Later in the Gospel of John, Jesus tells us about His approach to ministry after having gone through this wilderness trial,

"Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the son also does in like manner. " (John 5:19).

In the next chapter Jesus states, "It is the Spirit who creates-life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life." (John 6:63, please see also John 12:47-50). Jesus Himself went through the fires of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and the end result was it got Jesus’ humanity out of the way so that the power of the Holy Spirit could be released in His life which was the key to the success of His ministry.

We need to remember that Jesus too was a human being while on earth with all of man’s human limitations, and like ourselves totally dependent on the Father’s leading in His life through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Father’s plan for Jesus, like ourselves, was for Jesus to wait upon Him and not move out in ministry until He was clothed with power from on high.

How many stories of people I have heard and read about who said they asked for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and did not receive it. What they are saying is that God did not give it to them on their terms. They did not know what they were asking for. It was not until nine months after I began seeking Jesus about this anointing that I received it, but I was receiving it because Jesus showed me it was what I needed to break down my outward man so that the Spirit could be released. People who have prayed for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and have not received it, probably did not receive it at that point in their walk because they did not know what they were asking for and probably were not ready for what they were asking for.

It was three years after I got saved that Jesus led me into this anointing. It took Jesus three years to bring me to a place of surrender where I was ready to submit to the fires of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit’s work in my life which was getting Dale out of the way so that the Holy Spirit could lead the way. He is still doing that work.

You cannot be effective in the way Jesus wants you to be until the Holy Spirit is in complete charge and control of your life. Jesus is Lord and His way is through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Lord spoke through the prophet Zechariah, ". . . ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says Yehovah of hosts" (Zech 4:6).

If Jesus does not want us speaking or acting out of our own initiative, then how do we know what to speak, pray or do? This is where the spiritual language comes in. It was not until a year after I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit that Jesus began to show me the value of my spiritual language. I was over at an associate Pastor’s house one night when we got into a discussion of some of the problems I was having at the time. He said something to me I had never heard before about how to deal with my problems. He told me to go home and pray in the Spirit about it.

After I had prayed in the Spirit for a time, the answers to my needs began coming to my mind, then I knew what to pray for in my native tongue with my conscious mind. It was a new experience for me. What I did not realize at the time was that Jesus was giving me the interpretation of what I was praying in the Spirit so that I would know in my mind what I really needed to pray for in my native tongue. Later I read another command of Paul’s I had not seen before, "Therefore let one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret." (1 Cor 14:13). Jesus knowing my ignorance at the time gave me the interpretation even though I did not ask for it. I did not ask for it because I did not at that point know I was supposed to, or that I could.

Why does Jesus want us to ask for an interpretation? Paul tells us in Romans 8:26-27,

"And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."

The constitution of man is complicated. It is so complicated that Jeremiah the prophet says man’s heart cannot be understood by man;²² but Jesus does know and understand man’s heart. Paul says in the book of Romans that the Holy Spirit not only knows our heart and the root of our problems, but because he knows, He knows what we need and thus what we need to pray for.

When we pray in our spiritual language, it is the Holy Spirit praying through us exactly what we need in a given situation whether it be in relationship to God, ourselves, or to others. But if I do not know what I am praying in my spiritual language, of what benefit is it to me? This is why Jesus tells us to pray for an interpretation. The interpretation will tell us what the root of our problem is. Not only will it tell us what the root of our problem is, but it will tell us also how we need to pray for our need in our native tongue. Paul tells us that the result of praying for an interpretation of our spiritual language will be, "I shall pray with the spirit and I shall pray with the mind also; I shall sing with the Spirit and I shall sing with the mind also." (1 Cor 14:15).

The Holy Spirit knows the root of our problems. We do not. This is why the first thing Jesus does when we get Baptized in the Holy Spirit is bring us to a place of not speaking or acting out of our own initiative. He does this so that we will begin to learn to rely on the Holy Spirit through, first, the use of our prayer language.

Jesus never takes away something without replacing it with something better. Once Jesus got me to a place of no longer trusting in the reasoning of my own thoughts and my own conversation since every time I opened my mouth death seemed to come out; He then began showing me the value and purpose of my prayer language which manifested itself immediately when I was Baptized in the Holy Spirit.

As was discussed in great length in Section 2, Jesus does not want us to trust in ourselves and our own ideas about anything or any of our needs. He wants us to enter into personal relationship with Him through worship and praise and in Spirit and truth to get the answer He has for us concerning our needs. The Psalmist tells us, "Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise." (Ps 100:4). Jesus wants us to approach Him through worship and praise because it gets our eyes off of ourselves, the problem, to free us of our own ideas and our own strife so that we will get our eyes on Him, the solution, so we can receive His instruction and solution concerning our needs.

It is not just through worship and praise that Jesus wants us to approach His throne, but He wants us to do it through the leading of the Holy Spirit by worshiping Him in Spirit and in truth. Jesus tells us in the Gospel of John, "God is spirit; and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:24).

God is infinite, and in our finite-weakness we do not know how to worship Jesus properly. For this reason Jesus gives us a prayer language when we receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit so we can also worship Him in Spirit and in truth. In the Spirit meaning in our spiritual language, and in truth meaning in our native language as a result of our interpreting our tongue. In truth also meaning our interpretation of our spiritual language must be in total submission to the Bible as final authority to confirm that our interpretation is truly from Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Jesus will never lead us contrary to the Word of God.²³ In truth also means all that Scripture teaches about what it means to approach Jesus through worship and praise and in Spirit and truth.

We are also told by Paul to lift up holy hands to Jesus which Jeremiah tells us is a physical expression of opening up our heart to Jesus so that He can minister the solution to our need to our hearts.²⁴ It is also a physical expression of the surrender of our wills to Jesus’ will in the matter since the heart and the will are synonymous.²⁵

*So We Can Discern What Manifestations
    of the Spirit to Minister

Another reason Jesus wants us to approach Him through worship and praise and in Spirit and truth concerning our needs in relation to Jesus, ourselves and in ministering to others is so He can manifest to us which gifts are needed to minister to the need at hand.

According to the Apostle Paul, each part of the Trinity plays a part in ministry. He writes in 1 Corinthians 12:4-6,

"Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. And there are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons."

The Holy Spirit’s job is to give gifts to individuals and manifestations of the Spirit for the common good. Jesus’ job in ministry is to give to individuals their specific ministry calling or callings. The Father’s job is to determine what outward effects will be used in the administration of one’s ministry.

Ministries and possibly specific gifts of the Holy Spirit are permanent in the believer’s life once established by Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul states in the book of Romans, "for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." (Rom 11:29). I was saved and filled with the Holy Spirit in December of 1969; I was Baptized in the Holy Spirit on July 29, 1972; but I did not receive my specific ministry calling until January of 1977.