In order for us to fight on God’s side against Satan, we need to persevere in prayer, make a deal with the Lord concerning our prayer life, set aside definite times for prayer, and remain in an atmosphere of prayer by continually exercising our spirit.
Amen, may we learn to pray, remain in an atmosphere of prayer, and stand on the Lord’s side until He returns!
As believers in Christ, we need to learn to persevere in prayer.
This means that we not only need to pray but persevere in prayer, that is, remain in prayer, continue in prayer, pray unceasingly, and remain in a daily attitude of prayer.
First, we need to let the peace of Christ rule in us, allowing it to preside in us, make peace in our hearts and in our environment, and keep us in the peace of Christ.
As we are ruled by the peace of Christ, we can let the word of Christ dwell in us richly.
When our heart is in a situation and condition of peace, it can welcome the word of Christ.
The word of Christ is Christ Himself as the living word of God.
We need to not only read the Bible but even more, exercise our spirit to read and pray over the word, and even sing and psalm the word of God so that the Lord as the word would dwell in us richly.
The word of God needs to inhabit us, make His home in us, and dwell in us richly.
For us to abide in the Lord, we need to let His word abide in us. May we learn to daily abide in the word of God and let the word of God abide in us!
When we allow the word of God to inhabit us, we can become a man of God filled with the breath of God! Amen!
The word of God is God’s breath, His breathing out; the way we should come to God’s word is to receive the divine breath.
This means that we need to exercise our spirit in coming to God’s word.
We need to exercise not only our eyes to read and our mind to understand but even more, our spirit to partake of the riches of Christ in His word.
By allowing the word of God to inhabit us, we can be a man of God filled with the breath of God so that we can be fully equipped with God’s word.
Finally, we need to persevere in prayer; we need to allow adequate time for prayer so that we may absorb the riches of Christ and enjoy Him.
If we rush our time with the Lord, we may get only a little of His riches, and this may not be enough to sustain us to live a life for the fulfillment of God’s purpose.
May we learn to meet the Lord in the morning by spending time with Him, even adequate time, allowing Him to speak to us, shine on us, infuse us, and saturate us with Himself.
When we come to Him, we come to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace for timely help.
To Fight on God’s Side against Satan, we need to Persevere in Prayer
There is a warfare going on not only in the air but also on earth; Satan attacks God and His interest, so he attacks us as those who love the Lord.
In order for us to stand on God’s side and fight against Satan, one with God, we need to persevere in prayer (Dan. 6:10).
There is a battle raging in the universe between God and Satan; we are the third party, and we need to choose to stand with God.
As God’s chosen and redeemed people, we decide the outcome of the battle. So we need to fight on God’s side against Satan by persevering in prayer.
We need not only to pray but also to persevere in prayer.
When we start praying, when we start to persevere in prayer, we will realize that the enemy is against us and tries to stop us from prayer.
To pray is to go against the trend in the fallen universe.
Persevering in prayer is like rowing the boat upstream; we row the boat against the tide of this age, and the enemy does not like it.
So we need a great deal of energy to persevere in prayer.
There’s a strong current in the world in opposition to the will of God.
If we do not persevere in prayer, it seems that everything is okay; when we start to persevere in prayer, however, the enemy comes in with all his might to distract us.
When we start to take sides with God, we find that the whole universe is against our prayer.
So we should be before the Lord concerning this, even make a deal with Him concerning our prayer life.
We need to realize that in ourselves we can’t persevere in prayer; we cannot be persistent in our prayer.
We may persevere for a week or a month, but we cannot do it continually.
We need to come to the Lord and tell Him that we mean business with Him concerning our prayer life.
We need to tell Him that we do not want to be prayerless persons, persons who do not persevere in prayer.
We may even call heaven and earth to witness that we want to be prayerful persons, persons who persevere in prayer to stand on God’s side.
We may even ask the Lord to remind us, even if we forget, that we should pray and persevere in prayer.
May the Lord work such desperation into us so that we may be before the Lord and offer ourselves to have a prayer life and persevere in prayer.
We need to ask the Lord to remind us to pray; though we may forget to pray, we need to ask Him to remind us.
We may even make a vow before the Lord concerning our prayer life, for we are desperate to persevere in prayer and we believe this is from the Lord, so we ask Him to be with us in this matter.
After we make such a deal with the Lord concerning our prayer life, we should set aside definite times for prayer.
We shouldn’t just wait for the Lord to supernaturally remind us from heaven to pray; we should set definite times for prayer, and be before the Lord concerning this.
Our prayer is the most important business. There’s nothing that is more important than our prayer, so we cannot allow anything to interfere with our prayer life.
Our attitude should be that our time of prayer with the Lord is the most important, and we cannot let anything interfere with it.
For the sake of practicality, we may set some time of prayer in the morning, some time at noon after work, and some time in the evening.
We need to be practical before the Lord and give ourselves to have set times of prayer with Him.
In this way, we will build up a habit of prayer, and we will have definite times of prayer before Him, thus persevering in prayer and standing on the Lord’s side.
Lord Jesus, we mean business with You concerning the matter of prayer. We call heaven and earth to witness that from this time forth, we will have a prayer life. Oh Lord, we will not be prayerless people. We want to be praying persons. We are desperate about this. We offer ourselves to You so that we may have a prayer life and persevere in prayer. Oh Lord, keep us in a spirit of prayer. Even if we forget about praying, please remind us. You will not forget about prayer, Lord, so we ask You: remind us to pray. We do not promise that we will pray all day: we just want to make a deal with You concerning our prayer life. Amen, Lord, we want to persevere in prayer. We want to do this together with You. We give You our set times of prayer. Remind us to pray. Help us build a habit of prayer.
Remain in an Atmosphere of Prayer by Continually Exercising our Spirit and Praying Without Ceasing
May the Lord have mercy on us so that we may pick up, build up, and maintain a habit of persevering in prayer.
We need to not only pray but persevere in prayer, and we need to not only persevere in prayer as a habit but remain in an atmosphere of prayer in our daily life.
It is good to start praying and stand on the Lord’s side, and it is even better to make a deal with the Lord concerning our prayer life.
The best, however, is to live in an atmosphere of prayer.
This is what the Lord Jesus did; He did not only had a habit of prayer, having set times of prayer with the Father, but He lived in an atmosphere of prayer.
The Lord Jesus had set times of going to the mountain, retreating from all men, to just spend time with the Father.
He spent many a night in prayer with the Father, and His disciples knew that He was there with God, in prayer, in a deserted place.
However, even throughout the day, the Lord was in an atmosphere of prayer.
Many times the Lord did not just speak but “Jesus answered and said.” Nobody seemed to ask Him anything, but He answered and said, especially toward the Father.
This means that He was in a continual atmosphere of prayer, always contacting the Father, depending on the Father, and checking with the Father.
We need to follow the Lord’s pattern in this matter.
First, we need to build up a habit of prayer, even have a prayer life with many set times of prayer so that we may stand on God’s side and against the enemy.
Even more, we need to remain in an atmosphere of prayer by continually exercising our spirit so that we may pray without ceasing.
If we want to enjoy Christ, experience Christ, and live Christ, we need to remain in an atmosphere of prayer.
By remaining in an atmosphere of prayer, we are brought into the spirit, and we are one with the Lord, taking Him as our life.
Calling on the name of the Lord is the most simple and enjoyable way of praying, but we need to have many kinds of prayer, even remain in an atmosphere of prayer (Eph. 6:18; 1 Pet. 4:7; 2 Tim. 1:7; Col. 1:3, 9).
When we pray, we contact the Lord and are one with Him.
When we pray, we live Christ. When we pray, we live in oneness with the Lord.
Unfortunately, we all have to testify that, in our experience, many times after a sweet time of prayer with the Lord, we came out of the Lord’s presence and were tempted to lose our temper.
We may remain in spirit and were one with the Lord in our time of prayer with Him, but after that, most of the time we would revert to our natural way of living.
Because we do not remain in an atmosphere of prayer, when we finish our time of prayer, we many times leave the Lord’s presence. Oh Lord!
And when we’re apart from the Lord, we keep trying to be holy, spiritual, or victorious. So we fail again and again, then repent to the Lord, and try to resolve to do better.
May we realize that the way for us to experience and live Christ is to remain in an atmosphere of prayer, praying at every time in spirit.
May we give ourselves to the Lord not only to pray but to remain in an atmosphere of prayer.
May we ask the Lord to teach us to remain in our spirit by praying unceasingly.
May we realize that, when we pray ourselves into the spirit and remain here, in an atmosphere of prayer, we live Christ and experience Him (1 Thes. 5:17; Matt. 16:41; Col. 2:19).
May we drop our efforts and simply remain in an atmosphere of prayer, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this with all perseverance.
The way we remain in an atmosphere of prayer is by continually exercising our spirit. As we do this and that, we simply exercise our spirit.
As we do our shopping, go jogging, do our chores, go to bed, and wake up in the morning, we need to exercise our spirit.
We need to pray without ceasing, to persevere in prayer, keeping ourselves intimately connected to the Lord.
Even in the smallest details, we need to enquire of the Lord; we should not consider something being too small to check with the Lord about.
To check with the Lord in all things, being in an atmosphere of prayer is to persevere in prayer and thereby to live Christ (Josh. 9:14; Phil. 4:7-8).
Lord Jesus, we love You. We love to spend time with You. We want to build up a habit of persevering in prayer, having set times for prayer throughout the day. Amen, Lord, teach us to pray and keep us in prayer before You. We want to remain in an atmosphere of prayer by continually exercising our spirit. Dear Lord Jesus, we love to remain in touch with You throughout the day by exercising our spirit. We want to keep ourselves intimately connected to the Lord. Keep us in contact with You. Keep us inquiring of You even in the smallest details of our daily life. Oh Lord, we want to persevere in prayer day by day, praying unceasingly, so that we may experience Christ and live Christ! Amen, Lord, may our daily life with all its activities be lived in an atmosphere of prayer, always checking with the Lord concerning all things!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Colossians, pp. 579-580, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing, Experiencing, and Living the All-inclusive Christ for the Genuine Church Life (2023 spring ITERO), week 6, entitled, Allowing the Peace of Christ to Arbitrate in Our Hearts, Letting the Word of Christ Dwell in Us Richly, and Persevering in Prayer for the Genuine Church Life.
- Hymns on this topic:
– I must tell Jesus all of my trials; / I cannot bear these burdens alone; / In my distress He kindly will help me; / He ever loves and cares for His own. / I must tell Jesus! I must tell Jesus! / I cannot bear my burdens alone; / I must tell Jesus! I must tell Jesus! / Jesus can help me, Jesus alone. (Hymns #787 stanza 1 and chorus)
– E’en as the priests the incense burned, / In prayer to Thee I persevere; / As incense Thou the Spirit art / Mixed with the prayer I offer here. (Hymns #813 stanza 6)
– Lord, I would linger here, / Still seeking after Thee, / Continue in the Word and prayer / Till Thou dost flow thru me. (Hymns #812 stanza 5)
