INTERPRETING OUR PRAYERS IN THE SPIRIT !

INTERPRETING OUR PRAYERS IN THE SPIRIT : Every believer can interpret his or her prayers in the Spirit, thus gaining spiritual understanding of them. Praying in the Spirit is not something that belongs only to minister. It belongs to every believer. Much has been accomplished through those who have yielded their prayer life to the Holy Spirit and to the Word of God, allowing him to pray through them. But we will see even greater results is more believers prayed in the Spirit and the Word of God. (1 Corinthians 14:13-17). "Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it then ? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen it thy giving of thanks, seeing he understand not what thou sayest ? For thou verily givest things well, but the other is not edified." God, speaking through the Apostle Paul, said, "wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret" (v. 13). God clearly is not going to tell us to pray for something we can't have. I am convinced that every believer should be able to interpret it his or her own prayers as they pray in the Spirit, even though he or she never may interpret a message in tongues publicly. I believe that a person can interpret without being an interpreter. I will explain this point more fully later in this lesson. Would the Spirit of God tells us to pray for something we couldn't have ? The fact that He has told us to pray that we might interpret the means He has made this available to every believer. Therefore, every believer should be able to pray in tongues (pray in the Spirit), because we are encouraged to to do so in the Bible. Likewise, we should pray that we also can interpret what we have prayed in tongues, because the Word encourages us to do this, too. Notice why God wants us to do this. In (1 Corinthians 14:13) him we read that those who speak in an unknown tongue should pray that they may interpret. Two of the next verses begin with the conjunction "for." A conjunction is a connecting word. That means Paul was continuing what he had said. Verse 14 reads, "For if I pray in an unknown tongue my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful." If we could interpret our prayer in tongues, our understanding no longer would be unfruitful. It would be fruitful. Sometimes it would be helpful for us to know what we are praying about when we pray in the Spirit. There are some things we pray about that we need to understand. It would help us if our minds were enlightened about them. However, I would never interpret prayers in which we edify and build ourselves up. Those are merely prayers of worship and praise, and they do not need to be interpreted.