My Spirit Prays

- Pastor Corey Erman

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. — 1. Corinthians 14:14

God is a Spirit. Man is a spirit. God contacts us and deals with us through our spirits. He leads us through our spirits. He does not communicate directly to our minds, because the Holy Spirit does not dwell in our minds. And God does not contact us through our bodies either.

It should be comparatively easy for Spirit-filled believers to locate the human spirit. Those tongues come from your spirit, down on the inside of you. You speak the words out physically—but they don’t come out of the physical senses. You yield your tongue to your own spirit, and the Holy Spirit in your spirit gives you the utterance.

The tongues don’t come out of your mind or your soul. When you pray in tongues, your mind, your understanding, is unfruitful. Your understanding doesn't know what you are saying.

When you pray in tongues, the words come out of your innermost being—your spirit.

What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding. — 1. Corinthians 14:15

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. — Romans8:16

God is going to guide us. God is going to lead us. We have scripture that says so: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14).

How does God lead?

Romans 8:16 gives us a clue: “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”

You don’t know you are a child of God because someone prophesies that you are. You don’t know you are a child of God because someone says they feel like you are. That’s not how you know these things. You are not a child of God because you had a vision. (You might, or you might not have a vision, but that’s not what makes you a child of God.)

How, then, does the Bible say we know we are the children of God?

God’s Spirit “bears witness” with our spirit. Sometimes you can’t explain exactly how you know, but you just know it down on the inside of you. You have an inward witness that you are a child of God.

That’s the number one way God leads His children—through the inward witness!

Make the following confession:

When I pray in tongues, my spirit prays. My spirit is active and in contact with God. The Holy Spirit in my spirit gives me the utterance. I listen to my heart. I look to my spirit inside me. I am spirit-conscious, because the Holy spirit indwells my spirit. He gives direction to my spirit. He guides me through my spirit. I am born of the Spirit of God. God’s Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God. The Spirit of God leads me. He is leading me now.