(2 Corinthians 10:4) tells us: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.” My friends as Christians, while we are victorious in Christ and secure in our salvation, we are still faced every day with spiritual warfare with our arch enemy – Satan. While he is a defeated foe, he will battle us each day to try to steal our peace and joy and keep the vast majority of humanity separated from knowing Jesus. And while going to church, participating in ministry, and reading our Bible are all valuable, I believe our greatest weapon that we can wield again him is prayer.
J. C. Ryle is spot on when he said: “Prayer is the mightiest weapon that God has placed in our hands. It is the best weapon to use in every difficulty, and the surest remedy in every trouble. It is the key that unlocks the treasury of promises, and the hand that draws forth grace and help in time of need. It is the silver trumpet that God commands us to sound in all our necessity, and it is the cry He has promised always to listen to, just as a loving mother listens attentively to the voice of her child.”1
While the devil may enter the door of our home, he is often stopped cold from entering the door of our prayer closet. For you see when we spend quality time in prayer, we invoke the name of Jesus to do our bidding – and His power is limitless.
As we study the lives of men like Moses and Paul, and George Müller and Hudson Taylor, we see how they, through prayer, were able to obtain incredible victories over seemingly impossible situations. While I don’t fully understand how prayer works I know that it does and it is often our only way to obtain peace, see souls saved, and overcome the most difficult challenges in life.
Just how powerful is prayer can be seen when we persistently pray for the salvation of loved ones. While I believe that apologetics is a powerful ministry that God can use to strengthen the faith of a believer, it is often ineffective in convincing many non-believers of the veracity of Christianity. And the reason is simple. Since all non-believers are dead in their sins, and incapable of coming back to life on their own, prayer is needed to take the powerful arguments of apologetics and apply them to the heart of man. I am a firm believer that persistent prayer and good apologetic arguments are a powerful ministry to the unsaved.
May I challenge you, as I do myself, to spend more time in prayer. For as J. C. Ryle said: “It is the key that unlocks the treasury of promises, and the hand that draws forth grace and help in time of need.”
1 Prayer is the mightiest weapon that God has placed in our hands. It is the best weapon to use in every difficulty, and the surest remedy in every trouble. It is the key that unlocks the treasury of promises, and the hand that draws forth grace and help in time of need. It is the silver trumpet that God commands us to sound in all our necessity, and it is the cry He has promised always to listen to, just as a loving mother listens attentively to the voice of her child. – Grace Quotes