When preparing to teach the members of our small group/cell “home church” about “Red Hot Evangelism” the Holy Spirit reminded me that before I tell them about evangelism, I should tell them about Him. He then got me to complete this article, which I actually started in September 2019. Why has it taken me over 1 year to complete writing on this topic?
It is because for about 3 years, I was suffering from what I could call “spiritual oppression.” I didn’t feel I was qualified to talk about the Spirit. How can you talk about One who you are not sure you have? Why didn’t I feel I had the Spirit? It was on account of the subject of tongues.
The issue of tongues
As an example, my wife Brenda says she speaks in tongues occasionally. She has an interesting relationship with the Holy Spirit. She for example says she has asked Him on a number of occasions: “What should I wear today?” It seems mundane but God is interested in all the little details of our life.
I on the other hand have never spoken in tongues and for a number of years thought I didn’t have the Spirit, because I never spoke in tongues. Even when I could see other evidence, I was told by two people that I needed to speak in tongues as proof of having the Spirit. This was not an isolated case; a lot of respected Christian leaders in fact say for example that tongues are the initial evidence of the Spirit and that tongues activate other gifts[i], even I am not sure of the biblical basis for this (activating other gifts). In fact when I narrated my experience to my home church, this is some of what we discussed:
1. I told them about a family member who at a Nigerian Church in London heard everyone speaking in tongues. Not to be outdone, he too started speaking. The only problem, he was speaking in Lugisu, my mother tongue from Uganda. It got worse, the witness who told me the story said he was speaking obscenities in Lugisu!
2. Our team leader from Zimbabwe narrated how he went to a “speaking in tongues teaching class”. The teacher kept on telling him what to repeat hoping this would activate the gift. Try as hard as he could, he just couldn’t. His challenge was this. You struggle for day 1, day 2, but what if this leader keeps telling you what to say and after a month you become fluent in copying. Are you really speaking in tongues?
3. A 3rd team member said he needed to apologise to God. He was attending a prominent Nigerian church (different from incident one) where the belief is that EVERYONE can speak in tongues. During one of the “speaking in tongues classes” the instructor kept insisting that he try speaking. Realising the instructor would never leave him, he decided to speak in Luganda, his mother tongue!
How Jesus intervened in my oppression
Beautiful as this gift is, sometimes those with it can oppress others feeling “spiritually superior” and leave them (others) uncertain and like many, I was torn for a while and only felt more certain by personal intervention from Jesus who told me ...
Read the full article and watch the videos (part 1 - 3) under the "Supplementary material" section here:
[i] https://www1.cbn.com/spirituallife/the-nature-of-the-baptism-in-the-holy-spirit%3A-part-two
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