Nobody is able to say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit (1Cor 12:3)

The Holy Spirit Himself is divine love and the purposes of the spiritual gifts are to build up the Body of Christ. There are many gifts with Tongues being considered the least of the gifts. Tongues enhance our prayer life, praise and worship of God and the ability to contemplate God’s Word.

This gift helps us to grow into a closer union with God. We develop an interactive relationship with God and can express through tongues our thoughts, feelings and emotions that cannot be put into words. The ability to interpret tongues enables us to listen to what God’s spirit is saying to us.

I thank God that I speak with tongues more than any of you. (1Cor 14:18)

The gift of tongues guides us how to pray for the healing of our inner self. The healing of deep emotional hurts anxieties and traumatic memories. They enlighten us how to pray for people to be set free from spiritual darkness or distress. The tone and intensity of tongues change when un-forgiveness is present or the powers of darkness are tempting or harassing a person to sin. The gift of tongues helps us in the discernment of spirits and for spiritual growth.

So my brothers be eager to prophesy and do not suppress the gift of speaking in tongues but make sure that everything is done in a proper and orderly fashion. (1Cor 14:39-40)

Paul gave guidelines to the Corinthians about the importance of using the gift of tongues and their interpretation for prophecy. He was emphasising how the gift of tongues ministers to unbelievers and the gift of interpretation empowered a person to prophecy God’s word of encouragement to believers.

“We must undergo many trials if we are to enter into the reign of God. (Acts 14:22)

The first struggle we encounter as we grow in the spiritual gifts is the conflict within our human spirit. We are continually rationalising spiritual things in a human way and will need to pray and ask for the mind of Christ to overcome our human conflict.

The second struggle is acknowledging our sinfulness to Jesus and to take responsibility for having done what is sinful in God’s sight and in the eyes of the community. We pray for the gift of conversion to repent and to turn away from the habits of sin.