Prayer & Warfare

When you read your Bible you’re going to war. When you purpose time to pray you’re engaging in this epic battle of eternal proportion!

The disciples clearly connected prayer to power. In their pursuit to know God more intimately and more powerfully they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. They could have asked him to teach them how to do all the miracles. Clearly they observed Jesus and his intimate interaction with our Heavenly Father as a priority pursuit in their lives.

The prayerless church is the powerless church and there is a price to pray.

It’s expensive to be effective.

I’ve learned over time that when I neglect my personal time alone with Jesus I lose ground with God.

·      Pride conquers me more readily as I talk about myself more.

·      A secret pursuit of praise from people gets stronger in my life.

·      My love and consideration for others grows weaker.

·      I find myself having an overall disruptive feeling within.

·      It becomes more difficult to concentrate on Scripture and prayer.

·      I experience an overall lack of peace.

Purposing to pursue this place of prayer awakens the heart of God within us to see us through the difficult times.

Luke 18:1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. NIV

·      men ought always to pray and not lose heart. ESV

·      men ought always to pray, and not to faint. KJV

We’ll see clearly in Scripture next week that air is to the body what prayer is to the spirit. In fact these are synonymous words in both the Hebrew and Greek languages. This begins to shed light on verses like Job 19:17

Job 19:17 "My breath is offensive to my wife, And I am loathsome to my own brothers". NAS

Job was inspired by God breathing in what God was saying so he was breathing out what God was saying and those who were angry with God around him found this offensive. To purpose alone time with God is to conquer the enemies plans for your life as you awaken God’s plans in your heart.

Prayer and reading God’s Word is like watering and providing light to a plant that is trying to grow within you.

Last week we talked about how fresh starts begin on Monday as we evaluated the origin of the word Monday. Tuesday comes from the Old English derivative of “Tiu”, the English god of war. Mars is the Roman god of war so it makes sense that Tuesday in Spanish would be, “Martes”.

Interestingly it was Tuesday when the great crash of the stock market happened in 1929 on October 29th known as Black Tuesday. The 9/11 tragedy happened to take place on Tuesday. I find it interesting that politicians go to war at the poles on what we call “Super Tuesday”. The most common day for press releases to be released, going to war for business in the marketplace, is Tuesday.

You and I are wired for challenge! Tuesday is the day we have conquered our Monday and now we begin to gain momentum in our accomplishments for the week. You have 52 Tuesdays every year to express the rhythm of war as you cooperate with your design from God to be part of his rescue operation in our world!

2 Cor 10:4-5 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. NIV


DISCUSSION GUIDE FOR COMMUNITY GROUP LEADERS

Click here for a downloadable pdf file of this guide.

DISCUSSION:

    1.    How is prayer showing up in your daily life at the moment? 

    2.    Are there any rhythms or patterns you were able to set into motion this past week? 

Please make sure everybody in your group has the handout of the 7 days of prayer focus.

God is so conversational that he sent his son and described him as a word in Scripture. It is important that we work to develop conversational rhythms with God in prayer, reading the Bible and gathering to worship.

DISCUSSION:

    3.    Share something God has been revealing to you lately. This could be something you sense God has been speaking to you or perhaps something you’ve noticed as you’ve read your Bible lately.

    4.    As we read the following verses consider what stands out to you:

Luke 18:1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. NIV (Other translations say the following)

    •    ESV = men ought always to pray and not lose heart. 

    •    KJV = men ought always to pray, and not to faint. 

2 Cor 10:4-5 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. NIV

Make room here for people to share any thoughts they have on these verses. You may want to read them more than once as the conversation continues.

Conclude again this week by making time to pray. 

Consider inviting everybody to pray as they feel so led emphasizing the importance of practicing the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Again remember it is always good to have asked a few people in advance to prayerfully consider how they might lead out during this time.