How to pray in tongues!

My daughter, with a recent drivers license, came home from her first car ride to school by herself. That afternoon on her way home, the bottom fell out of the sky. With a rain storm that was blinding her view on the freeway, she began to grip the wheel with two hands and pray in tongues. What she didn’t know was I praying at home in the spirit as well.

Jude ESV –²⁰ But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, ²¹ keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. 

Demon spirits try to control and manipulate unbelievers with possession. The Holy Spirit offers the fruit of self-control to believers. When I was a young boy I thought tongues was when the Holy Spirit would make me speak another Heavenly language. We will never be made to do anything by the Spirit of God. Love always give a choice. The Holy Spirit is always ahead of the believer inviting them along in partnership. To be led by the Holy Spirit, we must willingly submit and follow. We begin intentionally and willingly to speak in groaning and the Holy Spirit leads us to the heavenly language.

Romans 8 ESV ²⁶ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

Don’t believe you have the Holy Spirit? Well if you were waiting for Him to do something through you without your permission, you will be waiting for eternity. God’s will in His Kingdom done for you, is in partnership with you, by faith.

Ephesians 1ESV ¹³ In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,

Are you discouraged in your prayer life, feeling like your burdens are bouncing off the ceilings as you cast them to Jesus? Praying in the spirit is for building up your faith so that mountains can and will be removed.

1. Begin by opening your mouth and speaking with groans and utterance.

2. you can expect your thoughts to attack and surroundings to be distracting. (Just like fasting, your mind will attack and so will distractions)

3. Don’t quit until your soul (mind, will and emotions) are in unity with the Holy Spirit. (you will know because your entire being will be ready to speak in real words, faith filled, spirit led prayers to the mountain.

Top 3 questions in life….If you could be anyone?

Ever wished you were someone else? Ever wanted to trade places with someone? We all have had moments of envy and awe of people or celebrities we admire. When I was younger, I wanted to be Michael Jordan so I could dunk over everyone in my middle school. There are 3 questions in my life that once they were answered, changed my world . Once we find the answer to them with the help of the Holy Spirit, then we can help the next generation answer them as well. Freely receive, then freely give away. In no particular order, the questions are the following:

1. Who is God for me?
2. If I had all the money in the world what would I do?
3. If I could be anyone in the world who would I be?

When asking the question, “who would I be if I could be anyone?”, hopefully you can know the answer truthfully that you partner with who God chose……the answer is You!

Psalm 139:13-14 NLT

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body

and knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!

Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

Equipping Disciples of Jesus to Receive, Give and Serve In Grace,

Pastor Brandon

http://www.graceforeternity.com

Sleeping With Darkness?

Ephesians 5:31 ESV

31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

The apostle Paul began with quoting Genesis 2:24. God’s heart in Genesis was for a man to leave His income source (his parents),  leave his vocation source (his father) to invest in his own self and become one together with his wife. This probably seemed counter cultural at the time because the father’s business was the son’s life line without trade schools or colleges back then. It possibly would have taken greater faith in God and His Word to be obedient to this command. The definition of marriage between a man and woman in Genesis was much more sacrificial than just sleeping together.

What profound mystery does Paul speak of? Paul saw the sacrifice of marriage and compared it to Christ and the church. Jesus left His Father in Heaven to come to the earth to lay down his life. The King that came to serve others and not be served (Matthew 20:28). The king that chose to become poor so His bride would become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). A husband’s greatest ministry is to serve his bride, not to be served.

Paul said in Ephesians to love your wife as yourself. Let’s talk about how Jesus invested in himself with the scriptures. Jesus was found studying and discussing scriptures in the temple as a young man. Jesus regularly invested his time in himself in prayer and relationship with the Father. A man who loves himself, invests in himself spiritually as Jesus did.

My daughter is now the age that my wife and I met and dated. There are things I want to see from any young man that wants to date and get to know my daughter before marriage. These are the same goals I expect from my two sons. To live a life of studying the authority of God’s Word and investing in themselves with prayer and relationship with Jesus. The fruit will be a life of stability, serving others, not self-centered. I want to see their finances and their time investing in themselves spiritually to love themselves before they “hold fast to a wife”. Otherwise they will need the wife to be the spiritual leader of their home and be Jesus for them, because they never learned to invest in Jesus for themselves.

Looking for advice for finding a marriage partner? What does Paul say?

2 Corinthians 6:14 NLT Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness?

Don’t be deceived to think you can always change someone to invest in themselves with Jesus after you marry. You will be sleeping with darkness. If two builders have two blueprints (one righteous and one self-righteous) the house will be dis-functional and the rooms will not be pleasant.

Proverbs 24:3-4 ESV By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; 4 by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

1 Corinthians 1:30ESV And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,

Equipping Disciples of Jesus To Receive, Give and Serve In Grace,

http://www.graceforeternity.com