Fight to Pray

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show.

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But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Now, here's James. While we are going on an adventure today, imagine that you're an archaeologist and you're standing in front of an ancient door. The door has been there so long, the others just admire it for its artwork. But for the longest time, you had the feeling that there was something on the other side. And now, through further explanation, you found a key.

And you just put the key into the door and it turns. That is the door that we're opening today on encouraging prayer. So James, this week you found the key to a very important place in the Word of God, so tell us more. Well, that place is a much-loved passage, the sixth chapter of Ephesians, that talks about the full armor of God. And that is a passage that many have appreciated just for its artwork, because it is beautiful in its use of metaphor. But if you've been listening to encouraging prayer a little while, you'll know that we've been exploring this topic and trying to go deeper into it. One of the things that has always troubled me when I look up images of the full armor of God was that prayer was never a part of the picture, even though it's so clearly in that passage. You know, at least it's not in modern images you see online.

And if you go back a little farther in the 1800s, you start to see it there. And it's people like Charles Spurgeon and Oswald Chambers who recognize how absolutely vital prayer is to this whole picture in the sixth chapter of Ephesians. Wow, right. We've talked about this passage a bunch of times, and you would call prayer the forgotten piece of the armor of God.

That's right. But now, thanks to Oswald Chambers, I see it as something much more than even that. Many are familiar with Oswald Chambers' book, My Utmost for His Highest, but what they don't realize is that the thoughts from that book are actually condensed from earlier lectures and devotional talks that he gave.

His wife pulled them together after his death. So if you dig a little deeper, you can find those writings. And in a talk for missionaries on Ephesians 6, he said this, he said this, the armor is for the battle of prayer. Take up the whole armor of God, stand therefore, and then pray. The armor is not to fight in, but to shield us while we pray. Prayer is the battle. The reason we do not pray is that we do not own Jesus Christ as Master.

We do not take our orders from him. The key to the Master's orders is prayer. And where we are when we pray makes no difference.

In whatever way God is engineering our circumstances, in other words, wherever you are, that is the duty. Pray. Wow. So what you're saying, or what Chambers is saying, because you picked this from his pocket, so to speak, is that prayer is the key to unlocking a whole new understanding of the armor of God. Exactly. Read verses 10 through 12 before you get to the armor, and it makes sense.

Here they are. Verse 10, finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. Then verse 12, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. So you and I are up against these forces that are so powerful that the only way we can fight them is through God's strength. And this is why the devil goes after prayer. If he can beat us in the area of prayer, other defeats are sure to follow, because we've lost communication from headquarters. Richard Lovelace, a professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, wrote, the enemy of our souls is painfully aware of the destructive force of even our dullest and weakest prayers, and will go to any length to block them.

And man, isn't that true? I mean, how many Christians do you know who say, oh, I just pray too much? We never say that.

We say the very opposite. Most of us feel guilty about prayer because we know we could be doing it more than we are. I know I certainly can, and that's why prayer really is the battle. Yeah, that brings me back to what Chambers said again, and we don't take orders from Jesus as much as we might by staying in close contact with him through prayer. Yes, but if we see that prayer really is the battle, and fight to pray all the more, that's when we really make progress. In my atlas for his highest, in the reading for October 17th, you'll find these words, prayer does not equip us for the greater works, prayer is the greater work. And, you know, that makes sense, because what we want is what God alone can do, and only prayer will take us there, because we want to work in God's strength, not on our own. And because of this, we can never underestimate just how important our prayers are. And this all really makes sense if you think about how to apply the armor of God when you pray.

So can you walk us through that a bit? Okay, so the belt of truth. We have to be truthful with God when we pray, right? The breastplate of righteousness. We can't cherish sin in our hearts, or our prayers will be ineffective before God. The breastplate of righteousness. Scripture says the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

You're going to love this one. Didn't Jesus say, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field? Didn't he tell us to pray for his kingdom to come? Take up the shield of faith? We have to pray with faith, the helmet of salvation.

What does that mean? Except we receive Jesus through prayer, and we stay close to him through it. And then go on into verse 18, pray in the Spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests. And you keep on reading from there, and Paul is saying, pray, pray, pray, pray. It all makes sense. Yeah, and so the door swings open, and we can see it. We got the key.

This is so cool, James. It really does make sense. I mean, the armor of God isn't meant to be some abstract, metaphorical passage, but something really practical to help us as we pray. Prayer is the battle, Robbie. There it is. And because this is how we win, by the grace of God and in his strength, let's go there. Let's pray. Lord, help us in this.

Help us to win. Help us to pray more, to live in your strength and not our own, to walk by faith, to look forward to you, our beautiful Savior. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina.

May God bless you and encourage you as you pray. Mike Lindell and all this generosity for causes for the kingdom by trying to shut down his business. You can't buy his pillows at Kohl's anymore. You can't get them on Amazon or you can't get them at Costco.

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