Missiles against Prayer

Tuesday 26 September
READ: Matt. 4:1-11 
MORE LESSON:  I Cor. 2:11; Eph. 6:10-18.

Satan specializes in attacking good things. So the moment you decide to start an effective prayer life, expect satanic missiles aimed at making you to give up. In the temptation story the devil waited until the forty days and forty nights of fasting were over, and then he came against Jesus. Sure, the delay was a strategic decision.

The devil will not sit back and watch a believer or a church use prayer to destroy his work. He will go to any length to distract, discourage or stop a praying man. We must be conversant with his many wiles which include: making prayer time difficult, causing loneliness and total separation from God, which can be very overwhelming. He can bring memory of past sins to cause tiredness even after a lot of rest. Dryness, blockage or heaviness of the spirit, visitors or deep sleep are other wiles of the devil against prayer.

To conquer all these, you must learn to pray out loud. The Bible says that if you open your mouth wide, God will fill it. As for visitors at the time of prayer, just excuse yourself courteously, or take permission from them to observe your prayer hour. Smith Wigglesworth, the great apostle of faith, took a decision to pray every half an hour. Just then he had to travel and for over an hour he could not pray. Suddenly he remembered and began to shout at the driver to stop the car. Hurriedly the young man stopped, fearing something was wrong but only for Wigglesworth to announce, ‘But we have not prayed in the last one hour’. Of course he was right! 

When we forget to pray, something has gone wrong; so wrong that anything evil can happen. But while men slept, his enemy  came and sowed tares among the  wheat, and went his way: Matt. 13:25. Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Prov.6:8-9.

This generation must awake out of spiritual slumber; this is the call of heaven right now. There is too much slumber in this generation and until we awake to prayer, Satan will take advantage of us. Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy  city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean:  Isa. 52:1

Prayer/Action
* Destroy every weapon of Satan fashioned against your prayer life.
*Pray that each time you go to God in prayer you will stand in the righteousness of Jesus and no condemnation of the devil will weigh you down.
*Ask that there will be no distraction in your place and hour of prayer.

TODAY’S PROPHETIC PRAYER
Streams, streams in my desert today, in the mighty name of Jesus.