My Struggle With Tongues

Nothing was automatic for me. In fact, I struggled just to get the baptism of the Holy Spirit and to speak in tongues.

I have told my story plenty of times in other places, so I am not going to go into detail. But I want to share one of my experiences with you here which is very important. It is going to bring me to the crux of what I am teaching here.

You can see from the title of this lesson that it is called the arm of faith, and I will show you now what that arm of faith is.

I struggled to get the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I grew up in Pentecost. Everybody around me was filled with the Spirit and speaking in tongues except me.

I went forward for prayer every time they gave an invitation to anybody who wanted to come and receive the Spirit. But it just didn’t want to happen for me.

Then one day I had an experience with the Lord when I walked into a room where a lot of people were praying. The power of God was present, and God touched me and convicted me of my sin.

Even though I had grown up as a Christian, somehow I had an experience there that was probably my first real, dynamic born again experience.

The power of God changed my life and I came away from there excited for the Lord. My first love was back, but I still couldn’t speak in tongues and I struggled to do it. I will show you shortly how that came about.

Then I wanted to preach and I had to learn how to do that. I didn’t have a chance to go to Bible School to learn how to preach. I had studied on my own, so God had to teach me how to preach.

Nobody recognized me. I would go to church and they would just promote me to usher or something like that.

Eventually, someone recognized me and put me into the ministry. I was there for a short while, and because of the situation in the country, I had to leave. There I was back again, so nothing ever came easy for me.

How I Received Tongues

God taught me about the arm of faith when I learned to receive the ability to speak in tongues. At first, I just wanted it because everybody else had it. Even the kids were speaking in tongues, and here I was in my twenties still not speaking in tongues.

That is quite a humiliating experience. I became Youth Leader at the church, and all the young people under me could speak in tongues, but the Youth Leader couldn’t speak in tongues.

It was a terrible situation. I tried and I tried everything. Eventually I started saying,

“Lord, what is wrong with me? Maybe I use my tongue to criticize. Maybe I use bad language. Why won’t you give me tongues? What is wrong with me, Lord? What must I do to get this?”

One day I reached the height of frustration and desire. I went alone into my lounge to pray and I said,

“Lord, I want it and I want it now. Now please tell me what I must do. What is wrong?”

God did something for me there that He has never done since and it seldom works if you try this. In my frustration, I opened my Bible and put my finger on a verse. Don’t try that because you will always get the wrong stuff.

But that day it did work. I opened my Bible and put my finger on a verse, and this is the verse I read. Galatians 3:2 says,

The only thing I would like to find out is this. Did you receive the Spirit by carrying out the law, or by believing what you heard?

That hit me right between the eyes. The Lord said,

“You are trying by works to get what only comes by faith.”

Well, I was a bit like Gideon. I wanted another sign so I said,

“Lord you can do this again.”

I closed my Bible and opened it again. And would you believe I actually opened the same chapter, but I put my finger on a different verse. It was Galatians 3:5 which says,

He therefore that supplies to you the Spirit, and works miracles among you, [does he do it] by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

Okay, I got the message twice in a row. It takes faith dummy, not works!

I said, “Okay Lord I got it. It takes faith.”

But what does that mean? How do I receive in faith and how do I exercise faith?

What is faith? Everybody uses this word. It is thrown around all the time.

I said, “Lord I need faith, and I need you to show me how to get faith to receive.”

So I just sat there and said,

“Okay Lord, I have to receive it from you by faith. So Lord I don’t know if I have faith, but I’m going to try as hard as I can to believe.”

Then I saw myself reaching up my hand and saying,

“Lord in faith I am reaching out and receiving from you the thing that I desire.”

I could see myself grabbing it, holding it, and pulling it towards me.

Then something amazing happened. I felt something in my spirit that said,

“You’ve got it.”

I said, “Okay Lord, let’s try and speak in tongues.”

I had tried all sorts of things before. I tried speaking gibberish. I tried taking tongues that I heard someone else say and speaking it over and over again but it didn’t work.

So I tried again. I started to speak and something came out of my mouth that had never come out of it before. Was it junk? Was it tongues? I didn’t feel anything. I just thought,

“Was that tongues? Let’s try it again.”

I spoke again and a couple of words came out. I wondered if that was tongues. I tried it a few times, then I said,

“Lord I don’t even know if this is tongues because I don’t know what tongues sound like. I have heard other people talking but I don’t know if this is tongues.”

Then I asked the Lord for a sign. I said,

“Lord if this is tongues, let me speak in a language that I can recognize as an earthly language.”

If there was one language that I knew, it was one of the African dialects. I tried to learn Zulu once and there are three different clicks in Zulu. I battled to get those clicks trying to learn that language.

I said, “Lord give me a language that has clicks in it which I struggled to do, and I will know that this is tongues.”

Then I opened my mouth and began to click all over the place.

I said, “Thank you, Lord, I got it.”

I carried on speaking and then I began to feel His presence and His anointing because I used the arm of faith.

What does that look like? It looks like an arm; your arm in fact. So just imagine now you are taking it. I am left-handed so I used my left arm. You will probably use your right arm if you are right-handed.

You can say, “Lord, this is my arm of faith and this is what I want from you.”

Where is your answer coming from? The heavenly realm where God is. So take your arm and push it into the heavenly realm. Grab hold of what you want, hold onto it and pull it towards you and bring it back down into this earth.

How the Arm of Faith Works

I want to now explain to you the verse that I shared at the beginning. I will explain to you the translation which is correct according to the Greek.

The original Mark 11:24 says,

What things soever you desire, when you pray believe that you receive them and you shall have them.

This was one of the strongest verses promoted by the Word of Faith which was originated by Kenneth Hagin Senior. But as I began to look into the Scriptures, having studied some Greek, I began to pull this verse apart and look at it.

I saw that the Lord was saying firstly, Whatever things you desire. There is a Greek tense called the middle voice, and the middle voice always means you are doing it for yourself.

In English, we have the active voice where you do something. Then you have the passive voice where something gets done to you. But in Greek, they have the middle voice which means you are doing it for yourself.

So when the Lord says whatever things you are desiring, He is saying what you are desiring for yourself. It is middle tense.

Then He says while you are praying, not just when you pray. It is a present continuous tense, which means while you are in the process of praying, believe that you receive it.

I looked at the word receive, and we think of it as meaning someone gave me a gift and I received it. But the word 'receive' in Greek means to take hold of with your hands and grab.

It means to take it or seize it. And you must do it believing, which requires faith. So the verse actually says,

“No matter what you are asking for yourself, while you are praying, reach out and take hold of it by faith and it will be yours.”

That is the arm of faith, and I learned to get it for speaking in tongues.

Using the Arm of Faith to Receive More

Then I wanted more from the Lord. I read that the Bible says if you pray in tongues you should pray that you can also interpret. So I reached out to the Lord for the ability to interpret and I began to interpret my own tongues.

I reached out to the Lord for the ability to prophesy, because I read in the Scripture that you may all prophesy. Then I received the opportunity to prophesy.

These things didn’t always happen instantly or overnight. Sometimes I had to reach out and believe that I had received it, then wait for it to manifest before it happened.

I reached out and asked the Lord for the gift of prophecy, but it didn’t come for a while. Then one day as I was praying with someone, suddenly the Lord said, “Okay, prophesy,” and out it came. It was amazing.

As my ministry progressed, I realized that I was led to help people prepare for the call of God in their lives. I had a strong desire to counsel people.

I read a book once by a group of people. I studied all the counseling and counseled people using principles. But I read of a group of people who had a center where people would come for counseling.

However, instead of them sitting down and taking them through a counseling process, they would just pray for them. God would then reveal to them what the person’s problem was and they would pray the person through.

I thought, “I would like to do that. That is much easier than sitting down and spending hours taking people through counseling.

Lord, I would like to bring deliverance to people. I need revelation.”

Then I began to reach out to the Lord for the gifts of revelation. That is how my Prophetic Ministry began.

As I learned to identify ministries, I asked God to show me what His calling was in peoples’ lives. I could now get revelation as a prophet and release people into their ministries.

Then when it came to all of the other needs of the hurts that we experience in life, my heart cried out for those like me that had so many bad experiences and needed the touch of God to heal them from the scars of those past hurts and experiences.

God gave me the anointing to minister inner healing. From there it led to ministering physical healing to the bodies. Then I said,

“Lord, I want to have the anointing power to minister to people and to get them to fall in love with you all over again. I want the revival anointing Lord, that when I pray and preach, your power goes out and zaps them like a lightning bolt.”

I have only just received that one and it hasn’t manifested yet, but it is coming. Get ready for it.

I want to see people fall in love with the Lord all over again, just as a result of my ministry and prayer. I want to see the Holy Spirit hitting them and bringing them back; reviving them and bringing them back to first love.

It’s a passion and an urgent desire. And I believe I am going to see it manifest soon in my ministry.

So everything you desire from the Lord comes the same way. It originates in the heavenly realm and it has to be brought down to earth.

That applies as much to obtaining the anointing of God as it does to obtaining things. There are lots of principles involved in receiving from the Lord. I have just shared one with you today which I have called the arm of faith.

But my series The Way of Blessing is a 3 volume book series. If you have never read The Way of Blessing and you are wanting God’s blessing in your life, I highly recommend you get those books.

They are available in our bookshop in e-book format. You can get them from Amazon in printed form. And if you need them in printed form and you are here in South Africa, we can have them made for you as well. But central to all of those is the arm of faith.

Using the Arm of Faith for Yourself

It is not difficult to use the arm of faith. You may think,

“I am not sure exactly what you mean.”

Okay, close your eyes and imagine that you are raising your arm now. Do this with your eyes closed, and I want you to see that you are pushing your arm outside of this world, through a barrier into the heavenly or spiritual realm.

See your arm penetrating into that realm where God is. In that realm is the thing that you need from Him because God provides from His realm.

What is it that you are needing from the Lord today? It can be in the realm of health, prosperity, or relationships. But especially I want to speak to those who desire to be used by God and who want His anointing to be in their life.

You don’t have to look back on the generals and say,

“They were lucky. God chose them.”

You don’t need to look at those who are functioning publicly today in ministry and say,

“They are so lucky that God chose them.”

No, God doesn’t just choose some people to be used. His power is available to every one of us. He said in Mark 16:17,

These signs will follow those who believe.

What do you desire from the Lord? What kind of ministry do you want to do? And above all, is this a passionate desire? Is this so important to you that you will drop everything else in your life for that thing?

If it is not that important to you, then I don’t recommend that you walk with me through the next few steps that I am going to take you now.

But if you mean business with God, and you want to see Him anoint you and use you mightily by His Spirit, then I want you to lift your arm of faith in the spirit now and I want you to tell the Lord what you desire.

The first requirement that Jesus had from everybody that He ministered to was when He said,

“What is it that you want from me?”

How do you want God to use you? What kind of ministry do you desire? What image can you see of yourself as you stand to minister for the Lord?

I want you to see that very clearly, and I want you to say to the Lord,

“Lord, this is what I want.”

I want you to be very specific about it. Can you see that you have it? Can you visualize yourself ministering in that way? If so, that is good, and God says,

“Yes, you can have it, and that anointing is waiting for you now in my presence in the heavenly realm. All you need to do is reach out with your arm of faith and grab hold of it.”

Grab hold of it and hold it tightly. Don’t ever let it go. Can you do that now? Say,

“Oh Lord, in the name of Jesus I reach up and I thank you for your anointing. I thank you for your power. I thank you for the gifts of the Spirit and for using me to preach, to teach, and to minister to your people, to prophesy, and to build churches.”

Name whatever it is that you want then say,

“I reach out Lord and take it now.”

Now pull it back down out of the heavenly realm and pull it to your heart and say,

“By faith, I have received this thing. By faith, I receive the answer to my desire.”

Now start to thank Him for it. And every day from now on, thank Him that He has given it to you. Then wait with eager anticipation for the day it manifests - and it will manifest.

Keep it in your heart and mind. Keep remembering today when you reached out and received it and keep thanking Him for it again and again. Also keep confessing with your mouth,

“I have received. I am anointed and I minister by the power of God.”

As you do that, there is nothing in this world that can stop you from rising up in that anointing and power and being used by the Lord.

My Prayer

“I thank you Father for each one that reached out now and received. May you confirm this with them. May you give them signs that you have answered their prayer. And may the manifestation come quickly, Lord.

May you lift your people up. Anoint them and use them mightily in your name and for your glory. I ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

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