Our reason to pray this week is drawn from the previous two reasons. We have seen that true believers are engaged in an intense conflict against very powerful spiritual forces. However, God has given them armor in which they can stand up to the enemy, defending themselves against attack and pressing home the offense to demolish his fortresses. That armor is made powerful and effective only through God's grace, given in answer to prayer. We have further seen that Satan understands the power of prayer so well that in effect he trembles when he sees the weakest saint praying - knowing that this Christian will be harder to defeat on the one hand and a more potent threat to his own kingdom on the other.
So the question this week, in the light of these things, is this. What about the believer who does not pray even though they are conscious of these things? What is such a person like? One answer is that they are like soldiers on the battle field who lay down their weapons and concede defeat to the enemy. There is no truce to be had in this war - we will either win or lose its battles, and we can only win by God's grace. The moment we lay down our weapons, only one outcome is possible - we will lose the battle we are in, Satan will triumph and the name of Christ will be dishonored.
To use a contemporary analogy, such believers are like Iron Man, facing up to his deadliest enemy, but with no arc reactor (which keeps him alive and powers his armor) in his chest. Unless he can get that power restored, his armor will not work and he will surely lose the battle.
When God tells us that our armor is only made effective through prayer, why would we take our place, prayerless, on the battle field? Are we confident of our own abilities to fight without God's special weapons? Or have we forgotten, perhaps, that we are in this battle, that it is our struggle because it is Jesus' struggle too? Either way, we can do nothing to advance our Savior's cause in this conflict if we cannot fight - and we cannot fight without the special weapons, and the special weapons do not function effectively unless we pray and God answers by pouring His Spirit upon us.
So let's renew our determination to take up our arms and fight for the sake of our Savior, and to prove Him true to His word - that these weapons, (made powerful through the Holy Spirit given in answer to prayer), can indeed keep us safe from harm and make us powerful to inflict damage on the forces of spiritual darkness and on the kingdom of their ruler.
