"And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people." – Ephesians 6:18 (NIV)
Isn't it odd that every time you set out to do the work of God, you seem to be pushed back, resisted, or bombarded with attacks to your mind, relationships, and perhaps even your physical body itself? It can be really daunting, disheartening, and make you feel like you are in a battle for your life! Well, I hate to tell you this, but you are, in fact, in a battle for your life! Because of Satan and the evils of this world, we as believers are in a battle for our lives and for the whole of Christianity. We are fighting for God and the fight is hard! There is however, hope since God understands our battle and our needs to fight.
Paul tells us in Ephesians that we must put on the armor of God to stand against the schemes of the devil. But, what is the armor of God anyway? Today, we are on our eighth and final part of our series all about the armor God gives us to stand against the evil one and what it means to put it on as a soldier of Christ. Today we finish as we learn how prayer ties together our armor of God.
Well, last time I stated that the last two pieces of the armor of God that we were going to talk about we're not actually pieces of armor, but rather pieces of weaponry that God equips us with to fight the evil one. Last time we learned all about how the sword of the spirit is our first weapon and how we must be in the word constantly in order to wield this weapon. Now, Paul ends with a verse about praying that he really ties to the Armor of God. If we are pragmatic about our approach to reading this passage, we understand and that the armor of God is not complete without prayer. So now, let's chat about why we should pray and what we should be praying for in this battle against our spiritual enemy.
As Christians, we are taught that prayer is conversation with god. It strengthens us, it helps us to hear God, and know him. Prayer also, in doing all those things, really is a great weapon of faith. So what should we be praying about in this great spiritual war? Well Paul tells us quite simply that we should be praying and All Occasions for every need that we have. When we feel like we are weak physically or spiritually, we should be praying to God to strengthen us. When we are unsure of what God wants us to do, we can pray for wisdom. When we are studying the word I'm trying to understand what it means so that we are not deceived by the evil one, we can ask for discernment and guidance in our study. We can truly pray about everything in every occasion!
And that's what we need to do as Christians! We aren't always going to be able to fight on our own with all the tools we have. The God has equipped us for this fight with his word and with relationship to him, we still need him. This is not solely our fight and we need to remember that in order to win. God needs to be brought into the fight! We do this, by calling him down to us through prayer. I think this is why Paul makes this the last part of the armor of God Passage because he wants us to remember that it starts with relationship and it also ends with relationship. If we are not in constant relationship with God, we cannot use or wield any part of the armor that God has given us. He has to be in it for us to win it.
So as we close on the short part today and we finished our discussion of the armor of God, I want you to remember that there's a spiritual battle that we all are fighting as Christians and God has equipped us for that. But, at the heart of it all is the relationship and the love we have with the Lord Jesus Christ. With Him, we can never lose!
Thank you for following along with this series and I hope you come back again soon to see what's next as we learn to live out our faith everyday!
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