Dr. James Tan | Power and Fire, Part 3
Recap
Dr. James Tan was our special guest speaker. He spoke about the supernatural power people receive when they experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Entitled, “Power and Fire,” Dr. James taught all three weekend services on the basic fundamental truths concerning a believer’s encounter with Holy Ghost power! He stressed how important it is for all believers to have their own personal encounters with God the Holy Ghost for themselves. “You can’t live off someone else’s testimony,” he said. “You have to get your own experiences about encountering the power of the Holy Spirit for yourself.”
Dive Deeper
James taught about the fundamental truths concerning a believer’s encounter with the power of God… in other words, the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
He gave reasons as to why he was teaching about the Baptism.
Number one: To water the seed that’s on the inside of you.
Number two: Every generation should have an encounter with God the Holy Spirit itself.
It’s not enough to say, “I attend a Spirit-filled church. It has had many encounters with the power of the Holy Spirit.” No! You have to have your own experiences with the Holy Spirit. You can’t live off someone else’s experiences. You need to have your own healing testimony. You need to have your own prosperity testimony. You have to have your own breakthrough testimony!
Dr. James shared testimony of woman during the 9 a.m. services…
A young woman shared her testimony of a few years ago. Dr. James gave an altar call saying, “I sense God wanting to heal hips.” Her husband nudged her to go forward for prayer saying, “That’s you!” She responded to the altar call and had hands laid on her. Her hip was healed. The next day at work, her coworkers asked her why she was no longer limping. She explained to them that she was prayed for the night before while at church. She got her own healing experience.
Like her, we all must have a fresh encounter with God for ourselves. It’s not enough to say, “I attend a Spirit-filled church.” That will not do anything for you in your midnight hour.
Dr. James said, “And this is a generation that is seeking an encounter for themselves. You and I are in that generation that is seeking an encounter. And God’s available to give us that encounter. So we don’t have to live off stories of generations past.”
We looked at five instances in Acts where people encountered the Holy Spirit. The first encounter is the disciples themselves. The second were the Samaritans. The third person who encountered the Holy Spirit was Saul, later called Paul. The Apostle Paul has affected all of us. If you are a believer, you’ve been affected by the ministry of Paul.
But did you know that it was an unknown guy who prayed for Saul? God took an unknown guy, someone that no one had heard of, called Ananias to go lay hands on Saul, who then became Paul, who then became what he is to all of us.
Ananias was the one who laid hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, receive the Holy Ghost.” Can you imagine the reward Ananias is going to get in heaven for his obedience to pray with Saul?
Dr. James said, “The power of the Spirit of God can position us in rooms that we think we don’t belong in… don’t want to belong in! But God can position us in rooms and have us lay hands on people we don’t want to lay hands on and affect them and turn them around by the power of the Holy Spirit and have them affect multitudes. And not only that, God has a way of turning that around so that the rewards come to us.”
The Apostle Paul also spoke in tongues. We know he did because in 1st Corinthians 14:18 he said, “I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all.”
You have to understand that when Paul wrote that, he was writing to a church that was “tongues everywhere.” They were speaking in tongues so much that Paul had to write them to instruct them on how to use this gift in public. It was to these people he said, “I speak in tongues more than you all.”
Paul wrote three quarters of the New Testament. Dr. James concluded, “There must be then some connection between him praying in a heavenly language and him receiving heavenly revelation.”
He continued, “The key to me receiving, the key to me communicating, the key to me understanding you is that we both speak the same language. Likewise, God designed a way where we can communicate with Him so the Devil can’t understand what we are saying, so he can’t sabotage anything. Tongues is divine communication.”
He didn’t just give us a personal private hotline. He gave us a personal private language.
When we pray in tongues, we tap into a realm of communication that’s not available outside of our heads. Because our heads is what got us into the mess to begin with. It’s foolishness to think that my head could then get me out of that mess. If our heads could get us out of the mess, our heads wouldn’t have gotten us into the mess to begin with!
We must let God help us. He says, “Listen, I’m going to give you a way where you can communicate with Me outside of your own head so your own mind won’t rationale everything away. No, you just communicate with Me and I will impart to you revelation knowledge so you will know on the inside of you that I am God.”
Read About It
1st Cor. 14:18, “I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all.”