*This is the final post in on our series on the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts. If this topic is new for you, this blog will make more sense if you read the rest of the series for context. You can start here.
How to Pray for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and/or to Speak in Tongues
Okay, we’re going to get practical, but first let’s clarify something. Every believer in Jesus who has repented of their sin and placed their faith in Him as the Holy Spirit living inside them and working in their life. The Bible says the the Holy Spirit indwells every believer the moment you trust Jesus to save you, and He lives in you forever. (Ephesians 1:13-14 // 2 Corinthians 1:22 // Romans 8:14-16 // John 14:16-18) What a promise!
As we discussed in Part 3 of this series, the baptism in the Holy Spirit is about empowerment for ministry in the supernatural gifts of the Spirit and Christian witness. So, how do you ask God for this experience in your life?
Based on Scripture, my personal experience with God and with ministering to others, and godly counsel from pastors I trust, here are a few steps you might take if you want to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and/or receive the ability to pray in tongues:
1. Have a Spirit-filled believer lay hands on you and pray for you to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Or, you can pray on your own and ask God to fill you with His Spirit and give you your prayer language. (Acts 8:14-17 // Acts 9:17 // Acts 10:44-46 // Acts 19:1-7)
2. Calmly linger in God’s presence for a while and see if you sense the Holy Spirit giving you anything to say. It may help you more to wait in silence in God’s presence for a few minutes or it may help you more to start out speaking praise to God in your language. Don’t hype yourself up and don’t put pressure on it; just do what helps you step out in faith best.
- Do you sense God’s presence? Do you sense any words in tongues in your mind? Do you feel a prompting in your spirit to speak out anything? (Acts 2:1-4). If so, take a step of faith and speak it out. Don’t stop speaking right away. Give yourself a few minutes to get comfortable with it and let your language mature a bit.
- There are some consistent expressions in the Bible of what generally happens when a believer is filled with the Spirit, but there’s not a perfect biblical formula to what it can look life for a Christian to receive this experience. So, don’t get discouraged or too locked in to one idea of how it may happen for you. God knows how to meet you exactly in the way that you need. 🙂
- Keep in mind that speaking in tongues is an evidence of being baptized in the Spirit, not the only one. The other supernatural gifts being stirred up in your life and boldness in your faith and witness are evidence too! So ask God for and look for those things in your life as well! You may even sense in an unusual or more tangible way God’s presence and power coming upon as you pray to be filled. (I did.) That can be a sign of His work in you as well.
3. If you don’t seem to receive anything in the moment, that’s okay. Don’t get discouraged and don’t give up! The point is to open up the conversation with God and grow closer to Him. If this is more of a process for you than an instantaneous thing, that’s okay too.
4. In that case, here are some helpful thoughts on how to move forward, inspired by Pastor Robert Morris’ book on the Holy Spirit, The God I Never Knew.
- As you’re seeking the baptism in the Holy Spirit, every now and then, take a few minutes in your private times of worship and prayer with God to pray and worship God in your language first. Then, at some point, ask God give you the ability to speak in tongues and just try to switch over into your prayer language.
- Again, it’s okay if nothing happens. Don’t feel pressured to fake or force anything to happen. The point is to spend time with God, seek Him, and practice taking steps of faith.
- Keep making space like this in your time with God until you get breakthrough. If it helps, read your Bible first before having your worship and prayer time and trying to step out into your prayer language. You could also play worship music in the background if it helps your heart connect with God and creates an atmosphere of God’s presence. Be encouraged that God wants to fill you and He will in His time!
How to Make Praying in Tongues a Part of Your Prayer Life
Before we wrap up, here are some tips that have helped me in my journey of praying in tongues. Feel free to try them all or whichever ones are helpful to you. 🙂
1. Pray in tongues in your devotion time.
Make prayer in tongues a part of your rhythm of prayer and reading the Bible. It’s a spiritual discipline that builds us up in faith and helps us connect with God just like prayer, worship, or reading the Bible. If it helps, try setting a certain amount of time you’d like to intentionally spend praying in tongues each day and make it a part of your devotional time. Start small (maybe 5-10 minutes) and build from there as you get more comfortable with it.
As you pray in tongues, pay attention to what God puts on your heart. God may bring Bible verses to mind, people or topics to pray for. There might be phrases of prayer or praise to God that come up in your heart. He may give you understanding of a Bible passage you’ve been studying.
Feel free to speak those things out to God and go back-and-forth praying in tongues and praying in your understanding. Journal any thoughts God speaks to you that you want to remember.
2. Focus on God.
In my opinion, two of the biggest hindrances to Christians praying in tongues consistently is that you don’t understand what you’re saying and you can’t see the Person you’re talking to. That can understandably make it hard to engage in prayer and remember that this is a conversation with a God who is listening to you and understands every word you’re saying.
Think about God’s nature as you pray in tongues. Maybe open your Bible to a passage describing the character of God and meditate on those verses as you pray. (Passages like Revelation 1, Revelation 4, Hebrews 1, Colossians 1, Philippians 2, John 1 have great verses in them.)
The more I did this, especially when praying in tongues regularly was newer to me, the easier and quicker it became for my heart to feel connected to God when I would start to pray in tongues (even at times when I didn’t have a Bible passage open in front of me) and to know He’s right there with me and He’s listening.
3. Listen to worship music.
I’ve found worship music helpful because it connects my heart to God and creates an atmosphere of His presence. (And let’s be real, if you’re just getting used to praying in tongues and building a spiritual discipline of it, it helps the time pass by while still keeping your thoughts on Jesus instead of wandering. 🙂 ) You’re not always going to feel God’s presence super strongly when you pray in tongues. Sometimes I feel nothing, but God is still working through it, so don’t get discouraged. 🙂
If you have more questions about this topic, feel free to message me. The work of the Holy Spirit in and through us is so precious to me! I wouldn’t be where I am in my walk with God without it, so I’m praying in faith for a fresh encounter with His presence and power for you as well as you seek Him.
Resources:
- Caitlyn Lutz’s blogs on tongues: Part 1 and Part 2
- Message series and book :The God I Never Knew by Robert Morris
- The Holy Spirit: An Introduction by John Bevere
- Receiving The Holy Spirit and His Gifts by Terry Virgo and Phil Rogers
Your Turn: If you’re ready, take time to work through the steps to pray for God to fill you with His Spirit, to give you a prayer language, and to stir up the gifts of His Spirit in your life. If praying in tongues is already a part of your life, consider the tips on how to implement it as a regular practice in your communion with God and what that can look like in your life. Discuss this post in the comments below.
Jasmin,
Thank you for the great blog! Also a good tip I got years ago from a spiritual mentor, and works almost all the time for getting a prayer language is to have the person start to make sounds with their own mouth, such as “da, ta, ta, ba, ba” until their prayer language comes in, while listening to the person leading making the sounds as well as praying in the Spirit. (It really helps when the person starts to open their own mouth and starts making sounds).
Hi Susan! Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts! I would approach praying over someone for their prayer language just slightly differently. Personally, I really value making sure that no one ever mistakenly gets the impression that they’re being “taught” by a person to speak in tongues. I know some people have had negative experiences with well-intentioned believers praying for them to receive their prayer language in ways that were not helpful for them and I’m sensitive to that.
I usually suggest what I mentioned briefly in the blog. If they want to speak out, have the person speak out praise to God in their natural language. I find that it serves the purpose of getting them to take a step of faith and start speaking, but at the same time allows them no room for confusion when their prayer language does come that it was Holy Spirit who gave them the utterance, not something they made up or that a person taught them. But I agree that at some point if you feel Holy Spirit giving you language in tongues you’re going to have to take a step of faith and speak it out. You can’t talk with your mouth closed, haha! And, like you said, I have also seen that having a person or two pray quietly in the Spirit over the person trying to receive could be helpful as well.
Everyone’s experience is different but I’m so grateful Holy Spirit knows exactly how to meet each one of us! So glad you found this blog helpful!