Receiving from God 7
Scripture Reading - Jude 1:20-21 KJV
20 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
In today’s lesson we will continue to explore the subject of “Receiving from God”. “Receiving from God” is special and holy; however, it is not as hard or mysterious as some would lead us to believe. In a previous lesson we talked about receiving from God when we pray. We mentioned that it is an instantaneous transaction that occurs right when you pray. In another lesson we mentioned that a key to “receiving from God” is your belief in God’s Word. You acknowledge God’s Word as truth by simply believing in what God said, then on purpose “believing you received God’s Word (which is His Will and His Way)” into your heart. We must be sure to acknowledge that “we believe we received” God’s Word into our heart because it goes into the heart (your spirit) first, then it comes out of your mouth to affect this natural realm. Since the natural realm operates on a much slower speed we must be patience until we physically see the promise of God come to pass in the physical realm of our lives. We also spoke in one lesson about “receiving from God” through the ear-gate which basically means you have natural ears and spiritual ears that both should be selective on what they are hearing. As Christians, we are either hearing what is good and right unto the glory of God or we are hearing idle or evil things that could hurt us and others. We previously mentioned that receiving from God through the ministry of Jesus requires focus on exactly what you want from God and approaching God’s Will as being your will too. This basically means trusting God as your healer, provision, mental stability and foundation for all things pertaining to life and godliness. We also mentioned “receiving from God” in the dispensation of the New Testament is based upon “receiving Jesus Christ” in your life. This first step allows you to “receive” from God spiritually and your spiritual reception of the Life of God will positively alter (enhance) the mental and physical aspects of your life for the better. In a prior lesson we spoke on “receiving from God” through the eye gates because in certain cases what you continuously behold you will eventually become. All Christians can “easily receive through their eye gates” if they are looking for God in His Holy Word (The Holy Bible) or seeing God’s Love in action. In this lesson we will examine “receiving from God” through “praying in tongues”. Today’s reference verse states, “Beloved building up yourselves on your most holy faith praying in the Holy Ghost”. At least three things we want to pay close attention to in the particular verse. First we see that we can build ourselves up by “praying in the Holy Ghost”, or as some would say “praying in the Spirit” or as others would say “praying in an unknown tongue”. This unknown tongue is not unknown to God and certain others but it is unknown to the speaker. This tool of building yourself up implies that there will be times when you simply need some help. Yes, we do experience time where it seems like we have lost some spiritual and mental energy. Yes, we (ihlcc) will admit that there are certain times when we feel spiritually weaker. It is not that we experience this low feeling a lot but it is especially prevalent right after long bouts of physical activity or after releasing a lot of spiritual or mental energy trying to help someone else. We (ihlcc) can remember one occasion when we witness to Black Muslims for a couple hours in a park. When this evangelism effort was over we (ihlcc) felt as though we had been in a boxing match for three hours. We even had to resist headaches in the physical and mental realm. In situations like that “praying in tongues” is praying out the perfect will of God to bring peace and healing to the whole situation. Of course, we didn’t pray in tongues to the people we are trying to win to Christ Jesus that would be foolish because they wouldn’t understand what we are saying but we can always “speak in tongues” to receive refreshment from God when we are spending some quiet time with our Lord Jesus. Secondly, did you notice that your faith is involved? Someone may reason, “Why is that mentioned?”. We believe faith was mentioned simply because “praying in tongues” requires faith on at least two counts. First the person who speaks in an “unknown tongue” must operate in faith because his/her head doesn’t understand what is being spoken. How can the carnal mind figure out what it doesn’t understand intellectually? The correct answer is, “It doesn’t!” Therefore the speaker (prayer) must keep their mind on Jesus with the inward conviction that God is speaking through me to bring blessing unto me or whosoever else They (The Lord Jesus and your Heavenly Father) are looking to help. The second count concerning “speaking in tongues by faith” is that you are engaging the Kingdom of God. Yes, you could very easily be dispatching angels or inviting the Holy Spirit into your situation on a greater level to work through the details. You also have opened the door for God to reveal more of Himself unto you which will elevate you spiritually, mentally and physically. Using your “most holy faith” is God’s intention for all of His Children and our Gracious Lord Jesus and our Loving Heavenly Father gave us this awesome gift grow in the Ways, the Will and the knowledge of God. The third point we will mention about Jude 1:20 is that “prayer” plays an important role because “prayer” is our communion with God. If you ever want to better understand something you just read in your Holy Bible take it to God in prayer, if you ever want to prosper in your relationships take it to God in prayer, if you are wondering about a big decision please, as a beloved child of God, take it to God in prayer. What we (ihlcc) are saying is that those who look to commune with God in their everyday life always have open honest fellowship with God through “prayer”. This is why you can become closer to God through using your “faith to pray in the Holy Ghost” and at the very same time you are definitely “receiving from God”. It is impossible to get built up spiritually without receiving from God directly, heart to heart, yes, spirit to spirit. Yes, “praying by faith in the Holy Ghost” opens a wide door to your heart and we (ihlcc) have no doubts that when you open your honest heart wide unto God He shall certainly fill it with His Goodness and His manifold Blessings. We must remember Matthew 5:6 KJV which proclaims, ”Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” So know with all confidence that you can build yourself up spiritually on your most holy faith by “praying in the Holy Ghost” and we would recommend doing this on a daily (regular) basis no matter how you feel spiritually or mentally simply because “praying in tongues” is right and it is the perfect way to “receive from God” whatever you or your family might need at that moment, in that time or during that season. Know that it is the Word of God and the Holy Spirit of God working together to get (receive) the full blessing of God manifesting in your life. It is not by chance or luck but rather on purpose through perseverance that we “receive” the perfect Will of God in our life to glorify God in our victory over this world, the flesh and the negative circumstances we face in this life. Yes, “we received” the fullness of God’s Spirit through “praying in tongues” and through this specific blessing we can understand the Word of God even better to overcome all things that come against us on this earth in Name of Jesus. Amen!