SPEND EXTENDED PERIODS OF TIME WORSHIPPING THE LORD IN TONGUES

Acts 2:4 – And they were all filled (diffused throughout their souls) with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other (different, foreign) languages (tongues), as the Spirit kept giving them clear and loud expression [in each tongue in appropriate words].

I think many Christians, even those who claim to be baptized in the Spirit today, don’t spend near enough time praying in other tongues. Some may have prayed in tongues years ago but the importance of that gift was not reinforced or encouraged in their church and over time praying in tongues became non-existent in their lives. There is something about praying for an extended time in the Holy Spirit that brings us into the presence of God. In the early 1900’s Pentecostal prayer took on an additional meaning. The people that lived then, especially those associated with the Azusa Street Outpouring, who had experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit coined a phrase they used that speaks to us about the reality they were experiencing. They used the terminology “praying through.” What they meant by this is quite revealing, they were saying that one should pray until the glory of God would come. Their practice was this, they would pray (primarily in the heavenly language) until the manifest, felt presence of God would fill the atmosphere. This was where real prayer and ministry would be experienced as God would come down and begin to bring them into supernatural prayer and awareness of the power and presence of the Lord. So it seems that the prayer meeting leading up to the Day of Pentecost is God’s definition of “praying through.” Think about it for a minute, the disciples and closest followers of Jesus had a prayer meeting, praying to receive what Jesus told them about, the Promise of the Father. On the tenth day the atmosphere changed, the room was suddenly alive. It was alive with God. Then there was this unbelievable sound, a sound like a tornado or cyclone. Then there was the fire, fire that looked like tongues on their heads. But the most amazing thing of all was the nearness and reality of God. It reminded the followers of what it was like to be with Jesus.

Maybe for you it’s time to pray; maybe it’s time to pray until the Holy Spirit comes. Only then will we really know what those old timers meant when they said they “prayed through.”