Skip to main content

How Do We Wrestle?

Yesterday we talked about the fact that our struggle in not against flesh and blood but against Satan and his minions.  The question then arises as to how we can possibly wrestle against such foes.  Paul responds by encouraging us to put on the whole armour of God.  However, the thing that strikes me is how he finishes that section.  Having discussed the six pieces of armour Paul finishes by saying:

18 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,
19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel,
(Eph 6:18-19 ESV)

As we wear the armour, we must be praying "at all times" with "all prayers and supplication" with "all perseverance."  In order to be effective in this battle we must be constantly in prayer.  Yet we must not make the mistake that it is our prayers that make the difference.  Rather, it is the One to whom we pray who makes the difference.  We do not pray because prayer works.  We pray because the One to whom we pray does His work.  As the apostle John reminds us:

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. (1Jo 4:4 ESV)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Death For a Believer

We picture death as coming to destroy; let us rather picture Christ as coming to save. We think of death as ending; let us rather think of life as beginning, and that more abundantly. We think of losing; let us think of gaining. We think of parting; let us think of meeting. We think of going away; let us think of arriving. And as the voice of death whispers,  "You must go from earth," Let us hear the voice of Christ saying, "You are but coming to me."   Norman Macleod

Families' Fridays

From Focus on the Family 10 helpful tips for single parents Imagine this: you’re the sole parent for your children. You get them up, get them fed and send them to school. You do the housework, maybe you go to work yourself, you get home and you’re still the only adult there. There’s no one to relieve you. No one to pass the baton to while you take a shower or take a few minutes for yourself. You make dinner and gather the family around the table to eat. You play with them, read to them, give them baths, get them to bed and there’s no one there to sit with and process your day. There’s no one there to laugh with you or pray with you. Instead you keep working. You clean up the house again. You pack lunches for the next day. And you eventually crash into bed, knowing you’ll be doing the same thing tomorrow. For many, this is not an imagined scenario. When you parent alone – whether due to divorce, the loss of your spouse or having a spouse who works away from home for long periods of...

Quotation of the Week

“And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”” (Matt. 26:39) The object of Christ’s attention here is this cup. What is the cup? What’s in it? In Scripture the cup refers to God’s wrath or judgment (Isaiah 51:17; Jeremiah 25:15). Here in this foreboding vessel before Jesus is the fully fermented, undiluted, cup of divine wrath. It is God’s impending judgment that has him sweating drops of blood and in deep agony. Christ is looking down the barrel of heaven’s infinite wrath, and his heart is shredded in agony. As barbaric as the human suffering was, it was not the chief agony of the cross. This was reserved for his assignment to drink the cup. It wasn’t the prospect of martyrdom—wrath at the hands of men—that weighed so heavily upon Jesus, it was wrath of God. Erik Redmond in the article The Dreadful Cup and Our Faithful Savior .