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.

Psalm 27:4, 7-8

4The one thing I ask of the Lord the thing I seek most is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, delighting in the Lord’s perfections and meditating in his Temple.

7 Hear me as I pray, O Lord. Be merciful and answer me! 8 My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.” And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.”

What is it that you seek and are the things that you seek really worth seeking? As we head into the Christmas season I am reminded of the wise men that came seeking the Savior. David sought an intimate relationship with the Lord all the days of his life; this is a constant communion with God. He is not talking about coming to God only when we need something which only produces an on again off again relationship. Jesus said that the eye is the lamp to the body – Matthew 6:21-23 and if the eye is good, the whole body is good. What we open our eyes to is what we open our souls to, this is the “beholding / becoming principle of scripture, we become what we behold. If our eyes behold the things of God, we’ll be transformed; we will develop a growing hunger for God. If we behold evil and perverse things, our souls will be filled with those perversions and will never be satisfied. So people that seek and pursue perversion must continue to find darker and deeper levels of perversion. What we seek becomes what we focus on and there is an intense battle for our focus, our attention and our affections. Because of the power of focus we have to ask “where is our gaze focused, what are we beholding, what are we becoming?”

God calls to our hearts to come and talk, prayer exchanges the stale, emotionless theories about God for the authentic experience of God. David prayed two prayers about where he was gazing…

1. Psalm 119:18 “Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from Your law”

2. Psalm 119:37 “Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things and revive me in Your way.”

David was saying, “Remove even the things that look harmless or even good to make more room for You in my soul.” What takes up room in your soul? Are you allowing space that could be filled with God to be occupied by lesser things? We often congratulate ourselves that we did not expose ourselves to evil things, without realizing that the “good” things we occupied ourselves with may have kept us from time with God.

David said the one think he sought was to live or dwell in the house of the Lord. The word dwell means to linger, to hang out, it implies that you want to stay there and you feel welcome there! David is saying I like what I have and I want more of it, I want it until I die! David made a lifetime choice this relationship was worth not only seeking but living in every moment of his life. David wanted to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, to enjoy the presence of God. He understood the value of taking time to enjoy this relationship; too many of us don’t take time to smell the roses. We are in such a hurry to get to/arrive at the destination that we fail to enjoy the journey. We reduce following the Lord to just the fulfillment of certain duties, failing to take the time to enjoy the glory of the Lord. What does that mean? It means meditating on His love for you, about how patient He is with you. Look closely at His mercy and analyze His compassion and care for you. We need to learn the value of what it means to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. Do you look at Jesus from every conceivable viewpoint? Just as a jeweler will take a diamond and hold it to the light, slowly turning it to enjoy all of its beauty as the light passes through each facet, so we need to carefully consider Jesus. Are you gazing on the beauty of God, contemplating the majesty of God that saturates everything, are you captivated by His glory? He is altogether lovely and we need to take time to enjoy him, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. Have you experienced the fruit of searching?

David knew that God desired to communicate with him, and David’s desire was to hear the voice of the Lord. One of David’s goals was to inquire of the Lord, and to meditate on his Word and David saw this as a great need in his life. He is the one who said, I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. He also said, I will meditate on your precepts and regard your ways. I shall delight in your statutes, I will not forget your word. For David, God’s Word was invaluable, priceless, more precious than gold. Jesus wants us to hear his voice but do we want to listen? Are His words something worth desiring, something worth seeking after? Are you seeking God for the purpose of knowing Him and not merely seeking the rewards in His hand? God told Abraham, “I am your exceedingly great reward”. Knowing Him is our greatest reward and nothing in this life can truly be enjoyed as it was intended outside of Christ.

As David cried out to God, God answered him and His answer was “Seek my face”, to which David immediately replied, “Lord, I am coming.” This is a call to intimacy, you seek the face of those you are close to and God wants us to get close to Him. What are you seeking today? Comfort? Riches? Popularity? God never asks us to seek any such things. He asks us to seek His face and prayer is the portal.

Will you seek Christ:

27:4 – In the holiness of His sanctuary.

Ps 27:6 – In the attitude of joyful Praise.

Ps 27:7 – In the heart work of Prayer.

Ps 27:11 – In the truth of His Word.

Ps 27:14 – In the quiet confidence of patient trust.

He is calling to your heart “Come and talk with me.” Will your heart respond, “Lord, I am coming?”