Praying in Tongues (or in the Spirit)

Good morning everyone! Its going to be a hot week. I hope everyone stays cool. Sunday morning I preached a message that God's Spirit especially gave me for "such a time as this." The message that is now posted on our sermons page was "The Power of Speaking in Tongues." In the message, I simply talk about the importance of praying in tongues (or in the Spirit), especially in these trying days for believers. Why is tongues so important? The bible says speaking in tongues edifies (builds up) the believer before God. He speaks to God and his soul or spirit man is edified or built up.

This is not happening for the most part in Christianity in America for two reasons. First of all, most Christians in our churches today have never heard good, consistent, biblical teaching regarding the subject of tongues. Many of America's churches don't believe in the practice of tongues and so their pastors never teach or preach on the subject. Many of our spiritual leaders have bought into the false teaching that it was for those times (New Testament days) and not for modern times. Thats too bad, because the church body suffers for our ignorance of God's Word. Secondly, many churches (Pentecostal and Charasmatic churches) do believe it and some preach and teach on it, but unfortunately some believers have a poor prayer life and are too busy to pray in English or in the spirit. So they also suffer because they do not pray in tongues.

The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14, that 'I pray in tongues more than you all'or basically more than everyone in the Corinthian church put together. Paul was not proud or was he bragging but just stating a fact. He found it necessary for him as a individual believer to pray daily in tongues. If Paul did, how much more should we?

Have a wonderful week!

-Pastor