“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”--Ephesians 6:18
From this text we learn five things about how to use prayer in Spiritual Warfare. Let us take them one at a time. The first thing we learn about our secret weapon of prayer is that it must be.
Perpetual Prayer - We get this from the first two words of verse 18 where it says, "praying always." (The NAS follows the literal word order best.) That we should be praying always, reminds us of what Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, that we should pray without ceasing.
This does not mean that we should always be on our knees praying, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It means rather, that we should always be maintaining an attitude of prayer. Some good Christian music playing in the background can help me maintain this spirit of prayer. My mind can be shuffling the papers on my desk and simultaneously singing the words of the song to God. Singing is a form of prayer.
Second, it should be Petitionary Prayer (Ephesians 6:18b)
We get this from what he says next in verse 18, "…with all prayer and supplication." The first term, prayer, refers to general requests whereas the second term, supplication (some of you may have petitions or requests), is a word for specific prayer needs.
But then, as we hear of specific needs or specific people who need prayer, we can also pray for you or them by name. Paul is calling us to pray for all different types of requests and needs—general and specific. To put it simply, Paul says that spiritual warfare prayer means that we must pray for things!
C. S. Lewis wrote an excellent article called “Work and Prayer”, which every Christian who is interested in prayer should read, and his basic point is that prayer is just like work, in that we use it to accomplish things. Without work, we should not expect anything to get accomplished, and so also, without prayer, we should not expect anything to get accomplished.
There are many things God will not do for us and will not give to us unless we ask Him. It is not because He does not know what we want, or does not know what we need, but He wants us to express our dependence upon Him. He wants us to come to Him and share our needs and our desires. And unless we are willing to humble ourselves and ask Him for some of these things, He will not give them to us.
Sometimes in prayer, we are told that there are no small requests. But I think it is exactly the opposite. When it comes to praying to God, there are no large requests. They are all small and simple to Him. He is infinite. He is omnipotent. Asking Him to have the sun stand still for a day, as Joshua did, takes just as much of God’s power as asking Him to help us drive safely to work.
Some of us struggle with knowing what to pray. I have found that when my prayers start to seem like I am praying the same thing over and over, and I never know what to pray. The best thing to do is start praying Scripture. Passages where prayers are recorded are especially helpful, like Ephesians 3:14-21; John 17; the Psalms. If we know we are praying Scripture, then we know we are praying according to God’s will. Scripture promises that if we pray according to God’s will, we know that we have what we asked of Him. This is how we call down air support, and how we get powerful prayer.
Powerful Prayer (Ephesians 6:18c)
When we pray, and whatever it is we pray for, the true effectiveness, the true answers to prayer, come when we are—as verse 18 says next—praying in the Spirit. I think that, in context, it means two things. First, taking us back to Ephesians 5:18, it means that part of being filled with the Spirit is praying in the Spirit. There the prayers are sung to God through songs, hymns and spiritual songs, but they are prayers, nonetheless.
That is always a good place to start your prayers. You can be certain that if you pray the Psalms, you are praying according to God’s will.
If you pray Colossians 1 for you family, you are praying for them according to God’s will. If you pray Romans 12 for every Christian, you know you are praying according to God’s will.
If you are praying in the Spirit, according to the Word of God, according to the will of God, then you can be certain that all you pray for will be given to you.
Look at what 1 John 5:14-15 says as well. “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.”
This is the incredible and unbelievable power of prayer. Prayer is our pipeline to the power of God! Someone has said that “Prayer moves the hand that moves the world.”
Perseverant Prayer (Ephesians 6:18d)
This fourth aspect to our secret weapon of prayer is that we need to keep on praying. Verse 18 reads being watching thereunto end with all perseverance. We need to persevere, continue, keep on praying.
Persevering in prayer is required for some prayers to get through—especially since we are in spiritual warfare. You cannot think you are going to win a battle by going out and swinging your sword only once and then sitting down and saying, “Well, I swung my sword, but I didn’t get victory, so I guess I’ll just give up.”
Sometimes, we just need to hang on and pray. Sometimes, God is working to answer our prayer, but we give up too soon. Spiritual warfare prayer requires us to persevere in prayer.
No! Keep swinging. Keep standing. Keep fighting. Keep praying Purposeful Prayer for the Saints.
Purposeful Prayer (Ephesians 6:18)
The fifth and final flag to sending our messages to God is that we must pray with purpose. At the end of Ephesians 6:18, Paul instructs his readers to make supplication for all the saints. The word for supplication is the same one that was used previously, referring to specific prayer requests, and here, we are to make such requests for other Christians. We are to intercede on behalf of other believers.
Paul wants his readers to expand their prayer horizon and pray for the needs and concerns of others as well. We are, after all, a band of brothers on the field of battle, and none of us are Lone Rangers in this battle. We need the people on either side of us to remain strong and healthy so that they can defend and help us in our times of need, just as we help and defend them in theirs.
In modern warfare, snipers are commanded to spend time practicing as a sniper. The same is true in spiritual warfare. Gifts are given so that we practice and use them. These are the sorts of things we can pray for when we pray for the saints. Preachers get better in sharing the word, we should pray that teachers become better at teaching, that servants become better at serving, that givers become better at giving. We do not focus on praying to fix people’s weaknesses but pray that they become more effective in their areas of strength.
Prayer can change things. We know that; let us keep praying. May God continue to bless and keep you. Let us continue to pray at 2 PM.
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