Week 1, Power
to Pray, Day 4: Perseverance
(Read Exodus 17:12, Romans 8:26)
Have your hands become heavy as you “practice the presence of God”? Are you weary in
going to God in prayer? Is your service to God and especially in your prayer
life gaining the victory over the flesh? If so, and maybe especially so, you
will soon grow weary in your prayer life to the Lord. Maybe things will go so
well, just like the battle when Joshua was winning, you will say, “All is well,
what need have I to pray?” Therein, however,
lies the deception of ceasing to pray.
What does it mean to persevere in prayer when weariness
sets in? How do we have prayerful persistence when there is spiritual
resistance? The Apostle Paul commanded us to “pray without ceasing” in 1
Thessalonians 5:17, but what does that look like?
First, be prepared with power from the Holy Spirit, who
helps us to pray when we are weak. In Romans 8:26, Paul said “Likewise the
Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for
as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings
which cannot be uttered.” Don’t feel like your prayers have to be eloquent,
forced, or even “utterable”. Let God’s Spirit pray through you, beginning
with “Abba, Father,” (see Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6). You are not
praying to an enemy who is against you; you are calling out to a Father
who is for you.
Second, like Joshua, be prepared for a battle. Paul spoke
of his own prayer life, saying he struggled in prayer and pleaded for believers
to strive together with him in prayer, “Now I beg you, brethren, through the
Lord Jesus Christ, and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together
with me in prayers to God for me” (Romans 15:30). Colossians 4:12 speaks of
prayer being an agonizing labor (Gr.: agonizomai, meaning struggle,
striving). Even Jesus prayed “being in agony, He prayed more earnestly,”
(Luke 22:44). If you think prayer is a gentle “Now I lay me down to sleep”
memorized prayer, read a further description of how Jesus, the Son of God,
agonized in prayer:
who, in the days of His flesh, when He had
offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who
was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned
obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.
Hebrews 5:7–9
Third, be prepared for a spiritual enemy. There is an
enemy, and it is not God. In Ephesians 6, Paul said that our adversary is greater
than an enemy in the flesh. Our fight is “against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the darkness, against spiritual hosts of
wickedness in the heavenly places.” In prayer, our armory has spiritual weapons
of swords and shields, our attire of helmets, breastplates, belts, and shoes
prepared for battle with powers, empowered by the Holy Spirit.
In other words, prayer is tough stuff.
Pray this prayer to God: “Oh, God, I confess that I do not labor, strive or battle in prayer.
Give me strength to pray without ceasing. Amen.”
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