Singing & Praying in the Spirit
I have felt whole atmospheres shift using our “heavenly language.”
I am writing this blog from my hotel in Kathmandu, Nepal. We are here visiting a network of 300+ churches that began with the very first converts to Christianity in Nepal. Even though we have come to encourage and equip them, we have received much from them as well.
One of the most striking moments in our meetings has been their prayer in the spirit. Even after the songs end, the worship continues “in the spirit”. If you have experienced this yourself, you already know how refreshing and faith-building it is. In Nepal, their worship is very sweet, but these segments “in the spirit” just go on and on and have a huge impact on those present.
It was not just a brief one-minute segment engaging 10% of the church, but it was a significant part of their worship with all 500 singing at the top of their lungs. They even prayed the same way. To us, it is honestly a taste of heaven! We didn’t want it to stop. In the 1970’s, this would happen in our meetings or at conferences, sometimes lasting for 30 minutes or more. It was glorious!!
Jesus said, “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth”. But what does this mean to worship in spirit? We can use our bodies to worship by singing and raising our hands. We can use our finances to worship by giving offerings. We obviously use our minds as we read the words of a song and sing them with adoration. And we use our emotions and affections to worship Him with gladness and love.
Jesus says here that our worship must be in truth, meaning that we truly worship Him and that we worship God as He has revealed Himself in Scripture. We certainly do not want to worship a God of our own creation, assuming that we know what He is like. Rather, we must learn from Scripture and from intimacy His true nature and ways.
But the above comments do not explain what it means to worship in spirit. Well, we are triune beings with body, soul, and spirit. So we must worship Him with and in our spirits. The Apostle Paul writes about this in 1 Corinthians 14:14,15:
“For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unproductive. What is the outcome then? I will pray with the spirit, but I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit, but I will sing with the mind also.”
Paul says there are two kinds of prayer and two kinds of singing and two kinds of praying: with the spirit and with the mind. He recommends that we do both. The Scriptures here clearly link praying in tongues as synonymous with praying in the spirit and the same with singing in tongues and singing in the spirit. Singing or praying in the spirit occurs when we partner with the Holy Spirit and our own mind is “unfruitful”. Heavenly words come out that do not originate from our mind but from our spirit with the help of the Holy Spirit.
What is troublesome to me is that while there are many Christians who believe in this, we don’t practice it. Maybe we are shy. Maybe we feel we will be seen as childish or even weird. But praying in the spirit is Biblical and it is powerful. I have felt whole atmospheres shift using our “heavenly language.”
If you have not experienced this, I encourage you to seek God for the gift of “tongues”. It will be a huge enhancement to your prayer and worship life. If you are a worship leader, why not lead out in this? Leaders should always be willing to “go first”. I pray that worshiping in the spirit becomes a normal, every-service practice in our churches just as it is in Nepal.
