Tag: soul and spirit

538. How Praying In Tongues Transformed My Spiritual Life

Mike Parsons

Get more from Mike when you join any tier at patreon.com/freedomarc.

Praying in Tongues: Learning to Live in Dual Realms

Praying in tongues is a very interesting thing. When I first learned to pray in tongues in the spirit, particularly when I was engaging heaven and engaging supernatural dimensions, it was very much something that was going to help me understand how to do two things at once. I didn’t quite understand why, but God then showed me later that this was going to help me understand how to live in two places at once, how to operate in the soul and the spirit at the same time, how to function connected soul and spirit. So I did a lot of practising: praying in tongues while I was speaking out loud, praying in tongues in my mind while I was reading the Bible, praying in tongues in my head, all sorts of different things. I’ve practised a lot with it.

And then, as I became more intimate with God, and got to know God, my senses were more trained to engage him, and I was having daily encounters and conversations with God all the time. I felt that the praying in tongues aspect of it was something I didn’t need to do any more for this purpose. I stopped, though not as a deliberate decision that I wasn’t going to pray in tongues any more. I might sing in the spirit at times, or do different things, but the purpose of it was no longer something I was practising with. I was able to live in this way, so it lessened in how I would pray in tongues in that particular way. There are various things that also lessened while I was doing that, in terms of the ministry style I was involved in. God really challenged me on helping people to engage God themselves, rather than prophesying over them or ministering to them in that way. So praying in tongues in that context became unnecessary.

508. God’s Desire For You | Discovering True Intimacy

But what I did find was that, as my spirit was engaging and dwelling in the realms of heaven all the time, it began to engage on its own, and I found myself praying in tongues, like when I woke up, or at a particular time, all of a sudden I would be praying in tongues. I didn’t choose to do that. It wasn’t something I thought, I’m going to pray in tongues now because this is a gift I have, I can use this gift. It didn’t happen that way. I just found myself praying in tongues. So then I would wonder, what’s going on? It felt like my spirit was communicating, “Hey, pay attention. There’s something here for you!” Maybe I’ve encountered something during the night, or whatever, now just tune into it. So I found that whenever I started praying in tongues like that, it was a signal: what’s going on, what do I need to look into, is there something I need to focus on here? I became sensitive to the fact that my spirit could be functioning and doing all sorts of things while I wasn’t consciously aware of it. And this gave me the sense that maybe I needed to engage, that my consciousness needed to be aware of this. So I would tune into it, look into it, and maybe go and engage where my spirit was. I sort of felt that was part of where I was then.

523. How We Can All Connect with God

So I think there’s definitely a decreased need to pray in the spirit in tongues when you’re engaging in the spirit, because you’re dwelling there. You’re not talking to God in another language, because you’re engaging with God face to face. I believe, as we mature and increase in our experience of God in the spirit, and dwell with him and abide with him there, there’s definitely less need to pray in tongues the way we did before. It talks about edifying your spirit, building up your spirit, and I certainly used it for that. I used it to pray all the time, in my mind or out loud. But I found my spirit had this bubbling energy within, as it got activated, that I felt all the time; it felt like my spirit was engaged. That was the sort of residue of the fact that I could live in dual realms.

276. Living In Dual Realms

I was dwelling in dual realms, so my spirit was always active, and I just felt that connection. Even though I wasn’t always conscious of it, it certainly was something I felt was very real, a sign that my spirit was active and functioning as it was intended. We live in multiple realms in that way.

 If you enjoy these videos, would you please take a moment to like, comment, and subscribe? It really does help. Thank you very much.

368. No, Your Heart is “Not “Deceitfully Wicked”

Mike Parsons –

The heart is deceitful

We cannot know who God really is other than through unconditional love, and we cannot know our true identity other than through unconditional love, because it is revealed in that loving relationship with God himself. The verse I want to highlight here is Jeremiah 17:9. When you compare the NIV with the Septuagint, you see how God’s view of mankind has been twisted by the incorrect translation of this verse.

In the NIV, it reads: “The heart is deceitful above all things.” That’s a powerful statement. “And beyond cure.” Well, that’s a pretty hopeless statement: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Now, that statement has had a major effect on how people view themselves and others, putting them in a position where the soul is never fully healed, made whole, or restored, because if it’s so wicked, deceitful, and beyond cure, how can it be? It’s beyond healing, beyond restoration. But I don’t believe that’s true.

The heart of man is deep

So, what does the Septuagint say? In Jeremiah 17:9 (which is Jeremiah 17:5 in the Septuagint due to the differences in verse structure), it says: “The heart of man is deep beyond all things, and it is the man. Even so, who can know him?” In reality, what this is saying is that our heart is not wicked, deceitful, and beyond cure. Instead, it is deep beyond anything we could understand ourselves, and it really is who we are. Therefore, we cannot know who we really are in our own flesh, in our own understanding; it has to come through our relationship with God.

This different translation shapes how we perceive ourselves and others. The NIV gives a very low view of humanity. I was conditioned by that view: man being wicked, corrupted, totally depraved. It created a theological spectrum of “worm theology” – the belief that you are no one and nothing, and you had better hope that God has mercy on you. Even after receiving salvation, many Christians still don’t believe who they truly are. They still believe they need to be humble and think poorly of themselves, giving them a diminished view of being sons and Christians, less than what God intended us to have.

The value of the soul

If our heart is deceitful, desperately wicked, and beyond cure, then what hope is there for us? It fosters the mindset of always being a sinner “saved by grace.” It’s a bit like the story of Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore, who always has this downbeat attitude: “Oh, I’m no good, and everything is going to be bad.” It creates that dynamic. This degrades the soul’s value and worth, leading to a belief that you can never really trust it.

When we first enter into a relationship where our spirit and soul are reconnected with the Holy Spirit, there’s a struggle between the soul and spirit. The soul is accustomed to dictating how we live based on what we believe, our upbringing, and our experiences, while the spirit brings us into the revelation of who we really are, revealing our true eternal nature. It draws us back to the fact that God has placed eternity in our hearts and wants to bring us into an amazing relationship, where we come home and return to Him.

That relationship is completely undermined by the degrading of the value of the soul. In the early church, especially within the Catholic tradition, this mindset led to self-persecution – people whipping themselves, kneeling on broken glass, and engaging in horrendous acts. Why did they think that way? Because they believed they were lesser than God intended. This view creates suspicion of the soul and devalues humanity. By degrading humanity, there’s a gospel message to sell: “We’re so bad, we need saving,” using the fear of punishment to sell that message.

Fearfully and wonderfully made

The reality is, God doesn’t view us as bad. He sees us through the lens of Jesus and who He made us to be – His sons. We’ve always been His sons; we’ve never not been His sons. But that’s not how I was taught to believe. I was taught to believe that I wasn’t good enough and never would be. And while we can’t be good enough in our own strength, when we become who we truly are, we begin to live out a whole different dynamic of sonship.

The Septuagint actually says the heart of man is deep beyond all things, and it is the man. The human heart is deep, multifaceted, and amazing, created in God’s image and likeness. Psalm 139 says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. God has a vast sum of amazing thoughts about us, and we need to learn those thoughts. Our minds need to be deconstructed from the negative things we might have believed, so we can know the truth of agreeing with God about who we really are.

Please like, share, comment, and subscribe at https://freedomarc.org/youtube