14 Oct Praying in the Spirit Illustrations – Part 18
Of all of the types of blog posts that I write, without question, the Praying in the Spirit Illustrations posts are among my favorites. Why? Because I believe that each and every illustration is providing a much-needed, simple, understandable, visible help to communicate the importance of praying in the Spirit. This brings us to illustration number eighteen. Once again, I will give a brief, skeletal overview of the illustration. Then, with the Holy Spirit’s help, you can personalize and modify the illustration to become a powerful teaching tool.
The Importance of Praying in Other Tongues
Part 18 –We Have an Outward Expression of an Inward Work
“And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost,
and began to speak with other tongues,
as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
Acts 2:4
For this illustration, you will need a Bible and either a slide or video clip obtainable from Google of an outdoor water meter.
Before I go any further, I need to forewarn you that I am about to show you a slide/video of something so ordinary, so everydayish (is that even a word?) that will cause you to be totally unimpressed. (Show slide/video of the outdoor water meter.) See? I told you so! I knew that this would happen. Immediately, your mind looked at the picture of the outdoor water meter and did a ho-hum. Am I right? We all know what a water meter does. It is a utility used to enable us to see and monitor an activity that is happening elsewhere at the given moment. The numbers spinning on the meter is reminding that water is passing through the pipes and is being used inside of your home. You are being informed that something is happening in places that you don’t immediately see.
So, why in the world would I be talking about an outdoor water meter today? Let’s read today’s scripture. (Read the scripture.) This verse tells us of an activity from heaven that took place in a room occupied by 120 people. That activity was the Holy Spirit being sent by God to move inside and work inside of the Jesus-loving people. It was definitely an “inside”, unseen action. In other words, the Holy Spirit didn’t appear in a physical form, announce who He was, and then move to the inside (spirit) of these believers.
Here is the exciting part of this scripture. Let me go back to mentioning the outdoor water meter. The meter was an outward way to know or evidence that an unseen activity was happening. From standing at the meter, you can’t physically see with your eyes water moving. But, the gauge or numbers spinning gives you knowledge of what is going on. When our heavenly Father poured out His Holy Spirit, He provided an outside witness or evidence that showed that He was working on the inside of these individuals. “They began to speak with other tongues …” From this scripture and others throughout the Book of Acts, we can know that God is at work … our evidence is seen when we pray in our prayer language!
In reading through the Bible, there are many, many promises that are what I call “general” promises. In other words, they are “everybody” promises. We see these with the scriptures that use words like “whosoever”, “all” and “every one”. But, in addition to the “general” promises, there are some very specific promises, ones that I call “me” or “personal” promises. 
A couple of days ago, I took my gasoline powered blower and edger to a small engine repairman. Why? Because both outdoor power lawn machines weren’t working correctly. And, here’s the sad but true part of my story … (Vickie will tell you that this is the truth) when I try to fix things, they ALWAYS are in a worse condition after I work on them. Thankfully I am smart enough to know my limitations and extra smart enough to know that there are people who can do what I can’t do.
Just in case you’ve missed a recent blog post, for the past few weeks, I have borrowed an idea from Mary Poppins and shared “a few of my favorite things”. I’m referring to some of my favorite posts from my Billy Burns Ministries Facebook page. Three weeks ago, I shared a few of the Holy Spirit Realities that appear each Tuesday. Two weeks ago, I shared several of the Benefits of Speaking in Other Tongues that are published each Thursday. Last week, I shared a compilation of what I call Billyisms (things that only my brain would think of) that I post each Wednesday.
Knowing that not everyone sees every post published on my Billy Burns Ministries Facebook page, I decided a few weeks ago to share some of its highlights. First, a couple of weeks ago, I shared a few of the Holy Spirit Realities posts that are on the ministry Facebook page each Tuesday. Last week, I shared a few of the Benefits of Praying in Other Tongues posts which appear each Thursday.