HOW TO PRAY IN TONGUES

 The greatest things that will ever happen to you in your walk with God will come as a result of praying in tongues. 

Today we are going to look at “HOW TO SPEAK IN TONGUES!” When you pray in tongues, your spirit begins to register things before your emotions catch up. Over time you become someone who is led from the inside rather than being driven from the outside.

 

What really happens when you pray in tongues?

1. You engage in a form of spiritual prayer where your human spirit communicates directly with God the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit, bypassing your rational mind.

2. You speak mysteries directly to God the Father rather than to men, bypassing human comprehension (1 Cor. 14:2).

3. You actively “build up” and fortify your human spirit, functioning like an emotional and spiritual battery charger (Jude 1:20).

4. The Holy Spirit prays through you, ensuring that your request aligns perfectly aligns with the will of God (Acts 2:4).

5. When you pray in tongues, you bypass your human limitations, allowing you to pray effectively even when you do not know the right words to say.

6. When you pray in tongues you boost your immune system. A few years ago, a brain surgeon at Oral Roberts University did a study on what happens in the brain when people pray in the Holy Ghost. He found that they secreted two chemicals that can boost the immune system by 35-40%! 

 

What does it mean to speak in tongues? Speaking in tongues is when an individual effortlessly speaks a language that he or she does not know.

 

The Bible describes the different types of tongues under the same word. 

1. The first is the personal prayer language. This is the one relevant to your daily prayer life. This is what Paul calls personal prayer language. It is a private form of prayer between you and God. Your spirit communicates directly with God in a language your mind didn’t compose or can’t understand.

 

The Bible says, “He who speaks in unknown tongue speaketh not unto men…” (1 Cor. 14:2). Individuals speaking in a tongue and communicating directly with God rather than people, as no one understands them, and they are uttering mysteries by the Spirit of God. This is not for the benefit of the other people in the room. It is not for the unbelievers. It is your spirit talking to God beyond the reach of your own reasoning. 

 

Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 14:4, “Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but the one who prophecies edifies the church.”

 

Praying in tongues builds you up in your most holy faith (Jude 1:20).

 

2. The second one is the public gift. This one needs interpretation. This is the second kind in 1 Corinthians 12:10. This tongue operates like prophecy in a church gathering and they must be paired with interpretation so that the whole church can benefit from it. 

 

This is the one that requires structure and order. When Paul asked, “Do all speak in tongues?” He was asking about the specific public function, and not about the personal prayer language. 

At this point many people get confused. If Paul was saying that we should not pray in tongues if there is no interpretation, then why does the Pastor pray in tongues? You see, the Pastor may be using that tongue at that time not for prophecy but to edify himself.

 

3. The third kind of tongues is called the tongue of Angels. Paul says, “Though I speak in the tongues of men and in the tongues of Angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1).

 

So, there are tongues that are not human languages at all, not traceable to any culture or geography, but purely spiritual – tongues of Angels. 

 

Tongues can also be a kind of a human language. But there is another expression that belongs to a different order entirely. That is what gives this gift it’s ceiling. It is potentially limitless in depth. The main point is this: the personal prayer language is available to every Spirit -filled believer. It is not reserved for a few. Paul says, “I wish all would speak in tongues.”

 

While speaking in tongues is desirable, prophecy is greater because it edifies the church, whereas tongues primarily edifies the individual unless interpreted (1 Cor. 14:5).

 

So, the question is, “How do you actually start praying in tongues? You don’t stay passive and wait for God to take over your mouth.

 

Jesus said, “These signs will follow those who believe: In My name, …They will speak with new tongues” (Mk. 16:17). 

 

The believer is the one that does the speaking. The Holy Spirit provides the language but it is the believer that does the speaking (Acts 2:4). It is a collaboration. God does not bypass your will. He works with it.

 

Bring the willingness to speak in the Holy Ghost - the open mouth, the yielded heart, and the Holy Spirit will bring the word you will voice out.

 

In Luke 11:13 Jesus said, “How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” So, God the Father gives to everyone that asks for the gift with genuine hunger.

 

So, here are some practical ways you position yourself to start praying in tongues:

1. Get quiet and settled. Before you start praying in tongues, get your heart to be still. Put aside your self-consciousness, the need to perform, the pressure to produce something. You cannot receive with clenched fist. Come to Him with an open hand, with no other agenda than to have an encounter with God.

 

2. Remember that Jesus is the baptizer in the Holy Ghost (Matt. 3:11). So, ask Jesus directly. You don’t need a special environment or someone to lay hands on you before you can receive the baptism in the Holy Ghost. However, both of them can help, but you can ask Jesus privately in a simple language, saying, “Lord Jesus, please baptize me in the Holy Ghost, IJN.” Keep it simple. God takes sincere requests seriously.

 

3. Enter genuine worship. Most people get baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues in the place of real worship, not performance.

 

That kind of worship where you stop thinking about how you look, but just focusing on who God is. Put on a spiritual worship song or sing quietly. Let your full attention be on God. A worshipping heart is a yielded heart, and the Holy Spirit moves in yielded places. Keep singing this kind of worship songs, and eventually your spirit will yield. 

 

4. Then open your mouth and speak out whatever the Holy Spirit is telling you in your spirit-man to say, because out of your belly (spirit-man) is flowing rivers of living water. As the Holy Spirit prompts you, you speak. The collaboration is that the Spirit supplies you what to say, and you speak it out. Faith requires action. Tongues require your participation.

 

5. Don’t stop to evaluate mid-flow. No, your mind will try to access what is happening in real time. What are you really saying?

 

Paul says, “If I pray in a tongue my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful” (1 Cor. 14:14).

 

This is the point: Let your spirit pray beyond what your mind can reach. What starts as a few words can become something much deeper, if you stay in it rather than pulling back to analyze what is being said.

 

6. Make it a daily practice. Tongues is a gift that grows through use. Apostle Paul said, “I thank my God, I speak with (in) tonguesmore than ye all” (1 Cor. 14:18). 

 

It is not by accident that you stumble into praying in tongues. It is a discipline. Set aside a time frame – 10 min, 20 min, 30 min – everyday to pray in tongues. The more you use it the more natural and deep your tongues become.

 

7. Do not compare what is coming out of your mouth with that of others around you. Everyone has his/her own tongues. The Holy Spirit gives you your own peculiar tongues for your communion with God.

 

Watch out for the next edition of Good News from the Pulpit!

 

·      Your friend, I. I. Madubunyi (Senior Pastor, HOG).