ACTS 29 TODAY

coming to the knowledge of the TRUTH

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Tongues for Personal Edification

The most common, yet perhaps the most unique,

manifestation of diversities of tongues is tongues for

personal edification. This is the prayer language each of

us receives when we are filled with the Holy Ghost. It is

used by God to transfer divine secrets and mysteries

from His Spirit to ours.

In my earlier hypothetical illustration, Jesus ascended

on high the third time to gather armfuls of the

diversities of tongues. Then He threw that operation

into the Body of Christ, and every believer received the

potential for tongues for personal edification. If any

believer will step out and receive that gift by faith, it is

his.

Tongues for personal edification is the most basic

foundational operation of God, because it is designed

by God to do for you what no preacher or teacher can

do. It edifies you by building into your spirit godly

traits such as love, divine insight into God’s Word, and

wisdom to know right from wrong and truth from

falsehood.

You see, a teacher can tell us that we should walk in

love, but he can’t give us the strength to do it. That

strength comes only from our reborn human spirit, and

praying in tongues provides the means by which the

Holy Spirit can build that strength into our spirit.

Praying in tongues is as supernatural as raising the

dead, because it doesn’t originate with you. The source

of both the raising of the dead and this supernatural

language is the power of the Holy Spirit. The only

difference is the availability of the gift.

You see, all nine gifts of the Spirit, the first seven

operations of God as listed in First Corinthians 12:28,

and three of the four diversities of tongues are all given

as the Holy Spirit wills. But there is one diversity of

tongues that you can operate at will — anytime you

want to, as long as you want to — immediately after

being filled with the Holy Ghost, and that is tongues for

personal edification.

I wish I could operate in the mighty working of miracles

or the discerning of spirits anytime I wanted to. But I

cannot, because all the gifts of the Spirit flow through

me severally as He wills for the edification of other

people.

But there’s one simple gift that flows to me to build me

up and edify me. God has done with this simple gift

what He has done with no other, because He has made

me the steward of my own edification.

It is a remarkable truth that we have been given

stewardship of the operation of this simple gift called

tongues. Now with our own free will, we determine how

much or how little we want to be edified by allowing

the Holy Spirit to pray through us.

Anytime we want to pray in tongues, all we have to do is

reach out momentarily with our faith. The Holy Spirit

will immediately respond and begin to create that

supernatural language down on the inside of our spirit.

And He will continue to do so hour after hour, as long

as we want to stay in the prayer closet. We could pray

for twelve hours, and it would do nothing but

permanently benefit us in our climb toward becoming

qualified for God’s call on our lives.

You see, contrary to what some people say, praying in

tongues does not make us strange. Any kind of prayer

within the guidelines of Scripture can do nothing but

exalt the Word of God within us. Remember, the Spirit

and the Word are one (1 John 5:7).

Praying in the Spirit never takes away from the Word.

Instead, it builds up our spirit by giving us greater

understanding of the revelation knowledge already

contained within the Word. Why? Because as the Holy

Spirit prays through us, He is always in total agreement

with the Word.

Therefore, it is absolutely impossible to pray too much

in the Holy Ghost. Tongues for personal edification

does nothing but enhance the working of the Word on

the inside of us, causing us to receive and walk in more

of God’s power as we become more yielded to Him.

So after receiving this first diversity through the

baptism of the Holy Spirit, we begin our climb into the

spiritual qualifications for any or all of the other seven

operations of God.

As we pray in tongues for our own personal edification,

the Holy Spirit releases the Father’s perfect plan for us.

The Spirit of God is certainly the One most able to

qualify us for that plan.

As we pray in tongues, the Holy Spirit prays through

our spirit for needs in our lives that we aren’t even

aware of. You see, God knows what lies in the deepest

recesses of our being, and He through the Holy Spirit

prays for us.

In this edification process, spiritual authority grows

and our faith is built up. We can reach the place where

so much authority is released as we line up against the

devil and bind him in Jesus’ Name that our commands

of faith literally shake the enemy’s kingdom.

But we aren’t going to cause the devil’s kingdom to

crumble and fall when our faith is still shaken over a

credit card balance that we can’t pay!

That’s a lesson that even the prophet Elijah had to

learn. After defeating the prophets of Baal on Mount

Carmel, he sat and whined under the juniper tree that

the evil Queen Jezebel was going to take his life until

God dealt with him and got him back into faith (1 Kings

18 and 19).

God has created a place of peace that we can enter into

in prayer. This is the place where we can “count it all

joy” when we fall into different temptations, tests, and

trials (James 1:2). Why can we do that? Because we have

grown in our spiritual authority, building up ourselves

on our most holy faith by praying in the Holy Ghost

(Jude 20). We have begun to learn how to change

circumstances arrayed against us rather than to have

circumstances rule over us.

Tongues for personal edification also develops our

character, which is of utmost importance. God requires

holiness, because His power operating through unholy

character will eventually destroy the vessel through

which the power flows.

I once prayed for a little girl in a service who greatly

needed a creative miracle but didn’t instantly receive

one. I was bitterly disappointed, knowing that God

wanted to see that little girl whole. After the service, I

went to my hotel room perplexed and sad, asking God

why no miracle had occurred.

The Lord told me that He cared for both the little girl

and for me. He said that until my character was further

developed in Him, He had to withhold the kind of

power necessary to cause that kind of creative miracle.

If I had received that level of His power at my level of

spiritual maturity, it would have destroyed me.

Until there is nothing more important to us than

seeking first God’s Kingdom and His righteousness, His

power will do us little good. As we mature in Him, we

will become more and more of an asset to Him. Tongues

for personal edification is the only diversity of tongues

that we can operate “on purpose,” just because we want

to, in order to arrive at that mature state.

AMBASSADOR / SERVANT

LARRY