The Armor of God (Part 9)

Ephesians 6:18 "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 saints."

We come to the final segment in the Armor of God series. This section deals with prayer. Prayer is a vital part of our Christian lives and it is something we should be doing often, for it is the way we can communicate with God!

According to William MacDonald in the Believer's Bible Commentary (pg. 1953), "Prayer is not mentioned as a part of the armor; it is the atmosphere in which the soldier must live and breathe. Prayer should be continual, not sporadic; a habit, not an isolated act. Then too the soldier should use all kinds of prayer: public and private, deliberate and spontaneous, supplication and intercession, confession and humiliation, praise and thanksgiving. And prayer should be in the spirit, that is, inspired and led by Him. There must be vigilance in prayer: watchful to this end. We must watch against drowsiness, mindwander, and preoccupation with other things. Prayer requires spiritual keenness, alertness, and concentration. And there must be perseverance in prayer. We must keep on asking, seeking, knocking (Luke 11:9). Supplication should be made for all the saints. They are engaged in the conflict too, and need to be supported in prayer by their fellow soldiers."

One never knows when a brother or sister is involved in a spiritual battle. Keep them in prayer often! Fellowshipping is also a good way to find out if our fellow saints are needing specific prayers for their battles. I encourage each and every one of us to develop a consistant prayer life. As said before: prayer is vital to the Christian!

Matthew Henry's online commentary states: "Prayer must buckle on all the other parts of our Christian armor. We must join prayer with all these graces, for our defence against these spiritual enemies, imploring help and assistance of God, as the case requires: and we must pray always. Not as though we were to do nothing else but pray, [but] we must pray upon all occasions, and as often as our own and others' necessities call us to it. We must pray with all prayer and supplication, with all kinds of prayer: public, private, and secret, social and solitary, solemn and sudden; with all the parts of prayer: confession of sin, petition for mercy, and thansgiving for favours received. We must pray in the Spirit; our spirits must be employed in the duty and we must do it by the grace of God's good Spirit. When God says, 'Seek my face', our hearts must comply. This we must do with all perseverance. We must abide by the duty of prayer, whatever change there may be in our outward circumstances; and we must continue in it as long as we live in the world. We must persevere in a particular prayer; not cutting it short. We must likewise persevere in particular requests. And we must pray with supplication, not for ourselves only, but for all saints."

I encourage everyone to pray. We need to make it a daily part of our lives. When one of God's children gets on his/her knees to pray, satan trembles! He will try to stop you by putting other thoughts in your mind of things to do, places to go, people to talk to, etc. Don't let that hinder you. Keep paper and pen handy and write those things down if you think you might forget. Seek forgiveness from God for your wandering mind, and continue to pray.

My prayer is that each one of us draws closer to Jesus Christ, striving to be the type of people He wants us to be, to use Him as our role model, and to unite together in this battle against evil, and to be effective for His kingdom. Satan will try to separate us and cause divisions, but if we stick together with Jesus Christ as our common bond, we can and will defeat Satan's attacks!