Before going on to our next verse in this study, it would be appropriate to briefly look at the way some of the issues concerning spiritual warfare and the armor of God are being widely misunderstood. I personally did not feel these issues were so crucial until I had the visions that I wrote about in The Final Quest where I saw the army of God. In this vision only a few members of this army had on their armor, and many of them would only have on a single piece or two. The result was that they were easily defeated by the enemy. Since then I have seen the truth of this and the resulting devastation in many lives.

I have run into an amazing number of believers who have not only neglected the armor of God, but have formulated doctrines that they hold to, and in some cases even teach, that those who have enough faith do not need this armor. Some have even declared that those who take on the armor of God are immature in their faith. Certainly faith is a shield, and it may seem if we have a big enough shield that we would not need any other armor. However, taking on the “full armor of God” must be important, or the Lord would not have emphasized this. The fact is that we are still immature and foolish to be so easily swayed by such teachings that are in clear contradiction to the Scriptures. Those who are so easily fooled by such unbiblical teaching inevitably become the spiritual casualties that are strewn across the landscape of Christianity at this time.

One of the reasons for this in-depth, verse by verse study of Ephesians is to try to stimulate a deeper devotion to the Scriptures, and a desire for us to sink our roots deeper and deeper into sound, biblical doctrine. A primary root of the meltdown of morality, light, and power within the church has been a tendency throughout the body of Christ to drift from the clear mandates of Scripture, and start holding to beliefs that are based more on someone’s opinions. These often come in the cloak of a super-spiritual idealism, which in itself should set off alarms in us.

I have also heard other believers say that they do not need to emphasize the armor of God because God is their Shepherd and He will protect them. God does protect us with the armor that He provided for us! Of course He protects us much more than that too, but to foolishly disregard such clear biblical instructions is a little more than just foolishness—it is a symptom of the same kind of rebellion that led to the first sin in the garden. Idealism is a form of rebellion. Regardless of how subtle it may be, it is actually saying that we know better than God, or have a higher wisdom than His Word. As incredible as that may seem, our fallen nature will continually try to challenge God in this way.

We can absolutely count on the protection of God from any power of the evil one as long as we walk in obedience. Some think that this puts the responsibility for protection back on themselves and that is true, at least to a degree. Every promise of God has conditions. We see repeatedly in the Old Testament how the Lord promised Israel great blessing, prosperity, and protection, for as long as they served Him according to His statutes. He then repeatedly warned them of what would happen if they failed to keep their part of the covenant. We also see this repeated in the New Testament. If we put on the armor that God has provided for us, we can resist the devil and quench the fiery darts he throws at us. If we do not put on the armor, we can count on those shots hitting us.

The foolish believers who suffer wounding by the devil because of their own idealism or rebellion will almost inevitably then blame God, the church, or almost anyone but themselves. In Romans 1:5 and 16:26, we see the phrase “obedience of faith.” True faith is fundamentally a commitment to obey God’s instructions. Faith that is evidenced by obedience is a shield and none of the fiery darts the enemy sends will be able to penetrate it.

The armor is crucial or it would not have been given to us. However, greater than the entire armor is our access to come boldly before the throne of God to seek the grace that we need. This is not only the ultimate privilege, it is also the ultimate responsibility as priests that we are all called to be in the New Covenant.

As we see in our verse for this week, after Paul highlights the importance of each piece of the armor of God, he then directs us to use the greatest weapon of all—prayer! This we read in Ephesians 6:18:

As we covered previously, the main reason why we must ask, even though the Lord already knows what we need, is found in Psalm 115:16: “The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth He has given to the sons of men.” The Lord has delegated His authority on the earth to men. He will therefore not intervene on the earth unless we ask Him. The reverse of this is one of the greatest and most important truths of all—if we ask Him, He will intervene on our behalf! God answers prayer. There is no greater weapon that we could ever have than our ability to go before the very throne of God anytime we want and find the grace that we need.

Some of the great books of our time, and of all time, have been written on this subject—prayer. However, many Christians become frustrated in their prayer life and drift from using this most powerful weapon, and possibly our greatest privilege. Remember that one of the enemy’s most basic strategies against the church is to “wear out the saints.” Believe it or not, one of the enemy’s main strategies to keep you from praying is to wear you out in prayer by having you pray too much. The devil will try to make you feel guilty because you are not praying at least an hour each day, or even more, when the Lord may have only called you to spend five minutes in prayer each day. Let me explain.

First, I think it is certainly noble to want to pray for an hour each day, and I will even agree that this would be good for every believer. However, if you try to get there too fast you will probably fail, and may even drift from prayer altogether. If you will start with trying to be faithful to pray just five minutes each day, you will soon start to love prayer. Then you will find yourself automatically going ten minutes, and then twenty... Soon you will be so addicted to prayer and the presence of the Lord that your whole life will begin to revolve around trying to find time to get away and pray.

It is also good to pray for specific things. You may even want to keep a prayer journal of the things that you are praying for, and leave room for logging when the prayers are answered. The encouragement of this will help you greatly. If you are having any kind of trouble with prayer, ask the Holy Spirit to help you pray (which is one of His jobs), and you will be amazed at how He will do this.

We must keep in mind that even though prayer is a responsibility given to every priest, which we all are called to be, it is not a burden, but a privilege. If you are watching the clock and can’t wait to get it over with, back off! You are trying to do too much, too fast. No one is ever glad that their conversation is over with the one they love. Somehow your conversation has turned into just a religious ritual if you can’t wait for the time to be up. Return to your first love. Do not give up on prayer, but do it out of love, taking small but steady steps toward maturity in it.

Above all things we must keep in mind that prayer itself is not the goal—but rather a part of seeing His kingdom come to earth and His will being done on the earth. Prayer is a means to draw near to Him. Our goal should be to become so unified with Him that we are always praying according to His will. Then we know that the prayers will be answered. This takes maturity, but in all things we should be growing and maturing. If our prayer life is not maturing, then we are almost certainly caught in a dead religious exercise at best. Our goal should be to grow in our relationship to the Lord, and in our faith in Him, until all of our prayers get answered.

Prayer is our most powerful weapon because prayer can move God. Are your prayers moving Him? If not, find the answer to this ultimate question. Nothing may change your life more.

In my studies of history, it is apparent that every great man or woman of God who had a true impact on their generation was profoundly devoted to prayer. With most it was the central devotion of their life. In contrast to this, recent studies of the American church revealed that the average pastor spends less than five minutes a day in prayer. This is obviously the reason for much of the weakness and lukewarmness of so many churches today. If this just doubled to where every pastor in America began to spend just ten minutes a day in prayer, we would probably see a radical change in American Christianity. When prayer again takes its rightful place in the life of the body of Christ, we will become an irresistible force.

There are numerous great books on prayer available. I would encourage you to read a book on prayer regularly. Just as the Lord sent fire from heaven to ignite the fire on the altar of burnt offering, but then commanded the priests to keep it going, when He ignites a fire in our lives He expects us to keep it going. Get with other believers who are committed to prayer. Go to prayer meetings where there is a true fire burning, and determine that you are going to be one who adds to the fire. The main one who will benefit from this will be you and the ones that you love.