The Whole Armor of God - Praying Always

Sermons Blog - Calvary

Ephesians 6:18-20

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PDF Manuscrit: The Whole Armor of God - Praying Always

I don’t think there is anything more difficult than prayer. Would you agree? If you experience has been anything like mine, prayer is that discipline you always feel you haven’t quite gotten right. It’s a struggle. We wonder, “What good does it do?” We find it frustrating because our minds wander, and then we feel guilty. We don’t always know how to pray. And we’re so busy that when we slow down to pray, we feel uncomfortable as if we need to be doing other things. To top it all off, you then hear a sermon on prayer or read a book on prayer and it leaves you crushed by the inadequate prayer life. But I believe that the reason why it’s the most difficult thing we could ever do, has to do with the fact that it’s the most important thing we could ever do. Listen to how Jame M. Boice puts it, “Our secret resource is prayer. And what makes it so important is that the weakest Christian can at any period of his life at any moment of the day and in any circumstance cry out to God for help and instantly have the resources of the infinite, sovereign God at his disposal.”

We’ve spent the last seven weeks talking about spiritual warfare, and particularly the armor of God that is described for us in Ephesians 6. God has given us armor and weapons for the struggle against the powers of evil. He’s given us a belt—the truth about God and us to defeat Satan’s lies. He’s given us a breastplate—a positional righteousness in Christ to stand against the accusations of Satan. He’s given us shoes—the gospel of peace. He’s given us a shield of faith—a trust against temptation. A helmet of salvation—an assurance that protects us from doubt. And the sword of the Spirit—the word of God, proclaimed in the face of the enemy’s assaults. After describing all of those, Paul comes not to another piece of armor, but to prayer. In so doing, he teaches us that a life without prayer, is a life of defeat.

We’ve talked about the various pieces of armor and how they help us to stand against the devil, but it is not simply enough to have the armor. It’s not enough to know the truth about God. It’s not enough to know how the enemy tempts and deceives us. It’s not enough to know how each piece of armor counters the attack. It means very little, unless we have intimacy with God through prayer. Prayer is not so much another weapon. It’s how we put on the armor. It’s the means by which we tap into the very power of God. The power we need to resist the evil one.

Samuel Chadwick said, “The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless study, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, he mocks at our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray.” The connection between spiritual warfare, and prayer, is this: The only way we can stand against the schemes of the devil is on our knees in prayer.