September 13, 2023
Author: Pastor Gordon Cook
September 13, 2023
In all circumstances take up the shield of faith,
with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and
take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the
word of God, 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.
Ephesians 6:16-18
Generally when we have our zoom
prayer meeting, we have a short devotional and most times we have
focused on prayer. At a prayer meeting it’s a good thing to focus on
prayer. Every Christian, I would hope, believes that prayer is
important. No one, I think, would debate that. It’s vital for our
spiritual health and for the health of a church. God wonderfully
encourages us to pray and the greatest encouragement is that we can
spend time with God himself. That’s the greatest blessing of prayer,
that’s the great purpose of prayer, to spend time in fellowship with
him. You would think that that would make prayer relatively easy. It’s
easy and breezy. I am simply going to talk to God. But we all know from
experience that we find prayer difficult.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
said, “Everything we do in the Christian life is easier than prayer.”
Jesus understood that even when he taught that parable on the
persevering widow in Luke 18. She meets resistance, it’s obviously a
chore, there is a struggle. The apostle Paul talks about prayer in
Colossians 4 and mentions Epaphras, “Who is one of you, a servant of
Christ Jesus greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his
prayers.” Then you have this section in Ephesians 6. We have that full
portrait of a Christian soldier and he picks up the word perseverance
when talking about prayer. Verse 18, “Keep alert with all perseverance,
making supplication for all the saints.” That word perseverance carries
the idea of struggle, difficulty, challenge. I want you to notice Paul
doesn’t just tell us about the difficulty of prayer, he really gives a
little bit of a lesson here on prayer.
There are four particulars:
1.
We should be praying constantly. Verse 18, “Praying always.” Someone
has said, “There are three kinds of prayer; secret prayer or private
prayer, corporate prayer or praying in company and then there is what
you could call pervasive prayer or 24/7 prayer, praying always. So in
the day you can pray, you can pray in the nighttime. I recently had a
conversation with a Muslim. We were talking and he asked this question,
“How many times do you pray? We pray as Muslims five times a day.” I
said, “We pray always and I am praying for you right now.” We can pray
throughout the whole day, engaged in any activity, whether you are
drinking your morning coffee, getting dressed, cutting the grass,
changing diapers, doing dishes, driving the car, before/after you have a
conversation with your boss, with one of your children or a fellow
Christian. Constant prayer, praying always is a privilege that we have
as Christians. We always have God’s ear.
2. Pray with
supplication. That carries the idea of earnestness or fervency. In other
words prayer is more than just saying words. True prayer engages the
affections or the emotions. Our prayer should not be, and often times
they are, monotone, quite boring. They are sometimes just saying the
words but there is no emotion, no affection. There should be heartfelt
pleading prayer. Think about what is said about Elijah in James,
“He was a man like us, he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and
for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.” The
Puritans said, “Pray until you have prayed.” Samuel Rutherford said,
“Tears have a tongue.”
3. Praying with all prayer or all kinds of
prayer is probably what he has in view here. In other words we can pray
different kinds of prayer in terms of adoration, confession,
thanksgiving and intercession. All kinds of prayer. We simply shouldn’t
come to God asking for things. Yes we come with petitions, but
adoration, confession of sin.
4. Pray in the Spirit. I think he
is talking here about the Holy Spirit. Recognize your dependency upon
God. We need the Holy Spirit. I wonder if our prayers would change a
little bit if before we prayed we just said, “Come, Holy Spirit and help
me pray.” Then what Paul says in Romans 8, “The Holy Spirit helps us to
pray in our infirmities and our weaknesses.”
So, yes, prayer is
difficult. We started off with that note. But in spite of the difficulty
we should be encouraged and motivated to pray to God. He hears our
prayers, he answers our prayers, he promises to, he helps us when we
pray and he communes with us in prayer. So we can take heart as
Christian soldiers. We are in a strong position. Paul is telling these
Christians, make a stand, you can fight this battle, you can win, you
have the power of prayer.
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