Our spirits also require prayer in order to grow strong. I am not referring to praying with our understanding however, although it does help to pray with the understanding, for you will recall that we saw earlier that we are to pray with our understanding, when we ask for spiritual understanding of God’s word. Nevertheless, in this section, I am specifically referring to praying with our spirits. The Spirit filled Christian, has the ability to pray both with their understanding, and with their spirits. This truth is revealed to us in the following passage of scripture, for the apostle Paul stated that he prayed both with his spirit and with his understanding.
1 Corinthians 14:14-15 “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. (15) What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding.”
As revealed in the above passage of scripture, we see that praying with the spirit, is the act of praying in other tongues. When we receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, God gives us a spiritual language that only He and our spirits understand. The blessedness of this gift allows God to directly influence our prayer life, so that we can pray in accordance with His perfect will for every situation that we bring before Him. These prayers are always heard by Him and are also always answered by Him. It is our spirits, that speak in the heavenly language given to us by the Holy Spirit. In other words, our spirits pray in their own language. When the Holy Spirit tells us in the above passage, that our understanding is unfruitful when we pray with our spirit, He implies that our spirits are fruitful. And so, why would our spirits be fruitful when we pray in tongues? The reason that our spirits are fruitful, is because they understand the language that they have been given. These spiritual words spoken, are in fact God’s words, and just as the written word of God causes our spirits to grow, so these spiritual words cause our spirits to grow stronger as well.
1 Corinthians 14:4 “He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.”
The above passage of scripture plainly tells us that the believer edifies himself when he speaks in a tongue. The word translated edify, can also be translated, to promote growth. Obviously, it is the spirit of the believer that is edified, as only their spirit understands the words that are spoken.
Jude 1:20 “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit.”
The Holy Spirit again teaches us through the apostle Jude, that we build ourselves up, as we pray in the spirit, i.e. we become stronger in our spirits. This is one of the reasons, that the apostle Paul was so thankful to God, that he spoke with tongues more than any other believer in the church, at that time. For he had learnt that praying in the spirit accomplished much, including helping him to grow strong in spirit. And so, if we want to grow strong in spirit, we too, will need to give ourselves to much time of praying with our spirits.
1 Corinthians 14:18 “I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all.”
And so, for the believer that consistently puts into practice the steps we have discussed in these sections, they can fully expect to begin to grow strong in their spirits.
Michael E.B. Maher
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