All in Prayer, Armor, and Wrestling
Do you want to improve your prayer life, to pray in joy, to pray without ceasing, or to find the ear of God with your words... but try as you might you fall short of during your attempts? Do you find yourself going through the motions as you retreat to your prayer closet only to return empty and unsatisfied? Perhaps the problem isn’t in your praying at all... perhaps it is in your faith.
Do you feel inadequate in faith, spirituality, and in what you do for the Church? If so then let me ask you a very simple question... how is your prayer life? If our prayer time is weak and disjointed; sometimes good but often forgotten, then this may be the root of the problem. Prayer isn’t simply a time to give the Lord your wish list... it is the root of our relationship, and the source of our strength.
When you are sick with a cold and you pray for healing, then go to the pharmacy to get medicines to treat your runny nose, cough and fever, where do you then place the trust for your healing? We are meant to do what we can to take good care of our bodies, but when we call on both physical and spiritual remedies, do we allow the physical ones to overshadow the spiritual ones? Does your faith supplement the cough syrup, or does the cough syrup supplement your faith?
There are messengers who deliver the words of the king, and then there are Regents who act act in the place or name of the king. When it comes to Jesus which are you? Which of these roles did Jesus intend for us to fill until His return, and why is it important for us to understand this?
Each morning in your prayers do you pray in intercession for all those around you? Jesus taught us to do this in wonderful fashion as He prayed in the upper room. He prayed first for Himself, then those who were with Him (His disciples), and finally for all believing people. Are you in the habit of praying for others each day? Do you understand the enormity and power of this?
Do you ask God to do something for you in prayer and then wonder how long it will take Him to accomplish it? Do you ask and then couch what you have requested in language which shows your doubt in His power by providing Him a way out of doing that thing you have asked of Him? When we do not expect God to do the things we have asked in the name of Jesus then we have lost our faith, and no longer believe and trust in the Lord... we have relegated ourself to chasing after clever fables. Do you truly believe in God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit? Then, expect!
Can we pray like Elijah? Do our prayers have the ability to reach up to the heavens and let not just drought come and go, but answered prayer rain down? Well, scripture tells us that Elijah’s nature is the same as ours... so how is it that his prayers are so powerful? Elijah had one more characteristic... righteousness. When we pray, do we possess that fullness of faith? How is our righteousness? How is our prayer life?
We pray to the Father, the Holy Spirit guides us, and we ask in the name of Jesus. Have you ever felt so loved? Have you ever felt so cared for? In this way, has your joy ever felt so full before? In Jesus, our prayers are now complete as He intercedes for us before the Father. Do you ask in His name when you pray? It is not just a formality, but the grasping hold of His promise.
Who have you prayed for today? Have you left your prayer closet after having prayed in the spirit for your personal needs, the needs of your family, and maybe a close friend or two? Well if so, that was a good start, but it is only the beginning of our daily prayers. In fact, we should consciously pray for all the saints, and all day long in every circumstance, for every soul in need, and as our conscious prayers fade, we should recognize our unconscious prayers as well.
Do you really know how to pray? No? Well, do you know how to talk with God? There is no secret to having a conversation with the Lord, and no secret to answered prayer, just one simple fact... it we pray in unison with the conversation we are having with Him, and ask for those things we agree on during that interaction, then He will do those things for us.
Prayer heals us; it heals our physical illnesses, and it heals our spiritual sickness. The answer of prayer can be seen in the lame walking again, and it can also be witnessed in the forgiveness of sin. What is our need today? Is our body, or the body of a loved one, in need of prayer? Are we desperately in need of salvation, or the forgiveness of sin?
Praying for those things that are within the will of God for us; do we really know how to do that? Seeking out the will of God, as He has determined it to be, takes much prayer in which we ask no other question but “what is your will for me?”, and listening for His reply, then when God answers and makes that desire known to us... we will know how to pray as we should. Until that time our prayers are best conducted by the Holy Spirit within us.
Who do you glorify in your prayers? Is your aim to glorify God, or is it to bring glory upon yourself? This is especially a danger when we are interceding in prayer for others because it is easy for them to attribute the success of a prayer to the intercessor, and thus assign the glory there incorrectly. In the secret privacy of our prayer closets this same issue arises, however it has to do with the motive behind our prayers... who do we glorify, and who do we allow others to glorify as we pray?
Do you weep in your prayer closet and ask for a certain thing day, after day, after day? Does your heart break in the midst of your supplication , and yet you have faith in God to answer... are your prayers lifted up yet again, and the tears run down your face once more? Do those around you say “stop praying, it isn’t going to happen”, but you continue to cling to hope, and trust in God? This is what Jesus taught us to do. This is the evidence of faith.
It is expected that we will wait upon the Lord, and we know that during our waiting there will be those who will ask us “Where is your Lord?”, but we should never lose faith, and never ask this question of ourselves. In those times when we pray for something and God provides it right away, it is easy for us to be a saint, but when we must wait, it is then that we find the true state of our faith.