No I do not speak in tongues but I want to tell you about my experience when I was first saved. I was alone in my room late one night very depressed sad and alone, I had wanted to be saved for some time but never could make that special connection with God. Finally I broke down in tears begging God to come into my heart I told him I didn't care if he took everything I owned if he would only come into my heart. I went to bed still in tears thinking to myself he won't answer me I wouldn't even answer me. the very next morning as soon as I woke up the holy spirit was abundant in me there was a fire and power surging through me I was filled with life as if there was an all consuming fire engulfing me that was filled with life and power, I was so filled with life and so filled with him I danced around my room.
I was not just born again I was baptized with fire and that fire sometimes still consumes me, speaking in tongues no I don't have that gift but I know his fire very well and the love and life the power and the beauty of that fire flows through my veins.
I have the gift of prophecy but not tongues and if God sees no need to give me tongues then that is good enough for me
Fantastic word!
I had similar experience. I met Christ (spiritually) in my room when I prayed as a teenager and had a rush of revelation of things that nobody had ever taught me. Wonderful experience. And instinctively knew to begin reading the bible the next day (which I had never done before).
My girlfriend got saved a few days or weeks later, and I went off to college, having just graduated high school. She wrote me that she got the gift of tongues at a church and described it to me.
I told her that tongues was not true any more and stated all the types of things I see on here (and elsewhere) about how tongues is a past thing, etc. HOW WRONG I WAS!
6 months after having gotten born again, I got water baptized, and I had begun to hear more people speaking about gifts of the spirit. As I read 1 Corinthians 14:1, I saw it commanded to earnestly desire the spiritual gifts... So I began to seek God about these. Prayed all the time.
I had no idea how a person received these gifts, but all I knew was that if God they were of God, I wanted more of Him and anything to do with Him.
Another 3 months later, being frustrated that I had not received any gifts, and my girlfriend and some of her friends had also received tongues, and my awareness of "such a thing" had increased, but I still had no idea how to receive. So one night, I knelt at the side of my bed, and said to Jesus, "Lord, I don't know how this is supposed to happen, but I'm going to avail myself to you now and hopefully you will bless this."
I began to logically realize that God would not force it on me. I realized that it would probably require some type of cooperation from me. It made no sense to me that God would just take over my body and make my mouth open up, etc., so I took a step of faith and "did it" with my own tongues speaking "gibberish". I did this for like 3 minutes, and then began to wonder if I was making a mockery of the holy gift, and repented to God on what I had just done.
So another 3 months later I'm at a Denny's and met a bunch of Christian one night. They were all excited about the Lord, and I sat with them and this subject came up and I relayed to them what I just wrote in the paragraph above, about having repented of what I did. They exclaimed to me, "Oh no, you did in fact pray in tongues and the devil came at you to make you think you had not!" They began to go through the New Testament teachings with me, and gave me a very good bible study there in about 10 minutes, showing me all the great teaching, and they exhorted me to continue speaking in tongues. I was so glad to have met them, and did.
A year later (this story some other time), Christ did something amazing (supernatural) to convince me that the gift of tongues I had, was in fact of Him and the real thing.
There are other stories I could convey, too, about how God has used my private praying in tongues, and accomplished various things, which He told me was the case.
So in short, I thought having gotten born again was the greatest thing in the world, but when I got filled with the Spirit, almost a year later, it was like getting born again, AGAIN! The newer, filling, was similar to the original, but more.