7. Communicating with God in prayer & tongues.

Prayer, both vocally or silently expressed, is the obvious means that we use talk to our invisible God. Prayer is a very huge subject about which many gifted Christians have written in other websites. Much about prayer is beyond the scope that I believe God is giving me to write about in this blog.

So, I believe that the Lord would have me refer the reader to other websites such as allaboutprayer.org, wikipedia-prayer, wikipedia-prayer-in-Christianity, the-God-kind-prayer and spirit-home-intercessory prayer wherein this entire subject is very thoroughly covered.
Please take some time on these websites and study them carefully because their Biblical teachings are fundamental to carrying on communications with the Lord.

Isaiah 8:20 - To the teaching and to the testimony! If the teachings are not in accord with (God's) Word, it is surely because there is no dawn and no morning in them.

I believe that God would have me to only write teachings and testimonies here that give light to my readers about the unique, powerful things that He has done thru my prayers and thru the prayers of those of whom I know.

Romans 15 - 19 - For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me... in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit...

Hopefully, my testimonies and teachings here will create a brand new spiritual morning for those of you who hunger and thirst for miraculous things from God to also occur in your lives.

Romans 15:20 - 21 - And thus I aspired to preach (about my apostleship today, reliably communicating with God, miracle faith, the correct Biblical church structuring and practices, etc., all of which I have experienced)

so that I would not build on another man's foundation...

There are many other Christians whom I believe that God has employed to give correct teachings on many, many Biblical subjects on the Internet. So I believe that their writings instead of mine are best perused by my readers to learn about those particular subjects and I will provide links to some of them, just as I did above.

I believe that God wants me to limit my writing to teachings on those subjects that I have not yet (April 2008), found to have been put forth anywhere else or taught correctly anywhere else.

If any readers have other good websites on any of the entries on this blog, please make a comment about them on each entry or please e-mail me about them.

So, let me proceed here with my discussion about my own prayers by first testifying that the Lord many times answers my prayer requests by intuitively popping pertinent verses right into my mind, just as I amwas petitioning Him! Sometimes He even puts them there before I mentally formulate my prayer.

Psalm 139:4 - Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.

This to me is mentally conversing with God I believe and the conversation between us takes place right within the thoughts of my mind.

Isaiah 1:18 - "Come now (today), and let us reason together (with our minds)," says the Lord...

It is by faith that a back and forth of reasoning occurs between us. I make mental inquiries of Him and I believe that He responds to me or beats me to the punch by placing the remembrance of a Scripture passage about my petition, immediately within my mind.

John 14:26b - ...the Holy Spirit...will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance my Words..(which are all of the Scriptures)...

When I'm praying while traveling He sometimes answers my inquiry with a message on a billboard or a truck body or a license plate or by some event that coincidentally happens within my proximity.

Habakkuk 2:2 - ...Write my answer plainly on a billboard...

Here I would route the reader back to April 2008 entry #3 wherein I thoroughly discuss this subject. But again, these kinds of messages within our minds must be believed as having come to us from God.

Proverbs 3:32b - He is intimate with the upright.

I have found that it merely takes a humble and repentant heart on my part (as much as I can consciously achieve considering my heart's desperate deceitfulness) to purify me before God so that He will begin revealing to me His wonderful answers.

Matthew 5: 8 - Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

I believe that God will give revelations to speak directly to us in answer to our prayers when we are spiritually clean in our walk before Him.

Ephesians 3:3a - by revelation there was made known to me (by God) the mystery...of...(my requests...

I believe that personal revelations from God to us of the divinity of Jesus save us from damnation but I also believe that they are one of the means used by God to try to guide us in many of our affairs.

Matthew 16:17 - 18 - Jesus replied, “You are blessed...because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you! You did not learn this from any human being... and upon this rock (of Divine revelation) I will build My church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.


Tongues

Speaking in tongues is a very controversial issue because it is often subjective to each believer. There is an excellent article on the subject in Wikipedia. I personally believe in this gift in all of its Biblically correct manifestations and I practice it, but in a rather unique way.

In my case the the Lord led me to have to "learn" how to speak in tongues! I never had the experience of a tongue of visible fire over my head when I first spoke in an unknown tongue nor did I get a falling down of the Holy Spirit of God upon me in order to receive it.

Instead, one day when I was off-handedly discussing the fact that I did not have this gift with a charismatic brother, he felt led to prophesy to me, "Oh yes you do! Only in your case you will have to receive it by faith. You need to start doing that by just speaking forth some mindless anything, even if it sounds like baby talk because the gift of tongues bypasses the mind! You need to learn that some gifts of the Holy Spirit are often received and then exercised by blind faith! That's how I believe that God is telling me to tell you that you are to move into speaking in tongues."

Hebrews 13:6 - And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him (and His ways, such as speaking in tongues).

So I thought about this for a while and soon began to see the logic to it. It seems that it's when I am alone, by myself, that I'm led by God to move into having faith for things. This has been the case ever since my rebirth in Christ alone in my bed one evening.

So once again, when I was alone, I began to move into this gift by making some childish, one syllable utterances like da-da-goo-la-bo-rah-sta-fa, etc. Well, my mind utterly rebelled against this activity because it was so foolish and utterly mindless to me. Yet I had to admit that I did have peace with it.

I Corinthians 14:14 - For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.

So I prayed to God asking Him to confirm this silly tongue's validity to me. He responded by giving me a desire to, by faith, just keep practicing it mindlessly. So I did. Then, the way in which He confirmed to me that it was truly a gift from Him was to one night send me to a Bible study at a church whose members did not believe in the gift at all!

Well, once I was there, He led the study leader to inquire if any of us felt that we had the gift of tongues! At this question there was a protracted silence amongst the 20 or so people that were there, during which no one answered and during which I kept feeling that I should not avoid this question but speak out and admit my own gift of tongues (of which I was still not totally certain).

I Corinthians 3:18 - Be God's fool—that's the path to true wisdom. (the Message Bible)

So finally, I realized that I would have no peace if I left there without confessing to it so I threw caution to the wind and declared to him that I felt that I had this gift! The leader looked at me thoughtfully for a moment and replied, "You do? Then would you mind speaking in your tongue for us? We'd all like to hear it, wouldn't we?" All of the brothers there voiced their agreement with him and now I was really on the spot!

To my mind, my tongue talking sounded like baby talk, which I didn't mind speaking in private to God and to the walls. But to bring it forth in front of a group of 20 or so intelligent people was a totally different story! What if it really wasn't a true tongue from the Holy Spirit? What if when they heard it, they all discerned that it was just baby talk type gibberish, the way I felt that it might be? Then I'd be considered a complete fool by all of them!

So, there I was, garroted within the hangman's noose of my admission of the gift and the trap door beneath me of actually speaking in it! What if that trap door of speaking in it, when sprung, might show it up as being a phony gift! And even if it really was from God, how could it possibly be proven to be a true gift of the Holy Spirit to this pack of spiritual curiosity seekers? I felt utterly trapped and possibly doomed! So, unable to find any other course open to me, I took the leap of faith, commending my potentially doomed soul to God as I let loose with my infantile tongue chatter!

Well, I only spoke for a few seconds and then I stopped because my courage ran out rather quickly. Then I sat there in emotional agony, awaiting my ignominious end with this group, which was probably about to now come. There was a long, pregnant pause! Then, entirely unexpectedly, the leader announced that he felt that God had given him an interpretation of my tongue! Next, the group shifted their focus to him and asked him to give it. So, he proceeded to speak it forth and it was a totally encouraging blessing from the Lord to everyone who was there.

I Corinthians 14:3 - But one who prophesies (by interpreting a tongue) strengthens others, encourages them, and comforts them.

Hallelujah! This totally unexpected interpretation totally exonerated me! My gift was proven to be true to me and to all of them in a way that I would never in a million years have guessed it would be done!

Isaiah 55:8 - 9 - "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," declares the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts."

And, though nerve wracking, it was such a wonderful way in which God confirmed it for me! He proved the validity of both the gift of tongues and the gift of interpretation of tongues to me and to all of this group, all in one fell swoop, by interpreting my tongue thru their study leader!


More to come on this subject...