Transforming Your Prayer Life (Part 2)
Prayer is a place to dress for success. The proper attire for Christians is armor—not fancy clothes. Rather than dressing for a stroll around the palace, we should be outfitted for battle. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, we’re not call to a playground but a battlefield! “What greater strategy would the Devil have other than to keep God’s children from talking to their Father? Don’t ever stop praying!
Satan doesn’t resist those who do not pray. “He understands the power of prayer, and I believe he is fighting fiercely to reduce its impact. Satan knows the biggest spiritual battles are won or lost because of our prayers. Therefore, why would Satan not try to blind our eyes to the need and urgency of prayer? In my book Forward on Our Knees, I caution readers to expect pushback to prayer, but don’t allow resistance to keep you from praying. Keeping us from praying has to be one of Satan’s most effective tools. His arsenal is chock-full of flaming arrows of busyness. The target is believers. The bullseye, pastors and their families. The arrows are “coated with fear and guilt, doubt and discouragement, offense and unforgiveness,” and “the shield of faith” is our protection (Eph. 6:16). Someone needs to understand today why you are so distracted and hindered from a disciplined prayer life.
The Christian life is a war. The sooner we learn that, the sooner we can experience the victory God has planned for us. In Ephesians 6 the apostle Paul tells us that if we are to be victorious, we must put on the spiritual armor God provides (Ephesians 6:11, 13). No matter how accurate your theology or how solid your comprehension of Scripture, you will lose the war if you neglect this divine provision. Paul knew the key to winning the daily spiritual struggles that defeat and discourage so many believers. Envisioning a Roman soldier fully outfitted for battle, Paul said, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God” (Eph. 6:10). It comes from God, it’s the only way to get it! Somebody said, “If we go forth to war with evil, clothed and armed only with what we can provide, we shall surely be worsted in the fray. If we go forth into the world of struggle from the secret place of the Most High, ‘no weapon that is formed against us shall prosper,’ and we shall be more than conquerors through Him that loved us.”
We make a mistake if we expect no resistance. We expect to be tempted by [Satan] in some degree or another, all of our lives, because this life is a continual warfare. We must never expect to have rest from our spiritual adversary the devil, or tempted to say, our combat with him is finished. Our fight with the evil one will continue until we bow our heads, and our spirit is removed from our body and is brought into the presence of our dear precious Savior Jesus Christ. Our greatest weapon in spiritual warfare is prayer. If we fail, it will be because we failed to pray. You can never over pray when crisis drives you to your knees.
Spiritual warfare is an occupational hazard for pastors, but sometimes we forget that it is a way of life for every Christian. The devil hates all Christians. I used to say that there is no way he “hates” or targets pastors more. But the longer that I do this, the more I realize that the widespread repercussions from a leader who falls puts an automatic target on the pastor’s back for the enemy to lob his arrows. When we sign up for the Christian life we are enlisting in a war. There is a whole army out to get us. We need to be aware of the reality of the battle going on. Satan wants us to fall into sin and despair. The Christian life is tough, but God makes us tougher! Satan loves the fact that we forget there is a battle. The best way to stand against the enemy is to get on our knees in prayer.
Are you driven or drawn to prayer? A good way to gauge whether you are driven or drawn to prayer is this: Is prayer more of a duty or delight? Keep at it and soon you will move from duty to delight. Words like ought, should, must pray are often used, but Jesus didn’t institute a new legalism! Be motivated not by rule, but by love, because you cannot make people pray. The last thing we need is a new legalism when it comes to prayer! We should approach God as our Heavenly Father who loves us. By prayer, we tune our hearts to the music of heaven and ready ourselves to serve.
Perhaps you need to change the way you think about prayer. Prayer is a discipline to be embraced. Persistent praying will change you. Prayer aligns us with the purpose and power of God. Prayer enables us to do far more than human effort alone. Prayer empowers us to action. Jesus said, “Without me, you can do nothing.” So, why then do we spend so much of our time and energy in noble human efforts to solve our own problems and produce solutions? “Prayer is what infuses all our efforts and the genuine concerns of our hearts with God’s boundless ability. Prayer means hope. Prayer means help. Prayer means relief. Prayer means power. And a lot of it.” (Kendrick’s, The Battle Plan for Prayer, 19). So, let’s affirm prayer as our first resort, not our last resort. Why? Because prayer can do anything. There is raw power in prayer. Kendrick’s imagine prayer as “our armored tank,” our “major assault weapon,” when we put it into action.
Prayer is a discipline to be embraced. But as we grow in prayer, we intensify our sensitivity to God’s presence. Most of us think of prayer as work! Prayer is seen as a duty, not as a glorious privilege. Some Christians approach prayer as something necessary but undesirable. “I know that I should pray. That to grow in Christ I have to pray!” We lament, “If we are going to see revival, we must pray!” It is as if prayer is a kind of spiritual “cod liver” oil–not pleasant, but essential. Growing up in the 1950s, my mother believed that cod liver oil was the cure-all for growing boys! Likely because it contains relatively high amounts of vitamin A and vitamin D. Perhaps a better way to illustrate. Prayer is like exercise. We know it’s good for us and we benefit from it. Yet, as with exercise, we don’t do enough of it. I may know it would profit me if I did more of it. “We grow strong in the areas in which we exercise!” These are not easy things to do. And the tougher they are, the more costly, the greater their benefit! Exercise is at times, at least for some of us, a nasty necessity.
At times prayer is a struggle. Prayer is always hard work, and often an agony. Sometimes we have to wrestle even in order to pray. We must endure and pray in a disciplined way, until, we get through duty to delight. Again, pray whether you feel like it or not! Do it regularly, persistently, resolutely, and tenaciously at least daily, whether we feel like it or not. “No Christian outgrows the need to struggle and persevere in prayer “(Keller, Prayer, 123). The pursuit of God in prayer eventually bears fruit, because God seeks for us to worship him (John 4:23) and because prayer is so infinitely rich and wondrous (Keller, 25).
Persistent praying will change you. “Honest prayers reveal an inner resistance, but persistent praying changes us. The Bible is a record of prayer—of praying men and women and what they accomplished. Praying believers have been change agents whose mark on history seems timeless. Prayer moves us to action, and what is more important, it ties that personal action to the intervening action of God (80-81).
Gandhi said, “For things to change, first I must change.” Instead of asking somebody to do something…instead of desiring change and hoping beyond all hope that someone, somewhere will do something to bring it about, maybe we should quit waiting for change as “Passive bystanders.” Instead, go to God and let Him empower us to act. “The people who change the world are those who WANT to and don’t WAIT to” (Maxwell, Change Your World). When we align ourselves with the purpose and power of God, we are changed! He moves! He alters our actions & attitudes! He empowers us to do things we could not otherwise do! Prayer is absolutely indispensable! He empowers us to do things we could not otherwise do! Peter and John were thrown in jail…but the church earnestly prayed for them. Miracles happened and the good news is miracles still happen today!
