Living Hope Fellowship Church

HOLY GHOST PRAYER

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

HOLY GHOST PRAYER

Preface

(praying in tongues)

Nothing gets God’s attention like Holy Ghost prayer.  As you pray in tongues, you know that God has given you power to pray the victory!

We are supposed to be a powerhouse, an edified body of the Lord Jesus Christ in the earth today.  If we have the Holy Ghost, rivers of living water will flow through us, making us more and more sanctified.  Revival comes from people praying in the Holy Ghost! 

If you have been built up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, and you speak the Word of God, the devil has to go, because you obeyed God. 

Let the Spirit of God draw you into prayer every spare moment you have.  Pretty soon it will no longer be a burden, but you will look forward to it.  Be built up and ready for the Master’s use!

HOLY GHOST PRAYER

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

          The most powerful force in the world is not the hydrogen bomb!   The most powerful force in the world is not your pet preacher, your spouse, or the police.  There is nothing more powerful in the world than somebody who is saved, praying unto God!  Nothing gets God’s attention like Holy Ghost prayer.

          Matthew 18:20 says, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”  Prayer is not just “thinking”.  When people pray together in one accord it comes to pass, because God honors the prayers of the saints. 

We feel a great expectancy in the Spirit, even as we see ominous signs of tribulation on the horizon.  Signs, wonders, and miracles that we have so long desired and the gifts of the Spirit that we covet, God is about to bring forth, but it will only come by prayer to God.   

I am convinced by the Scriptures that the baptism of the Holy Ghost is urgently needed in the Christian walk.  God has commanded us to receive it, and there is a purpose for it in every Believer’s life.  Jesus said in Mark 16:17-18, “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

I believe prayer cannot be answered as powerfully, as quickly, or as manifestly until you have first hammered it out in the Spirit and built yourself up in your faith by prayer in the Holy Ghost. 

God sent forth the promise of the Father through His Son Jesus Christ.  Once a person is saved, if he seeks it out, Jesus baptizes them with the power of the Holy Ghost.  The first sign that you have been filled with the Holy Ghost is that you experience the speaking in other tongues as God gives the utterance. 

Speaking in tongues (see Acts 2:4) is not for entertainment purposes, and it is not just to let you know that you have received the baptism of the Holy Ghost.   Jesus is at the right hand of God making intercession, and as you pray in tongues, you know that He has given you power to pray the victory!

We are not to be a dead, lifeless people, but a powerhouse, an edified body of the Lord Jesus Christ in the earth today.  We ought to be full of God and of the Holy Ghost. 

The book of Acts says Peter and Stephen were filled with the Holy Ghost.  They testified and preached, and they were prayed up enough to give sermons that were written down forever in the Word of God.  We should be prayed up in the Spirit of the Living God.  Then what we ask for we will have when we pray out in our understanding. 

For example, I go in my closet and pray and seek God for several hours.  I go out and experience the needs of people by phone or in a service.  I believe because of the prayer I prayed in my closet, the power will come down as soon as I begin to pray in English, my natural language, for each situation.  God has ordained this thing for a purpose.

Some people only manifest the gift of the Holy Ghost when He touches them in a service.  They have not exercised the gift, and they wonder why He has not moved in other areas of their lives.  It is because they have not been faithful in the first gift they received by praying in the Holy Ghost.  If we are faithful in the prayer language, He will bring us on to greater things, such as the gifts of the Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians. 

Some people want the gift of discerning of spirits, but if you are not faithful hammering it out in prayer and seeking for the Holy Ghost, you will only receive the “gift of suspicion”.  When you pray in the Holy Ghost, you leave the natural and go into the supernatural.  It begins with an utterance of your own voice, and goes on in the Spirit of God.  Satan cannot understand it, your spouse and even you yourself cannot understand it.  The angels can’t even understand it.  Only God understands it.  1 Corinthians 14:2 says, “For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.”  Note:  When you speak in other tongues, as in Acts 2:4-11, other people will understand their own language.

We believe that you can “go out in the Spirit”.  You can do this if you are baptized in the Holy Ghost and fire of God.  When you pray, your voice is heard in heaven.  Philippians 3:20 says, “For our conversation is in heaven. . . .”  He was talking about praying in the Holy Ghost.  As you are edified in the Spirit of the Lord, your natural voice will be heard in the heavenly chambers of God, and you will hear from Jesus sooner than you thought.  God wants His people to pray in the Spirit.  

1 Peter 2:5 says, “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”

  The word edify in the dictionary originally and literally means “to build a house”.  As you are built up an holy house for God, the temple gets bigger, and God’s portion in you gets bigger, and He will spread out all around your temple.  You will see things happen you never thought possible, because you built yourself up in the Lord according to Jude 1:20 to glorify God. 

Pentecost began with fire!  The original Pentecostals were pure, and holy, and had fire setting upon their heads, and they stayed full of the Holy Ghost.

People will put a label on you, but I asked the Lord what I was.  The Lord answered me to tell those who ask what I am, Tell them you are the last day Pentecost.  The first church was Pentecost!  The last church is going to be Pentecost!  Don’t misunderstand me.  I am not talking about a “denomination”.  I am talking about a people full of the Holy Ghost who are not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Witnessing for the gospel just comes out of them.  Jesus said don’t worry about what you are going to say.  When the Father starts talking to you, He will give you the words to speak, because you have been praying and seeking God.  When you pray in the Holy Ghost for hours and days on end, the next thing you say in your natural language is going to be from heaven!

Jude 1:20-21 says, “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”

You build yourself up in God by prayer.  You build up the new man, the one Christ gave you when you got born again, by praying in the tongues of the Holy Ghost.  If you don’t pray, you won’t have any power.  That is what is wrong with believers today. 

Some people won’t pray in tongues, because they don’t understand it.  It is an act of faith to pray for hours and not even know what you are praying about.  You get down in the prayer closet and you start praying.  You start praising the Lord for a little bit and off you go praying in tongues.  You go and go and go.  It is not from your head.  The devil will come at your mind, but keep right on praying.  Your mind will run out of things to think about, and you will start focusing more on God.  You will start seeing people’s faces to pray for. 

At one time I was seeking the Lord, but not enough.  I was praying for people, and they were getting stuff, but suddenly I began to feel like I was dying.  It got bad, and I didn’t know what was going on.  I was going through agony, because I wasn’t prayed up enough to do what I was doing in the ministry.  Preachers, make sure you pray enough.  If you are prayed up, you can face anything.  You can bust out praising the Lord, and speaking in tongues, and the dead can come to life!

I believe you can get so full of God that there is nobody home but Him!  Whose shadow healed the sick and dying when Peter went by?  It was God’s shadow.  God consumed him, because he prayed all the time, and he was full of God.  1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, “Pray without ceasing.”  There is no way you can pray in the natural without ceasing, but you can pray in the Holy Ghost without ceasing.  You can pray while you are washing dishes, driving, in the shower, or anywhere. 

John 7:38 says, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”  Because of that well springing up within, you become more and more sanctified.  God begins to deal with you in a greater fashion.  The Word of God will jump out at you, and you will be able to understand it better.  He will give you the interpretation of it, because you have enough faith to pray day and night and not know what you said in those Holy Ghost tongues. 

Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

God wants us to pray and get the victory ahead of time.  When I felt the agony from not praying enough, I began to pray more.  I felt the anointing from God come back, and I got that tingling back in my hands.  I prayed more and more, and I felt lighter in my soul.  I had more power in my hands, my eyes, and my heart; my strength was built up again.  I am never going to get down like that again.  When the enemy comes in like a flood, I am going to hit him! 

The devil can’t stop somebody who is full of God.  He may talk to you while you are praying, but you are building a house.  Keep building on it by prayer and seeking the Lord.  God’s Word talks about the last day harvest.  We have to be faithful and pray revival down!

We’ve had reports of people driving by and feeling the pull of the Spirit of God.   During nightly prayers, this very thing has come off of our lips, Oh God, draw them in even when they drive by.  Then we went on praying again in the Spirit hour after hour.  Night after night, and day after day, we went on pounding on the doors of heaven till they opened. 

We have testimony from some who say when they drive by they can feel something!  I’ve been in the Pastor’s Study on a Sunday morning, trying to get the message, and I will glance out the window.  I sometimes see somebody just poking along and looking.  Something is happening!  God’s Spirit is pulling down the strongholds, because people are praying! 

You can feel an expectancy when you have been praying in the Holy Ghost, because you build up your faith in the Lord.  The most holy faith you’ve got is what you get from heaven.  When you pray in the Holy Ghost, you get a hold of the faith that Jesus gives out.  Some people think that the Holy Ghost tongues are just a decoration.  They get happy, talk in tongues a little, and that is it.  It is okay to rejoice in the Spirit, but that is not all there is.

Go pray in those tongues.  The more I pray in tongues, the less I have to say myself!  Proverbs 10:19 says, “In the multitude of words there wanteth not       sin. . . .”  However, when you pray in the Holy Ghost, that is a holy language, and it doesn’t make mistakes.  It goes straight to the heart of the matter, and you won’t sin.  We have to hammer out the victory for the glory of God. 

We would like to have the advantage over the enemy.  When we come against the enemy, we want a superior weapon.  When he comes against me with a bee bee gun, I want a machine gun!  The space between those two powers is even greater in the Spirit if you are praying in the Holy Ghost.  According to the Scriptures, the Holy Ghost power of God will run over the devil like a steam roller, if you are filled with God and doing your job!

Romans 8:26 says, “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought:  but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”  People tell me they don’t know how to pray.  Get filled with the Holy Ghost, and He will teach you how to pray.  He will do the praying, but you have to speak it out.  Things which cannot be uttered are things we don’t know how to say in the natural.

 How many times have we not known how to pray about a situation?  Romans 8:27 says, “And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” 

The world is bankrupt.  The only thing holding it together is prayer of the Holy Ghost saints.  How are you going to get before God when you are down here?  You pray in the Spirit of God, who will always be there.  He raised Jesus from the dead, and the same one who brought you to Jesus has power to cause you to stand before God. 

Some people say they have had the Holy Ghost for 50 years.  I say, God forgive them, because they are not casting out devils, healing the sick, and raising the dead.  They have the same power in them that created the universe.  They have not been using the Holy Ghost.  They get excited and can talk in tongues a little, but they go home and they can’t, because they haven’t been exercising what God has given them.  Jesus died that you might be saved and get the gift of the Holy Ghost.  How dare we sit on it and not use what God has given us to overcome all of the power of the devil! 

Jesus prayed much, and many times He prayed all night long.  When Jesus spoke the word, or prayed for somebody, it happened.  He knew who to pray for, and who to rebuke.  He knew what to pray and what to say in the natural, because of His many hours of prayer in the Holy Ghost.  Jesus talked in tongues.  Luke 3:22 says, “And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.” 

I believe as you seek the Lord with all of your heart with fasting, and with prayer in the Holy Ghost, there will come a day that God will speak to you and say that He is well pleased to be in you.  He likes it in there.  He keeps the fire hot, the temple expanded, and He is edified and not grieved.  He can move where He wants to, and you will go where He tells you.  You are directed by the power of God. 

If you want to be moved by the Spirit of the Lord, pray.  God will start talking, you will start understanding the Scriptures, and you will soon be interpreting them. 

When John went out in the Spirit in Revelation, he heard the voice of many waters, but he understood what was said.  He was told to write down the words, and he did.  How did he understand it?  He had a call to come up hither in Revelation 4:1.  Revelation 4:2 says, “And immediately I was in the spirit. . . .”  In Revelation 1:10 John said, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. . . .”

John was praying.  When Jesus comes, what will He find you doing?  Will you be reading a magazine, watching TV, or what?  The national average for Americans to watch TV is about 6 hours a day.  What if somebody prayed six hours a day?  There are 24 hours in a day.  If you sleep eight hours and work eight hours, that leaves you a little time to pray.  You don’t have to do it all at once. 

I used to be a prison guard.  If you go to praying all the time there, you will see something.  I walked down the halls, and the Spirit of the Lord got on me.  Sometimes a prisoner would suddenly open the door and look at me at 2:00 a.m.!  I just praised the Lord and felt His power, but the devil doesn’t sleep well when the Holy Ghost is around!  That is because there is power in the Holy Ghost to cast the devil out! 

The Holy Ghost is where we get power to cast out devils, and to prophesy, and to have faith to believe for anything.  Revival comes from people praying in the Holy Ghost!  As you pray in the Spirit, the Word of God becomes more manifest in your life. 

As you pray in the Holy Ghost where you live, somebody in India can be getting delivered.  Somebody in your family can be getting under great conviction.  When you go to a meeting you are built up in faith, and as you speak it out in your natural language, the faith you got from praying up delivers people. 

Ephesians 6:18 says, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;”  This is a very neglected command. 

We weren’t raised in the Pentecostal way, and we used to worry, rock, and walk the floor with our sick children at night. We didn’t have the glorious promises of God working in our lives.  We didn’t have this power sent from heaven to those who will pray in the Spirit.  The child can’t stay sick if you will pray up, because the Holy Ghost will be directed against the devil.  If you are praying into God’s heart by His Spirit, then the power of God will go to that child, and they will be healed. 

The devil can get into the house a lot of times because there has not been enough prayer.  Let’s get into prayer!

God will strengthen you.  Ephesians 3:16 says, “That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;”  That is how you build yourself up on your most holy faith.  Praying in the Holy Ghost strengthens the inner man, the spirit.  It strengthens that one that comes forth when you were born again. 

As you renew your mind by reading the Word of God, the Holy Ghost makes it more alive to you.  2 Corinthians 3:6 says, “Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”

Pray more in the Spirit.  It is more than a surge of force and power in your own body.  It is the power of God that comes from heaven to meet you wherever you are for whatever need you have.  This is the secret to power with God.  Yield to the Holy Ghost.  The Holy Ghost wants you to pray, and he wants you to know the will of God for your life. 

When you speak in tongues, you are refreshed, you are built up, and you may soon be ten feet tall in the Spirit.  You are getting more powerful for the Lord, and the devil can see it.  You come against someone who is devil possessed, and he looks you right in the eyes to see if you’ve been praying.  If you’ve been goofing off, and you try to bind the devil, he will mock you.  If you’ve hammered the victory out in prayer and fasting, the unclean spirits may cry out, but they have to leave.  That is because there is power in the name of Jesus when a vessel has the Holy Ghost and that vessel is prayed up. 

It is more than just a bunch of words.  It comes forth from heaven.  God wants to fill His people with power.  Then when you say, Thus saith the Lord in the name of Jesus, devil come out – the devil has to come out because there is so much power going forth in that word that it kicks him out!  We’ve seen devils come out after we’ve been praying days before.  You have to pray ahead of time to get something done. 

I remember casting the devil out of a certain individual.  I had confidence toward God, because I had obeyed Him in prayer and fasting.  I knew something was about to happen.  Man is always making plans, but the Holy Ghost sometimes keeps it hidden till the last minute, and then he will tell you thus and so.  God knows what He is talking about.  If you haven’t been obedient with your tongue, how are you going to yield over to Him when He gives you a command?  How will your hearing be yielded to Him if your speaking has not been yielded to Him?   

The devil started making a moaning noise.  He could see that we had been in prayer in the Holy Ghost, and that we had the power of God in our lives.  We had already prayed the victory, so all we did was speak the word, In the name of Jesus, you foul devil, come out of there.  It made a noise, hit the floor, and disappeared.  It was gone.  The victory that night was already won days ahead of time in the prayer closet.  As you pray in the Spirit you are getting ready for a faith to do great things, and God will reveal what you need to know. 

I have not been spending much time with my wife, because I’ve been in prayer.  She loves me enough to understand.  It is hard to be a preacher’s wife.  It is tough on her, because the devil is continually coming against her, trying to get between us.  We are human, so pray for us. 

We were seeking God in the study, and suddenly something began to happen.  We had been praying for hours, and I did not know what I had said for the last three or four hours.  We were seeking God, and believing Him, and praising Him. 

Suddenly I began to understand what I was saying.  I was going out in the spirit.  I don’t know exactly where that was, but I was somewhere with God.  I wasn’t talking English, but I understood what God was saying to my heart.  He was so evident and began to rise up in me.  Soon it became part of my thinking, and it consumed me for just a few seconds.  I was going out in the Spirit and I knew what I was praying even in the Holy Ghost.  This doesn’t have to take hours to take place. 

A certain brother in the Lord and I have prayed together many hours.  We are prayer partners.  This is not boasting.  This is testimony of our experience to help you.  We would go sometimes three or four hours of praying and suddenly begin to feel the Spirit of the Lord.  The time began to be less, and then one time we walked in, and it was only twenty minutes before we felt the Spirit of God come down heavily.  We had prayed up to that place.  The same thing can happen to you.  You feel like you can’t get a hold of God, so you get down to pray, and it can be rough!  You think, What am I doing here?!  Everybody has been there.  What is this?  This is fanatical.  In times past maybe you just got up and walked out.  You found other things to do, like file your nails, mow the grass, or wash the dishes - nothing really pressing. 

Get down and start praying anyway.  It may take hours, or it might take days, but suddenly the Spirit of the Lord will come in.  You have been hammering in the Spirit, then you feel Jesus, and you can breathe easier.  The Holy Ghost is enjoying, and you pray some more.  You know the blood of the Lamb is on the door posts of your heart, and you are getting closer to God.  Your inner man is getting built up, awakened, and strengthened. 

Continue to stir up the gift within you, and when you speak, it will be yea and amen, because you have been out in the Spirit of the Lord, and you have already prayed down the victory. 

This is the secret to revival and the power of a Holy Ghost filled life.  Many are deceived into thinking that if they have head knowledge of the Word of God, they will have power with God.  Some groups think if they just quote the Word long enough, it will change the situation.  That is a big lie from the pit.  It makes them look holy, but knowledge puffeth up.  It does not edify.  If you have been built up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, and you speak the Word of God, the devil has to go, because you have obeyed God. 

Let the Spirit of God draw you into prayer every spare moment you have.  Pretty soon it will no longer be a burden, but you will look forward to it.  Proverbs 18:20 says, “A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled.”  That sounds like building yourself up in the supernatural power of God, speaking in tongues!  

You may think it sounds like you are repeating yourself all the time, but the Lord spoke to me that one utterance of sound in His language would cover the libraries of the world in our language.  When you pray in the Holy Ghost, every word is 100 percent lined up with God.  You will get your answer from God. 

Proverbs 18:21 works both naturally and supernaturally.  “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.”  In the supernatural, God has given you eternal life.  If you are praying in the Holy Ghost, you are letting out resurrection life from your tongue.  It is the power to cast out devils, power to raise the dead and heal the sick.  It is power to move out in the Spirit for your whole family and even for nations.  That is life coming forth out of your mouth, and the Bible decrees you will eat the fruit thereof, once you’ve prayed in the Spirit of God.  This is how you get a hold of Jesus.  The Spirit knows how to pray even when we don’t. 

Jesus made a way for us to get to the heavenly Father.  John 14:6 says, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” 

We should have closer communication with God than we do with our spouse.  We become one flesh with our spouse, but we are not the same spirit, and it shows up from time to time.  However, we are the Bride of Christ.  We are no longer twain spirits, but one spirit.  Romans 8:16 tells us that His Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. 

There is no greater power in this world than what is contained in you as a Holy Ghost filled believer.  If you have the Holy Ghost, you need to set aside time every day to pray in the Spirit. 

God is not willing that any should perish.  If are not saved, you can come to Jesus right now.  Not only will you be set free from the power of the devil, but if you tarry a little bit with Jesus, He will fill you with the power to overcome the devil and to keep him out of your house, your body, your soul, spirit, and mind.  He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost!

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL  62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail  livinghope@hughes.net

www.livinghopefellowshipchurch.org

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord.  Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.