"Pray 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 6:18).
I was challenged and encouraged by Chad Allen's message today in our "Armored" series from Ephesians 6:18. Below are my favorites quotes from the message.
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Sometimes, the hardest things to do are the best things to do. Like prayer.
Prayer is the real deal. "Dear God" is not a casual thing to say. We are engaging in spiritual battle when we pray.
It is prayer that makes you armed and dangerous.
A battling Christian is a praying Christian.
Prayer is our nuclear weapon.
We have to hit our knees to fight.
A soldier of Christ prays at all times. Make your life a prayer. Have an ongoing conversation with God. What prevents us? 1) Unconfessed sin. You can't approach a holy God doing unholy things. 2) Bitterness. We nurse the hurt. 3) Spiritual laziness. 4) Distractions. We can get to the end of the day and notice that we haven't prayed once.
When you see something cool, talk to God about it. When you are tested or tempted, ask God for strength. When you talk to someone who is struggling, pray. When a siren goes by, pray with your kids. A siren is like a flare to pray. It's a prayer flare.
Pray like you text. I love texting. They are little conversations. We can send 1,000s of texts during the month. In the same way, we can send 100s if not 1,000s of prayers up each month.
A soldier of Christ prays in the Spirit. We must be Spirit-led in our prayers. He tells us who to pray for and how to pray and what to pray. When we pray according to the Spirit, our prayers are powerful and potent.
A soldier of Christ prayer with all prayer and supplications. We can fall back into a self-sufficient mindset. It's like we are saying, "I don't need you, God." But I need the Lord. He's not a crutch. I just need Him.
A soldier of Christ prays with alertness. One of our problems is that we have a peacetime mentality. There is a war waging spiritually all the time. The souls of our friends and family are at stake.
If we arent careful, we can slip into an unalert state of life. There were two times 2 we weren't alert in the US. 12/7/1941 and 9/11/2001. Do we need to experience a personal pearl harbor or a personal 9/11 before we realize that we have to pray?
When it comes to spiritual warfare, we are always in a state of either yellow, orange, or red alert. Spiritually, we should always be on alert.
A soldier of Christ prays with perseverance. Seven days without prayer makes one weak.
A soldier of Christ prays for their fellow soldiers of Christ. Often something takes place during a war so that a soldier's instinct for self-preservation is overridden to protect others. When we pray, we pray for the protection of our fellow soldiers.
God has given us prayer because Jesus Christ has given us a mission. And what is our mission? Faithfully live for Jesus Christ and tell others about Him.
We don't want to be just armed, but we want to be armed and dangerous... to the devil.
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