By Sidharth Mohandas

While Jesus was with His disciples, He made it clear to them that the Holy Spirit would not come until He [Jesus] ascended back into heaven (John 16:7). He also said that when His disciples would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, they would be witnesses unto Him (Acts 1:8). In other words, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the waiting disciples was a proof that Jesus had ascended to heaven and had sat down at the right hand of the Father (Acts 2:33).

Here is a statement I would like you to consider: when you are born again, you become a witness to Jesus’ resurrection. However, you become a witness to the ascension of Christ only when you receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the gifts that accompany it.

“When He ascended on high, He led captives in His train and gave gifts to men”. (Ephesians 4:8)

When Jesus ascended to heaven, He gave the gift of the Holy Spirit through whom came many gifts. These gifts are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 and Romans 12:6-8.

I would like to draw your attention to 1 Corinthians, where it says “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” (1 Corinthians 13:1)

It is interesting that Paul was using the garment of the High Priest to explain using the gifts of the Spirit through the fruit of the Spirit [love]. Now, the High Priest’s ephod had two things at its hem: pomegranates and golden bells [Exodus 39:22-26]. The pomegranates symbolizes the fruit of the Spirit, while the golden bells in between them symbolize the gifts of the Spirit. This is why Paul alludes to clanging cymbals when describing those who use the gifts without love. Now in the Old Covenant, the High Priest would enter the Most Holy Place once every year to sprinkle blood on the Mercy Seat for the atonement of Israel’s sins. In those days, if a High Priest came before the direct presence of God with sin in his heart, or with a displeasing sacrifice, that priest would fall dead on the spot. The only way for those who stood outside the Most Holy Place to know if the High Priest was alive or not was by the ringing of the bells on his ephod. In the New Covenant, Jesus is our High Priest, and according to Scriptures, He has ascended into the Most Holy Place. Therefore, when you and I operate in the gifts of the Spirit, we are being witnesses to the fact that Jesus is alive in the Sanctuary.

I encourage you today not to be ignorant about the gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:1), but to desire earnestly the best gifts (1 Corinthians 12:31), to be zealous for them (1 Corinthians 14:1), and to even pray for them (1 Corinthians 14:13). When you operate in the gifts of the spirit and excel in them by operating in the love of God, you are being a witness to His ascension. We need to ask ourselves today: “Are the bells ringing in my life?”

By Sidharth Mohandas

He will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and late rain that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your oil. [Deuteronomy 11:14]

In ancient Israel, the yearly seasons included the “early” or “former rain” and the “late” or “latter rain”. The early rain falls in the months October-November, while the latter rain falls in the months of March-April. The early rains helped the seed to germinate and grow, while it was during the latter rain that the crops matured and were ready for harvest. Anyone who has studied the Scriptures would agree that the rain symbolizes the down pour of the Holy Spirit. And I believe that we are living in the season of the latter rain, where God has released an ocean of His Presence upon His people. Take heed, the Lord of Harvest is nigh, and He’s coming sooner than many think He will.

God faithfully poured out the early rain upon the early Church for the first few centuries. The Church grew as the Word increased, and God manifested His Presence through the gifts of His Spirit. But then looking back into Church history, we find a period of total darkness, a period of thousands of years where no one heard the message of His Gospel as man’s traditions and his opinions took the place of God’s Word. What happened to the crop? Something ate the crop up for sure. The Spirit of God describes these years as being eaten by locust:

“And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.” [Joel 2:25]

Why did God send such an army? Because the seed that was planted during these years, was not the seed of the Gospel. But God promised to restore the years. How did He say He’d do this? The answer lies in Joel 2:23:

” Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.”

God Himself tells us what this rain is:

“And I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh…” [Joel 2:28]

The rain is God’s remedy. He said He would come to us like the rain, like the spring rain [latter rain] watering the earth [Hosea 6:3]. But notice, before God sent the rain to us He started planting the seed. It’s beginning can be traced back to the discovery of salvation by faith alone by Martin Luther in the 16 th Century. From then you find God planting more of the truths of His Word through various servants of God like Zwingli, Calvin, Wesley and others. God was patient. He slowly changed the mind-set of His people to receive His latter rain. In 1901, God started pouring out His Spirit as on the day of Pentecost. Ever since millions and millions have received this down pour of God’s Spirit and have operated in the gifts of the Spirit. With the Charismatic movement in the late 1950s, these gifts were even distributed in the main line churches as they believed in God’s promise of His Spirit. In fact, it is said that there has been no other movement that has impacted the world more than the last two. I say again, we are the generation of the latter rain. He’s pouring Himself out to all people as He did in the early rain or the beginning of the Church. But unlike the early rain, there’s a warning that comes with the latter rain: “THE HARVEST IS NIGH!”

James said in his epistle, Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains .[James 5:7] We who are witnessing this latter rain must realize that His coming will follow it. He is sending His angels with the sickle to gather His people from the fields.

As I sit and write this, it’s raining heavily here in Trivandrum. The Lord interrupted me a while back and told me, “Get out and get under the rain!”. Now, the Lord sometimes tells us to do things that may seem stupid to us, but the end result is always to bless us. I got under the rain and He demonstrated how He was pouring out His Spirit in our time. His outpouring became real to me.

Many of us have built roof tops over ourselves, and we prevent His outpouring- roof tops of ignorance, roof tops of wrong beliefs and disbelief, roof tops of unforgiveness and disobedience. God tells us, “Get out and get under the rain!”. Friends, you won’t have the reality of the latter rain, unless you come out of your houses and get under it. If it requires you to come out of an organized church, do that! But get under the rain!

By Sidharth Mohandas

INTRODUCTION

I’m sure most of us have heard phrases like “praying in the spirit” or “praying in the Holy Spirit”. What is it? How is it different from other prayers? What is the benefit of it? Let me first quote all the references to this kind of praying from Scripture:

“For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.” (1 Corinthians 14:14; Also read 1 Corinthians 14:2).

Romans 8:26, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know WHAT we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”

“Pray at all times (on every occasion, in every season) in the Spirit…” (Ephesians 6:18)

“But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit” (Jude 1:20)

THE PLACE OF REVELATION

You and I must realize that our mind is very limited–it cannot fathom the mysteries of God, nor can it comprehend spiritual truths and realities.

“…no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9)

However, the key to spiritual understanding is found in the very next verse: “but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit“ (1 Corinthians 2:10). If you have entered into a covenant with Jesus, then your spirit is intertwined with His. His Spirit moves into yours, and your spirit moves into His. And it is in this realm of the spirit where there is abundance of revelations, mysteries are hidden and disclosed, and every blessing is deposited. Why is it deposited in the spirit realm? Because it is the safest place, the only place where the devil can’t lay his hand on. They are eternal realities (so to speak) and not subject to change. The Holy Spirit takes these eternal realities and pours them into our spirits, and in turn our spirits convey them to our mind. Our mind receives them in the form of words, which I believe are poor containers sometimes. If you have been in the place of revelation where your spirit just explodes with these revelations from God, and you try your best to explain it in words, you usually find that no words can adequately explain what you have seen in the spirit.

“We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words” (1 Corinthians 2:12)

TRAVAILING IN PRAYER

You might be wondering how praying in the spirit has anything to do with this. Well, when you and I pray in the spirit, the prayer transcends the realm of the mind into the spirit realm.

A year back, I had a dream of a pregnant lady crying out and singing, “Send Revival! Send Revival!”, and as she was singing, I saw a wall break open with a fresh river gushing out of it. The explanation the Lord gave me was: “Travail in prayer as a woman in pains of child birth” He spoke to me through many verses (Romans 8:26; Romans 15:30), but the one that moved me the most was where Jesus agonized in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane before His trial. The following days and weeks, I remembered the Holy Spirit doing exactly what He spoke to me… He was agonizing and groaning through me. Those were deep and heavy groans that mere words could not express.

MYSTERIES UNRAVELED

The second (and more common) way of praying in the spirit is praying in tongues. This gift has been of great help to me personally. Whenever I’m unable to understand a Scripture, or whenever I need a revelation of some spiritual truth, I immediately pray in tongues, and the revelation flows in like a river. Mysteries are unraveled and what I once did not understand is made known.

“For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit.” (1 Corinthians 14:2)

ACCORDING TO THE WILL OF GOD…

There are other times I don’t know what to pray for in a particular situation, and I would pray in tongues following the principle of Romans 8:26.

“He [The Holy Spirit] maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8:26, KJV)

Most often than not, the understanding I have of the will of God in these situations would be insufficient, and praying in tongues would help me override the realm of the mind and thus enable me to stand in the center of God’s will. This is why praying in the spirit builds us up and edifies, just like Jude 1:21 and 1 Corinthians 14:4 tells us: “He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself”.

And believe it or not, a person can pray in the spirit while he or she is sleeping! While I was in college, my roommate told me that when I slept I would speak in an unknown language. I believe that the Holy Spirit was praying through my spirit, even when my mind was asleep.

There is much more to this topic of praying in the spirit that I could relate to you. But instead, I will let you relate your own experience of praying in the spirit in the comment section, and allow you to build on the topic.