Ephesians 6:18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

At the end of Paul’s call to put on the full armor of God so that we can take our stand against the devil’s schemes we are instructed to pray. Reaching the end of the list of God’s armor is to reach a moment of truth, first will we put on the armor and second if we do what will we do next? Paul’s “marching orders” turn out to be pray. For many Christians prayer is their last resort, when all else fails they pray. For others it is only a way of getting things from God. But for those who have understood the armor of God and its purpose, prayer becomes a mighty weapon. Your relationship with God, your spiritual walk, your Christian experience, will never rise higher than your prayer life. Prayer isn’t just work, its war, it isn’t time out from the battle, it is full-on engagement in the fray. As long as we think of prayer as effort and work, it simply boils down to a matter of lifestyle and convenience. But when we begin to think of prayer as warfare, we are faced with the issues of life and death, necessity not convenience. 

Do you realize how important “communications” are in any battle? If an enemy can cut off our communications, we become immediately isolated, helpless and alone. Prayer is our line of communication with our Commander. God knows our situation better than we do, and He also knows the enemy’s position too. If the enemy can deter us by distracting us from praying then he has us where he wants us. We quickly become isolated, helpless and alone, we are left with only our own limited resources. God does not intend for us to fight with our own resources because they’re of no use in the spiritual battle. 2 Corinthians 10:4 says: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds”. What are you fighting with, are you in touch with God or are you depending on your own limited resources? Have you ever stopped to ask the question: “Why does the enemy works so hard to keep us busy with anything as long as it’s not prayer?” Paul understood the battle and he reminds us of three important characteristics of prayer.

1.         THE PRIORITY OF PRAYER

Paul uses a very small yet important word which appears several times in this one verse and despite its smallness it has giant and all-encompassing implications. The word is “ALL”, and it’s associated word “ALWAYS”. By calling on us to pray always he is calling us to a lifestyle of prayer! While there are certainly times which we are to go into our prayer closets and spend specific and pointed quiet time with God, this is a call to see all of life as communion with God. Paul wants us to see prayer as a kind of ‘spiritual breathing’, something that is part of the everyday fabric of living. Spiritual Warfare is not part of our lives it concerns the whole of our lives. Ephesians reminds us of the scope of warfare, it effects all of our life.

Ephesians 4:1-16 … Living in unity and co-operation in the local church.

Ephesians 4:17-5:21 … Living a life of holiness and purity.

Ephesians 5:22-6:4 … How we live with our family.

Ephesians 6:5-9 … How we conduct ourselves in our work place.

It is all spiritual warfare, and we are to ALWAYS be giving ourselves to prayer, in ALL its forms, with ALL our energy and diligence, in ALL situations, and for ALL people. The priority of prayer should undergird everything in our lives. Does prayer undergird everything you do? Is communion with God that kind of a first priority in your life? The battle is ALWAYS raging yet so often we settle for a mundane religion, without any fire, without any power. A life without prayer is a life where the only spark is our own enthusiasm and the only resources we have are our own talents and abilities. Paul calls us to abandon our life of independence for a life of dependence upon the Spirit of God. Is it time for you to make prayer a priority? Is it time to depend on the Spirit? The one who wants to empower you in the battle is calling you to come and be filled.

Romans 5:3-5

3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

Did you just read what you just read? Is God really serious here in His word, that we have the ability through Jesus to actually rejoice when we suffer hardship? Was Paul crazy when he told us to rejoice when we run into problems and trials? This passage flies in the face of those who preach a theology of health, wealth and prosperity. For it is here that the bible clearly teaches us to expect to experience trials and tribulations. Not only does the Bible tell us to expect problems in our Christian walk but it goes a step further to tell us that God actually allows them. Now we often respond to hardships and trials by asking the question “Why” it is our first reaction and it’s by no means wrong. In fact God wants us to know why and so He clearly states it here in His Word. God allows difficulties because difficulties develop us. As much as we dislike the difficulties the truth is challenges can cultivate our character. When we move beyond the place of constantly questioning God to a place of confidence as we put our hope and trust in Him we discover that God is developing our character through the trials. It is this strength, this character that enables us to hope in Christ when our difficulties seem hopeless. We may not like the challenges but when we realize that they develop Christlikeness in us not only will we embrace the trials but we will rejoice in them. Peter mentions this very fact to the suffering Christians in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. A group of churches that experienced severe suffering when Nero the emperor of Rome was persecuting thousands of Christians by imprisonment, starvation, and death. I Peter 1:6-9, “So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. 7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. 8 You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. 9 The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.” The truth is out trials can be a benefit and not just a burden, because they can work for us and not against us. But only we can determine the course. So what does Paul mean when he tells us to rejoice when we run into trials? It’s here that we need a good definition of the word rejoice. The Amplified Bible describes rejoicing as “being full of joy right now, it means to exult in the triumph of our troubles. There is something powerful and magnetic about people who praise in the midst of their problems. The opposite is also true, there is something that repels us when we run into the woe is me Christian. This is the person that has never learned the principle of giving God praise in the times of trial. If you ask a “woe is me Christian how they are doing they will always answer by giving priority to their problems instead of the praise. They will talk about their troubles and trials more than they will about God and His truth. After talking to a woe is me Christian for about 5 minutes, because 5 minutes is about all you will be able to handle, you will feel like all the life has just been sucked out of you. If you are not careful they will pull you into their pity party, because woe is me people never like to party on their own. Instead of inviting you to join them in the joy they will drag you down and drown you in their junk. Why do they do this? Because a woe is me Christian has bought into Satan’s lie that all is hopeless and so they have lost their ability to exult in joy at the coming triumph of their trials. Why doesn’t God just deliver us from difficulty and keep us from experiencing pain? Because trials develop our:

• Endurance

The truth about trails is that when you are face to face with a difficulty you are actually up against a discovery. Think over the times in your life when you have faced trials, it is during these trying times that you have probably discovered something life changing about Jesus? An attribute of God that you can anchor your hope on, knowing that when you face further difficulty in the future God can be trusted. To endure is the ability to carry through despite the hardship. Sometimes God allows difficulties in our lives to develop our endurance and teach us not to quit. When we do we learn the life changing lesson that God can be trusted through all our trials. Take some time to read the following poem:

Don’t Quit

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,

When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,

When funds are low and debts are high,

And you want to smile but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit,

Rest if you must, but don’t you quit!

Life is queer with its twists and turns,

As everyone of us sometimes learns,

And many a failure turns about,

When he might have won had he stuck it out.

Don’t give up, though the paced seems slow – 

You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than

It seems to a faint and faltering man;

Often the struggler has given up,

When he might have captured the victors cup.

And he learned too late, when the night slipped down

How close he was to the golden crown

Success is failure turned inside out –

The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,

And you never can tell how close you are,

It might be near when it seems afar;

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit –

It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

As a pastor I have often heard prayer requests to be delivered from difficulties, hardships and trials. But often I can see the hand of God in them trying to teach the person something about themselves they never realized. Often it’s to trust Him in an area of their life they have never trusted Him in. Endurance teaches us quite confidence and trust in God. What about you do you have a proper perspective when it comes to trials do you see them as profitable or just as a problem?