As WAFBEC 2015 entered the home stretch, the glory of the latter began to unfold. Pastor Matt Beemer’s message was titled ‘Praying in the Spirit’, with Ephesians 6:18 as the key text: “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.” (KJV)
As he posed the question, “What is praying in the spirit?” he offered that there is always more than one way to look at the topic. For instance, in Revelation 1:10, John the apostle said he was “in the spirit”, which, in that context, described a place.
In I Corinthians 14:13,14, Apostle Paul highlighted the connection between praying in the spirit and praying in tongues; to which Pastor Beemer enthused that baptism of the Holy Spirit is “the most incredible, wonderful opportunity we have in the New Covenant”. With reference to “the doctrine of baptisms” mentioned in Hebrews 6:2, he acknowledged other forms of baptism for the New Testament believer, including baptism into the Body of Christ and water baptism.
On the purpose of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Pastor Beemer maintained that “Just because you have the Holy Spirit doesn’t mean you can’t have more of the demonstration of the Holy Spirit in your life”. He observed that while Peter partook of the initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4), after that he was “filled with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 4:8) and became so emboldened that he emerged from his hideout to publicly proclaim Jesus as the Messiah. Indeed, the work of the Holy Spirit in and upon lives endues with power to live victorious lives and be a blessing to others.
According to Proverbs 20:5, “Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out.” (KJV) One of the ways to pray about the future is by praying in tongues, because wisdom required goes beyond human understanding. Praying in the spirit helps its practitioners to pray out mysteries or counsels, and grow in the understanding of what they prayed in the spirit. This is important because, while God knows all things, we don’t know all things.
When you pray in the spirit, God wants your understanding to be fruitful, thus giving you something to hold onto in exercising your authority. As you pray in tongues, pray that you might interpret, because you can’t understand intellectually. Although this does not mean a translation of your tongues verbatim, but bringing or showing forth God’s mind.
Paraphrasing a famous quote by the late Rev. Kenneth E. Hagin, Pastor Beemer said that the promises of God do not fall on His children like ripe mangoes; that there’s a God-side and a man-side to the blessing. Simply put, whether you walk in God’s plan and purposes or not- the outcome of your life- is dependent on you.
Pastor Matt proposed that to effectively pray for all saints (born-again Christians all over the world, whom you have not met and whose names you do not know) goes beyond natural reasoning and understanding. Hence the baptism of the Holy Spirit enables believers to pray the divine secrets or mysteries of God for them.
Fully persuaded that “There are more Pentecostals in Nigeria than most nations have people, and if any country can radically change the world, it’s this nation”, Pastor Beemer affirmed his belief in the importance of Nigeria in God’s end-time purpose, urging the congregation to continue to pray out the future of Nigeria and the Church. While noting that the adversary is fighting dirty to hinder the rise of this nation, he said that prayer is of vital importance in the move and positioning of Nigeria in God’s scheme of things.
Sharing from his personal experience in Egypt; when praying in the spirit, he was able to pray out some insights related to the Arab Spring in 2011. He admonished that the Body of Christ ought to be praying things before they make the news, not taking the back seat and reacting after the fact.
Pastor Matt rounded off his session with corporate prayer in the spirit with Pastor Tokunbo Adejumo joining him on stage.