Prayer Is Our Weapon

Good morning, and welcome to day 9 of the 21 Days of Breakthrough Prayer. This is a devotional series that's being hosted by the leadership team of the Pentecostals of Murphysboro and LifeBridge churches. And this is the book that we're using to go through this series. My name is Jason saline, and I'm glad that you've joined us today, and I hope you've been enjoying this series of devotions.

You know, I want to start by just saying thanks to all of our staff and the leadership team, have done an excellent job so far on the first eight days of this series, and I know that the remaining days are going to be just as phenomenal. So I invite you to join us each day. And if you miss today, I encourage you to go back and catch up on the previous day's. Now today's lesson is entitled Prayer Is Our Weapon, and I want to start with a question: do you believe in ghosts? Well, I think most of us as adults would say no, you know, at least that's what we tell our kids at bedtime anyway. But in reality, as Christians, we most certainly believe in a spiritual realm. You know, the Bible tells us that God is a spirit, and we also understand that our spiritual enemy, Satan, is a fallen angel.

Now I don't pretend to be smart enough to understand and explain exactly how everything in the spiritual realm works, but I do know that prayer is a method, or an instrument, that God has given us to impact things in the spiritual world. So how does prayer work as a weapon in the spiritual world? Well, typically weapons are used in two ways. Number one, they can be used for self-defense. And number two, they can be used as tools to defeat an enemy in battle. Second Corinthians 10:4 35 tells us that the weapons of our warfare are not natural, and they're not man-made, and they're not carnal, but they're divine weapons for the pulling down of strongholds. And we're to use those weapons against anything that lifts itself up against the name of God. And in that, it also allows us to bring negative thoughts into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

You know, I find it very interesting that this scripture mentions the, the aspect of bringing negative thoughts in the captivity, because I feel like the biggest spiritual battle for most Christians is right here. It's in the space between our ears, yeah, in our minds. And that's why I think prayer, combined with the Word of God, can be used as a very effective defensive weapon. We all understand the concept that the Word of God is our spiritual sword, and it can be used as a discerner and a thoughts, of the thoughts and the intents of our heart. You know, I know for me personally, when I'm struggling with controlling my fleshly desires of my heart, or I feel that Satan is attacking me in my mind, then I find it best to pray things like, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord. Or maybe something like, the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?

You know, a sword just simply lying on a shelf provides no real protection. That's why prayer is the strong right arm of the spiritual warrior, and that it allows us to swing the promises and the truth of the word of God into action. You know, there's so many principles and truths that are found in the Word of God, and there's nothing more powerful than enabling those promises by praying the word. I liken it to an F-15 fighter jet that scrambles into action and quickly delivers bombs of Hope into the battles of depression or fear that we have going on in our minds. Other times prayer is like a C-130 cargo plane, and it carries blessings and spiritual nourishment into our hearts and our minds, just in time to save us from exhaustion, and give a strength to fight one more day.

Not only is prayer meant to be a defensive weapon, but scripture also tells us that the, they are mighty, even to the pulling down of strongholds. Prayer is mighty. Our weapons are mighty to pull him down in strongholds. Strongholds are enemy occupied territories. And I know that every one of us have friends or family or loved ones who are held captive in some type of enemy stronghold. Ian bounds is quoted in the book as saying, prayer is our most formidable weapon. It truly is an offensive, offensive weapon, and we should use it to influence this to world 4 through prayer. God can bring peace and deliverance and salvation to those in our families and our communities.

To confess, to continue this analogy of military weaponry, prayer is like an Apache helicopter that launches missiles of truth into the occupied territories where our loved ones are held captive by the enemy. Jesus said that he would build his church, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. Gates are used to keep people out of an occupied stronghold. Prayer is our, our offensive weapon, and dare I say, our Abrams tank, that allows us as Christians to crash through the gates of enemy occupied territory, and bring salvation and liberty to those around us who are held captive.

There's so much more that we could talk about on this subject today, but I hope I've given you some encouragement about the fact that prayer is our weapon. I challenge you today to pray offensively. And I ask, are you making an impact in the spiritual realm? You know, it's great that we've all been watching these devotions and posting nice comments and giving thumbs up in response. And you know, don't get me wrong, we love all those things. In fact, please continue to do those things, because I want to at least crack the top 10 and likes and views and shares, you know, when this thing is all over. But yeah, I'm realistic though. I know I'll never he'll do Bishop, or Sister Carla, because they're the best. But hey, there's nothing wrong with a little sanctified pride.

In all seriousness, I hope you're taking time to exercise the principles that we're learning from this series, and that you are actually praying. So to finish this off today, I'd like to do just that, and take a minute to pray with you. Jesus, I thank you today for the privilege of prayer, and for the fact that you provided me a way to not only communicate with you on a daily basis, but you also provide a method to influence the spiritual realm around me. I thank you for the path of Prayer that protects my mind from the attacks of the enemy. You know, tells me to engage the promises of your word, to bring encouragement and strengthened in my life when I need it most. God, I pray now for everyone under the sound of my voice that needs encouragement or strength to keep fighting for one more day. I also pray for anyone that needs deliverance from spiritual bondage. And I pray offensively, today, that you tear down strongholds of the enemy, and you bring peace and Liberty into someone's life. We ask these things in the name of Jesus, and we thank you for hearing our petitions today.

Thank you for joining me for the day nine of the 21 Days of Breakthrough Prayer, where our topic has been prayers our weapon. Be sure to join us again tomorrow at 7 a.m. for day 10, where the topic will be A Deeper Foundation. May God bless you today, and have a great week. Oh, and for those of you that are wondering, yes, you can't actually pray with your eyes open and still be spiritual. If you don't think so, then how did you know my eyes were open? And one more thing, for those of you that are just waiting around to watch the humor of me trying to figure out how to turn this thing off, well, I've got something for you by me: nobody gonna watch me make a fool of myself, now. Where's the button to turn this thing off?