Thread by @mannyzdad

A thread on Prayer, for believers. It will be a long thread. Please RT if this blesses you. Let's go.

What is prayer? A common cliche is that prayer is "talking WITH God." The idea is that it's not a one-way conversation, and that when praying, we should wait to hear what God...

has to say. This is true only in a general sense. Strictly speaking, prayer is "talking TO God." In the Bible, everyone who's praying is always speaking, never listening.

In fact, the Bible tells us that prayer is a way to present our requests to God (Phil. 4:6). So, prayer...

is us talking to God.

Believers are called to both have a lifestyle of prayer (1 Thess. 5:17) and designated times for prayer (Matt. 26:44). We have to keep our lips connected to our heart at all times, that's our lifestyle. But we must also have a habit of actual and regular...

prayer time with God.

Prayer is a necessity for believers because of its obvious benefits. 1. Prayer cyclically reinforces our trust in God. That is, we pray in the first place because we trust He can answer. While praying, that trust grows. 2. Prayer sharpens the link btw...

your spirit and the Holy Spirit. You could be praying for your exams and the Holy Ghost (HG) speaks to you about your mom, or gives you an idea for your biz, or gives you an instruction for ministry, job, etc.

An effective prayer life requires consistency. Pray at 4am daily,...

Fast every Wednesday, etc. Don't pray when you find the time. Pray at the scheduled time.

Short prayers or long prayers? Lazarus came back to life in response to just 3 words (Jn 11:43). The demons ran into the pigs in response to just one word (Matt. 8:32). We desire to have...

this kind of "power" without realising that the secret to effective short prayers is intensive long prayers. Jesus habitually pulled all-nighters in prayer (Mk. 6:12). Short prayers may be necessary when there's a constraint of time, like at church services. But the power of...

prayer is unlocked in secret. No believer can access the power of God for exploits without that life of intensive secret prayer.

Another very important benefit of prayer is that it edifies the believer. To be edified is to be built up, and the Bible is clear dat prayer builds...

us up spiritually. In fact, we are told that one of the ways we can be built up is through prayer (Jude 1:20). It's important to point out here that prayer edifies us SPIRITUALLY. More on this later.

How do we pray? This question addresses the method, not the manner of prayer...

Paul teaches that we can pray using either our mind or our spirit. To pray using your mind is to pray in a language you understand. It could be English, Tiv, French, etc. but it is a language you know in your mind. Because all language came from God, He understands prayer in...

whatever language it is said. A very important part of prayer in your understanding is that as much as it is based on a language you understand, it is also based on the amount of spiritual understanding you have. Usually, at prayer time, we tend to pray in tongues by default...

The reason for that is usually that the person praying does not know enough of the scripture to support the prayer he/she is praying (Isa. 41:21).

In any case, Paul teaches us that we can choose whether to pray in our understanding or in tongues (1 Cor. 14:15).

Let us return...

to the issue of edification. We confuse "praying WITH the spirit" (1 Cor. 14:15) with "praying IN the Spirit" (Jude 1:20). As a result, it is popularly believed that praying in tongues is more spiritually edifying than praying in your understanding. Another misunderstanding...

closely related to this is that praying in tongues for a long or extended period of time is what builds us up. We see believers start a meeting by saying things like "let's charge ourselves up in the Spirit" and then recourse to praying in tongues cos of this misunderstanding...

Eph. 6:18 clears this up for us. It says we are to pray always WITH ALL PRAYER....IN THE SPIRIT. This tells us that whether we are praying in our understanding, or praying in tongues, we are praying in the Spirit. It is prayer in the Spirit that edifies us, and so, whichever...

way you pray, using the Word with your understanding or in tongues with your spirit, your spirit is being built up in Christ.

Speaking of tongues, there are those who believe that tongues and other gifts have ceased in the Body since the time of the early Church. They teach...

that the tongues in the early church was not "gibberish." This is not true, actually.

So, what are tongues? First, "tongues" is old English that means "languages." So, prayer in tongues means praying in a language but is different from the prayer in your underestanding in...

that the language is not one you know. Praying with your mind=praying in a language you already know. prayer with your spirit=praying in a language you don't know.

Clearly this is a miracle in itself, that a person could be enabled to pray in an unknown language. The Bible...

teaches us that there are two different kinds of tongues. In Acts 2, the HG came down on the disciples, and they started to speak in tongues.

As all 120 of them spoke, the people there, who'd come from "every nation under heaven" (Acts 2:5) each heard what them speaking in...

native language. This is the first kind of tongues, where a person is enabled by the HG to speak an earthly language that he/she had no prior knowledge of.

Because it's an earthly language, it does not need an interpreter. Why? Cos the gift of interpretation is also a gift of...

the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:10) and is itself as miraculous as the gift of tongues. If the hearer knows the language that the person is praying in, then that's a mental interpretation, not a spiritual interpretation.

This type of tongues is usually to pass a message to a group...

either to praise God (Acts 2:11), warn the hearer, or some other message.

The second type of tongues is explained in 1 Cor. 14. Unlike the first where it's an earthly language, this kind does not speak to men, but to God (1 Cor. 14:2). Here, an interpreter is needed because...

no one can understand what is being said. The first kind of tongues "edifies" the hearers, but this kind "edifies" the person praying. The edification here is not spiritual edification because it has to do with understanding what is being said. It is a mental edification, as...

opposed to spiritual edification that comes from praying IN the Spirit. Paul cautions us about praying in this kind of tongues when it is obvious unbelievers will be present.

A good example is a praying in tongues over a loudspeaker in a public place. This should not be the...

norm because it'd be impossible to know if an unbeliever will hear the prayer and be confused. Continued on a new thread.

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This second kind of tongues will sound like "gibberish" for the following reason. 1 Cor. 14:2 says that the person speaking in tongues is not speaking to men but to God.

If he's speaking, but not in an earthly language, the sounds he's making in that prayer will sound like...

gibberish to the human ear. The reason why this prayer requires caution is that the unbeliever, and even believers won't know when to say Amen to the prayer.

Prayer edifies us spiritually, regardless of whether it's done in your understanding or in tongues. It is very good to...

speak in tongues, but it is not a requirement for spiritual growth. Speaking in tongues is available to all believers, at the Spirit's discretion, of course.

What is important for all of us is that we have active prayer lives, that we understand that the Word is what edifies...

and that we do our spirits the world of good when we stay connected to the Lord in prayer.

The End.

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