To pray in the Spirit at all times simply requires us to develop the habit of praying in tongues. If you want to know more about speaking in tongues you can check out these articles and they can get you started: How to receive the Holy Spirit and Speak in Tongues (Explained), Is Speaking in tongues a Real Language? Or is it Gibberish? Is Speaking in Tongues for Everyone? (Biblical Answer) Therefore, it is a unified prayer between the Spirit of God and our spirit. This is another reason why there is no difference between our spirit praying and praying in the Holy Spirit because when our spirit is praying the Bible makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is the one giving us what we should speak and pray. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (Acts 2:4) So judging from these two verses it makes no difference if Paul says I pray with my spirit or if he says I pray in the Spirit because as the verse above reveals they are one.Īnother point to keep in mind is that when we pray in tongues we are speaking with an utterance that the Holy Spirit is giving us at that time. “Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”? However, have you ever read in 1 Corinthians 6:17 where it says, “But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him“? And that in 2 Corinthians 3:17 Paul clarifies that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Lord. To this, I would have to say that this is a great point and one worth noting. And so this person may be thinking that these two passages of scripture don’t apply to one another. Now someone might be thinking as they read this that the apostle was referring to the Holy Spirit (capital S) in his letter to the Ephesians, and he was referring to his own spirit (lowercase s) in his letter to the Corinthians. I think from these few verses it is clear that when Paul said to the Ephesians “pray at all times in the Spirit” he was referring to praying in tongues. So not only does the apostle Paul say that praying in tongues is praying with the spirit, but he also says that praying in tongues blesses God in the spirit. “For otherwise, if you bless God in the spirit only, how will the one who occupies the place of the outsider know to say the “Amen” at your giving of thanks, since he does not understand what you are saying?” (1 Corinthians 14:16).ĭid you catch that Paul called praying in tongues “blessing God in the Spirit”? Do you think if praying in tongues is referred to by the apostle Paul as blessing God in the Spirit, it would also be referred to as praying in the Spirit? So essentially, he uses praying in tongues and praying in the Spirit interchangeably. Notice that from the passage above the apostle Paul says that when he prays in tongues his spirit is doing the praying. “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unproductive. What is the outcome then? I will pray with the spirit, but I will pray with the mind also I will sing with the spirit, but I will sing with the mind also” (1 Corinthians 14:14-15) (Related article: Praying in the Spirit: What it is & How to do it) And although he didn’t give specific instructions on how to pray in the Spirit in his letter to the Ephesians, he did explain how he prays in the Spirit to the Corinthian church. In one of these instances, it is the apostle Paul who is exhorting us to do this. “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God” (Jude v.21-22) “With every prayer and request, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be alert with all perseverance and every request for all the saints” (Ephesians 6:18) We find two different places in the New Testament where it tells us to pray in the Spirit. When we pray in tongues our spirit is praying with the Holy Spirit, and the Bible reveals that He gives us the utterance of our words, as we pray in faith. To pray in the Spirit is equivalent to praying in tongues.
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