The Word of God is the foundation of prayer. Without the Word of God, we can have no faith to pray and ask God for anything. You can’t get out of the boundaries of God’s Word and pray anything that you want and expect it to come to pass. You have to have the foundation of God’s Word. Of course, there are some things that the Word of God does not cover. There are some things that go beyond the Word of God. That’s when the Holy Ghost takes over. The Word of God covers God’s will in general. But it’s the Holy Ghost that will lead us into the specifics of God’s will for our life. And if you have been born again, then you have the Holy Ghost living inside of you.
And He will lead you and guide you not only in the affairs of life, but He will lead you and guide you in your prayer life also. And everything that He will lead you in and guide you in will be in line with the Word of God.
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. – Ephesians 6:10-12
Notice here in Ephesians 6:12 that we wrestle not against flesh and blood. Our problem sometimes, me included, is that sometimes we are looking at people. And people are not the problem. Some things will never change unless you first pray it out in the realm of the spirit, and then walk it out in the natural realm.
I have been in situations where I’ve tried to change things, tried to change this and change that and finally I go into prayer and find out that it’s not a person but it’s a spirit behind the person. So we must understand first, that there are some things that cannot be changed in the natural. They must be changed through prayer. And human beings are not necessarily our problem. I’m not saying that you can’t have a problem with a human being, but the number one human being that you are going to have a problem with is yourself. That’s the human being you’re going to wrestle with more than any other human being on this planet.
Notice in verse 12 that it says that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but we do wrestle. There is opposition. That’s what wrestle means – it means an opposition. We have opposition from the spiritual realm, from the spirits of darkness. But we don’t wrestle by ourselves. That’s what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 6:10.
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. – Ephesians 6:10
Put on the whole armor of God. You can’t do this by yourself. You need God’s help in dealing with situations that have spirits as the problem. In fact, you need God’s help – period. That’s what the armor of God is. It’s our help, and we need to put every piece of it to work for us if we are going to be victorious, victorious in prayer. That is what Paul is talking about here – prayer. Look at verse 18 –“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit…”
Now verse 18 doesn’t say praying sometimes, it doesn’t say praying every Sunday, or praying every now and then, or praying when granny dies, or when daddy is sitting there sick. Now those are all good times to pray, but that’s not what Paul says. He says praying always. We can have a spirit of prayer about us all the time. That doesn’t mean we are to be kneeling down 24 hours a day, or praying around people that would have no clue what we’re doing. But when you go out shopping, or you’re at home cleaning the house, when you’re driving to work you can be praying. It’s about having an attitude of prayer. You don’t go around acting like a nut and praying over everything and everyone, but you can have a spirit of prayer about you as you go throughout your day. That is what Paul is talking about when he says “praying always.”