Build yourself up

But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Jude 20

As Christians it is so important to be built up on our most holy faith. We need to be built up in faith. Faith is equal to confidence.

There is another passage that says a similar thing:

He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself… 1 Corinthians 14:4

There is a certain truth to praying in the Spirit that shows us that when we do it we build ourselves up and edify ourselves. Some people might think this is bad, but that’s far from the truth. Yes, we need to build others up, but it’s hard to build others up when we aren’t built up ourselves. There is something about praying in tongues that builds you up and brings you to a higher level of faith. When you’re built up, you can build others up.

One of the biggest proofs of this for me is the the numerous times I have exercised this in my life. When I am feeling empty or powerless or faithless, I set aside time to pray in tongues. Most of the time I pray for about an hour. Sometimes more, sometimes less. How long you pray isn’t important as long as you pray long enough. Brother Kenneth E. Hagin wrote a book called, “Prevailing prayer to peace.” One of the best books I’ve read on prayer. In the book he talks about praying until you get a note of victory in your spirit, or a calming peace that assures you that you’ve got the job done in prayer. Prayer isn’t always a short formula and then you’re done. Sometimes you have to get in there and fight! And you need to fight to win! You’re not fighting God, of course, but you are fighting your flesh mostly, and sometimes demonic forces. And you need to fight until you sense that peace or that note of victory.

‘Where’s that in the bible?’ you might say. Well, Paul was a praying man. In 1 Corinthians 14 he talks about how he prayed in tongues more than the whole corinthian church (v. 18)! In other passages he talks about ‘laboring in birth pains'(Gal 4:19), which is a reference to intense prayer. He also talked about another guy who did the same thing (Col 4:12). Paul said that we should pray with the understand (which is whatever language you speak – i.e. english) and that we should pray in the spirit (tongues) (1 Co 14:15). Do both.

When you take time to build yourself up in prayer you will find that you will have the strength you need to accomplish the things that you need to accomplish in life, and do it well. Your flesh will fight you, because your flesh doesn’t want to pray. Fight back, and get in there and build yourself up in your most holy faith!