Spiritual Warfare Part 10 | Prayer (cont.)

We saw that prayer is the means by which we put on the armour of God. And we also learned about the Spirit's MEDIATION, EMPOWERMENT, and INTERCESSION.

Look at the verse again: "praying at ALL times in the Spirit, with ALL prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with ALL perseverance, making supplication for ALL the saints." Notice the four times the word ALL is used. If we are to embrace this high calling to pray in this way, then we must consider the Logic of prayer and the Life of prayer.

Understanding the LOGIC OF PRAYER—what happens when we pray—will motivate us to pray more. We must know to answer questions like:

- If God is in control of all things and has predestined everything that happens, then what is the point in praying? (It is possible to have a diminished view of prayer, believing that God's sovereignty is so overarching, that our prayers will not be helpful.

- If prayer is so important, then does it not show that God is not absolutely sovereign and in control of all things. (And this too can diminish our motivation to pray.)

While the Bible is clear that whatever God has decreed will happen, the Bible is also clear that some things would not have happened had people not prayed.

Below are some scriptures that tell us something about the scope of God's sovereignty, so we need never doubt it.

Lam 3:37 "Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?"

Matt 10:29 "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father."

Prov 16:33 "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord."

Eph 1:11 "In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will"

Matt 7:11 " If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"

People have a problem understanding God's sovereignty in human prayer, because they pit these two aspects against each other. Human prayer is not about humans jostling to get our will against His will. Prayer is not about us trying to change God's plan to fit our plan. Prayer is actually God's means of achieving His sovereign plan. For example, God may use the pleas of a pleading mother to save the life of her child. God decrees both means and end. We see a good illustration of this in 2 King 20, where Isaiah tells King Hezekiah that he is going to die. Hezekiah pleads with God, and God sends Isaiah back to tell Hezekiah that he would have 15 more years to live. Isaiah then makes a poultice of figs, which acts like a medicine, and which is the means God uses. Let's say, you were marooned on an island and God promised to bring deliverance at 5:00 p.m. Then, at 5:00 p.m. if a boat came by, would you refuse help, saying that God would deliver you? You would know that the boat is the means God is using to rescue you. Prayer is the means by which the Lord provides for all the saints. The mystery lies not so much in how human prayer and the sovereignty of God is to be reconciled, but rather in why He would esteem us enough to value our pathetic prayers so much.

We need to commit to a LIFE OF PRAYER. We are told, "to that end, keep alert with ALL perseverance, making supplication for ALL the saints."

We may have been taught to pray simplistic, general prayers in childhood, and they were OK for a time, but to continue to pray in the same way now is lazy, and we must grow out of that. If we intend to pray, say, for our children, or the church or the pastor, we need to be aware of what they are going through and something of what their issues are. In this way, we can pray meaningfully, with alertness, specificity, and perseverance.

KEEP ALERT

1Pet 5:8 "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." Matt 26:41 "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Luke 21:36 "Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”

We also need to be alert to the greatness of the God to whom we pray. Infinite, Eternal, Omnipotent, Omniscient Omnipresent. He is so great that words like these are not enough to capture His greatness. Even the best verses of scripture cannot do justice.

All of the language falls so far short of who God is. Even the words that God Himself gives us are only analogically helpful, like saying, "My grandfather is like an oak tree," which uses the oak-tree analogy to help us understand that grandfather is big and strong. But that description of grandfather has obvious limitations. It is impossible for us to comprehend God's greatness. And to think that everytime we pray, we have communion with that God. Yet we spend so much time getting our theology right rather than getting our prayer life right.

WITH ALL PERSEVERANCE

Paul adds perseverance to alertness. He actually likes it when we bother Him often, as we see in the parable of the friend who comes asking at night, in Luke 11:5-10. In real life, the only ones who would get away with this kind of behavior are our children. If they trouble us at night, we do eventually get up and attend to them. This parable is about how God responds to His children when we persevere in prayer.

Closing by quoting from Paul's prayer for the Ephesians in Eph 3:14-21. "For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."