theme: Positioning for Divine Opportunities

Topic: Praying in the perfect will of God pt.3.

(Our discussion will be centered on Praying in tongues versus prophesying in tongues and praying in our understanding versus praying in the spirit)

Introduction: So far, we have established in the course of this series that praying in the perfect will of God can best be achieved by praying in tongues because when we pray in tongues, it is the Holy Spirit in us that takes a hold on our spirits to pray in the perfect will of God. See Rm.8:26 in the Amplified version of the bible. Also, we saw that praying in the Holy Spirit does not require as much faith as praying in the understanding to obtain the same results. Today, we are going to be looking at the differences between praying in the Spirit and praying in our understanding and also see the distinction between praying in tongues and prophesying in tongues.

Praying in Tongues and Prophesying in tongues: When we pray in tongues, we are praying in the Holy Ghost. Just like any other kind of prayer; praying in tongues addresses God or is made to God whereas prophesying in tongues addresses men and therefore is addressed to men. In light of this, let us note the following points about both kinds speaking in tongues:

1.     When we pray in tongues, we address God and not man whereas when we prophesy in tongues, we address man and not God because of the very nature of prophecy. See 1Cor.14:2-3 and 28.

2.     Every time we pray in tongues we need not interpret even though we do not understand what we are saying. The reason is that it is God who gave us the language supernaturally and he understand it and therefore does not require our interpretation. On the other hand, when we prophesy in tongues, we are speaking to men who may not understand what we are saying because they are mysterious to them. See 1Cor.14:2-3 and 1Cor.12:30.

3.     Everyone who is born again has a right to pray in unknown tongues as prayer addresses God alone and is therefore a mystery to others. In this case the person speaking in unknown tongues need not interpret. Not everyone who is born again may prophesy because the distribution of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is distributed by the Holy Spirit severally to every man as the Spirit wills. Thus the Spirit may choose to engrace a person to prophesy and choose not to engrace another with the same gift. This is why not everyone would prophesy in tongues. When people prophesy in tongues, they are expected to interpret it or have someone with the gift of interpretation of tongues interpret it. See the example of Daniel interpreting tongues in the Old Testament in Daniel 5:24-28 and 1Cor.14:12-13; 27-28.

4.     When we pray in tongues we edify ourselves but when we prophesy in tongues we edify the Church if we also interpret: Tongues are for personal edification or for building up ourselves on our most holy faith. Prophecy is for corporate edification. The purpose of prophecy is to edify, exhort and comfort the Church. This is why if we are prophesying in tongues we must also interpret the tongues. See 1Cor.14:2-3; Jude 1:20.

5.     When we pray in tongues corporately as a Church, we team up to release the power of God: In this case we do not need to interpret because this is not for message purpose but for corporate intercession to release the power of God for the edification of the Church. This is what the early Church fathers did in Acts 4:24-31. On the other hand, as a Church in a believers meeting, we can have a manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit as in Acts 13:1-3; the result of that meeting was thee manifestation of the ministry of Apostle Paul which legacy is still with us today. I am sure at that meeting, there was a manifestation of the gift of the word of wisdom. Although it is not indicated, that gift could have come through tongues and interpretation.

 Praying in the Spirit and praying in our understanding: Already we have seen that praying in the Spirit is when we pray in tongues as shown us in 1Cor.14:14. To pray in our understanding on the other hand is when we pray intelligibly in the language we understand. In Eph.6:18, Apostle Paul wrote to the Church that we should pray all manner of prayers in the spirit.

By this, he must have meant that we should first determine in our understanding what we want to pray about and then take the time to ascertain what type of prayer we would pray. Any kind of prayer we choose to pray, we should do so in our understanding first and then we should switch over to the spirit when we run out of words in prayer.

To pray in our understanding requires skill: The skill required here is the ability to know and use the right scripture for what you want to pray about. In this case, you cannot do this as a baby Christian as such. This is because the skilful use of the word of the Lord is a requirement and this does not pertain to babes. See Heb.5:12-14 and Gal.4:1. We cannot get to do this when we still feast on milk. Babies are supposed to feed on milk to grow up enough to be able to exercise dominion in the kingdom. On the other hand, all the skill you need to pray in the spirit is the little faith and will required to just get into prayer. See 1Cor.14:15  

To pray in our understanding requires spiritual maturity: A mature believer is one who has had their senses exercised to discern good and evil to the point of making spiritually informed decisions in line with the perfect will of God. This kind of person has grown to walking in the word of God in Rm.12:1-2. See Heb.5:14; Jas.1:21. On the other hand, a spiritually immature person would be carnal and unable to receive the things of the spirit of God although he may get some results here and there when he prays in the spirit, he will always have that old struggle between the flesh and the spirit within him. See Rm.7:14-25 and 1Cor.3:1-4. To overcome this struggle, Apostle Paul tells us in Gal.5:6 to walk in the spirit so as not to fulfill the lust of the flesh because there is a constant contention between the flesh and the spirit.

In summation, we must understand that access into the realm of prayer is by the new birth experience. In Jn.3:7 we are told that we must be born again because except we are born again we cannot see or enter the kingdom of God. See Jn.3:3, 5. Therefore if you are reading this and you are not yet born again, I have good news for you: this is our month of divine opportunities. Another opportunity is being offered to you to access the way He wishes to be accessed. He has said in Jn. That whoever comes to him would be accepted. He would not cast you out. If you want to choose him right away, you can say the following prayer out loud in faith and you will be born again and start to grow enough to experience answers to prayer always:

Heavenly Father,

Have mercy on me a sinner. Today, I believe that Jesus died for me and you raised Him from the dead for my Justification. I therefore declare that Jesus Christ is my Saviour and Lord and from today, I renounce the fatherhood of Satan and embrace Jesus Christ as my Saviour and Lord. Thank you for this father in Jesus’ name! Amen.

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