Edify Yourself Through Prayer

Dr. Frederick K.C. Price

You cannot be successful in ministry without prayer. I know there are many ministers who do not pray. I am a minister, and there was a time I did not pray.

First of all, I did not know how to pray, and secondly I did not "have time" to pray because I was too involved doing things "for the Lord." How could I take time to pray? I was on this committee, I had to do this, I had to go there, I had the Ministers' Union over here, this meeting over there; I had too much to do to take time to pray.

You can get so involved in ministry, that you will never have time to pray. There are many, many preachers - if they will be honest about it - who will have to admit they do not pray.

In fact, if you are not filled with the Holy Spirit, you do not really know how to pray. The real prayer method that will help you be successful is the method of praying in the Spirit, and you cannot pray in the Spirit until you are filled with the Holy Spirit and speak with other tongues.

First Corinthians 14:4 says:
He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.

The English words that really give the true meaning of the word "edify" are the words "to charge." For example, you charge a battery when the battery in your car runs down. As a result of this process, what you are doing is replenishing its electrical power.

When you pray with other tongues, that is what you are doing to your spirit man. You are putting your spirit on a supernatural battery charger. Praying with tongues will keep your spiritual battery completely charged up at all times.

A minister should be "up" spiritually all the time. There is no such thing as a "down" day. I used to have down days, but this should not be so for the man of God that is walking in faith according to the Word of God.

I have not had one down day in 30 years. When I found out how to walk by the Word, I retired from down days! I do not have them anymore. I have a lot of opportunities to have them. But I decided to let the Word of God take the place of down days. I attribute my victory in this area from the fact that I spend much time praying in the Spirit.

First Corinthians 14:14-15:
14) For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.
15) What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding.

Praying without tongues has its time and place. When I pray over the food at the dinner table, I pray in English so everyone around me will be in agreement that the food is not going to harm us. In times such as this, you pray in English, but the true praying - whereby you build yourself up on your most holy faith as Jude 20 says - is praying with other tongues, praying in the Holy Spirit.

Every minister needs to spend time praying, and one should not be so busy doing things for God that he does not have time to talk to his Heavenly Father out of his own spirit.

In the Book of Hebrews, the writer tells us that God is the Father of spirits (Heb. 12:9). It does not say He is the Father of flesh. He is the Father of spirits. He wants to talk to His spirit children, and He has given us a language by which we can talk to Him, which is praying - literally speaking with other tongues.

I am not talking about the gift of tongues as recorded in I Corinthians 12, which operates with the companion gift of the interpretation of tongues. I am talking about the private, devotional tool that God has given to us by which to edify ourselves. And that is what you receive when you are filled with the Holy Spirit.

In summary, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit is praying by the spirit - not your mind or your head. Any time you pray with your head, it is going to be predicated on your knowledge of the circumstances. I can only pray up to my knowledge of the situation, but the Holy Spirit knows every situation.

If I will let Him give my spirit the information, my spirit will pray it out so that God can answer it back in the earth realm. This is the highest kind of prayer, and we need to edify ourselves. Ministers need to set time alone with God by praying in this manner.


Dr. Frederick K.C. Price is the founder and pastor of Crenshaw Christian Center West in Los Angeles and CCC East in Manhattan. To obtain more information about his ministry, please call (800) 927-3436 or visit www.faithdome.org. Click here to browse and purchase MP3 sermons by Dr. Frederick K.C. Price!

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