August 15, 2022 - Ephesians 6:12

The Battle – Prayer #1

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12 NIV

Lord, I have recently been challenged on this topic. In most of the non-Christian religions of the world people are very aware of and fear the spirit world. Yet in so much of the Christian church, especially in the Western world, Satan has convinced us to stick our head in the sand and ignore evil spirits. We know they exist, but the idea of them makes us uncomfortable, so we don’t want to acknowledge how much they affect our world. We tend to sweep the topic under the rug and avoid it. So much of the church doesn’t believe that you still move like you did in the Bible. Your Spirit no longer comes to heal the sick or cast out demons through us. What a strategic tactic of Satan to blind us to the power that we have to stop him. That gives him free reign.

I think we try to ignore the spirit world because it’s something that we can’t control. It is messy. It forces us to rely on you, to follow your lead, and to be able to walk in your power. Those three things require us to spend time in your presence. They require us to step out in faith and trust that you will answer our prayers. And if you don’t answer our prayers the way we wanted, it requires us to walk humbly, to keep pressing in, and trusting. Your challenge to me is, if we want to reach the lost in this world, we must learn to walk in your power and go to war with the spiritual forces of wickedness. Most of the world already knows there are evil spirits, it is when we demonstrate to them through signs and wonders that you are more powerful that they will come to salvation. To win this war, we cannot allow ourselves to be blinded. Lord, forgive us.

In Jesus name, amen.