Prayer: The Spiritual Side

The very nature of prayer—the fact that it involves speaking to someone whom you cannot see but whom you believe has supernatural powers beyond your own—implicates a dimension that is spiritual rather than physical. We believe that our prayers have some sort of power and meaning, right? Or else we wouldn’t take the time to say them. They don’t just float around aimlessly (even though we may sometimes feel like they do!), but they reach the presence of the Most High God and Creator of the Universe. Still, how much and what kind of power do our prayers possess? In the spiritual realm, what role does praying have? And, specifically, what happens—or can happen—when we pray?

All throughout the Bible we see examples of God’s power unleashed when someone prayed for something particular to happen. Because God’s power is stronger than the power of any other force—including our own flesh, the devil, nature, and sickness or disability—when God chooses to work on our behalf, we enjoy the benefits of His strength and authority. When our prayers match up with God’s will and we have complete faith in His ability to answer our prayers and act on them, we find that our prayers can be really quite powerful. It’s because of God’s power and authority that our prayers have any impact though; we have to understand that. It’s not us; it’s God. Now, we can’t expect God’s power to work through our prayers unless we are familiar with Him and we truly seek His will and not our own. We can’t just pray for anything at any time and expect something spectacular to happen. But we can be assured that God backs up our prayers with His own power and authority when we pray in His name and according to His perfect will. Just the name of Jesus holds power and authority in the spiritual realm, but when He directs His power to accomplish something specific, nothing else can stand in His way—not for long anyway!

Life is full of spiritual battles, especially if you’re a Christian who is faithfully working for the kingdom of God. But through prayer we can be equipped for those battles. Paul mentioned the importance of prayer in the same section as he spoke about the armor of God in Ephesians chapter 6. Though he didn’t name a specific piece of armor to represent prayer, Paul did advise us to “pray in the spirit on all occasions,” which shows the importance of praying constantly in order to prepare ourselves to stand against the “devil’s schemes.” No, our prayers will not save us or protect us; our prayers will not win the battles for us, no matter how hard we pray or how much faith we have in our prayers. But God, who answers our prayers, has the power to heal us, protect us, save us, and sustain us. We can pray in the spirit and know that God will take care of us; we can know that He will fight the battle with us and for us, and we can know that He will give us strength to fight when we pray.

Through prayer we also have the authority and strength to resist and overcome the devil and our own flesh when we’re tempted to do things that are unpleasing to God. When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, He confronted His temptation to not carry out God’s plan of salvation. Though the Bible only tells us that Jesus asked for another way but then yielded to God’s perfect plan when no other way was provided, we have to realize that a spiritual battle was taking place as He prayed. Luke tells us that Jesus’ sweat was like drops of blood—that’s how much Jesus struggled within Himself to make the right choice. Luke also tells us that an angel of the Lord came and strengthened Jesus as He prayed. Now, if Jesus had not prayed that prayer, I don’t know what would have happened. But because He did, because He faced His temptation and boldly declared that He wanted God’s will to be done no matter what, and because He fought the spiritual battle with prayer instead of just ignoring it, He received strength to follow through with His resolution.

At the same time and not too far from where Jesus prayed, His three closest disciples, Peter and James and John, slept when they were supposed to be praying. Three times Jesus came back and told them to watch and pray so they wouldn’t fall into temptation, but they kept falling back asleep. Jesus persisted and prayed and He received strength, and Peter and James and John didn’t. But, you see, they might have been able to resist temptation if they had prayed too. What about you? Do you think that you’d be able to resist temptation more if you were to pray more often and especially during the times when you’ve found yourself in need of extra strength? Jesus gave us an example to follow when He prayed through His temptation and emerged victorious from the spiritual battle He’d been fighting.

So, next time you pray, I challenge you to really think about the words you say. Think about the effects that your words may have in the spiritual realm, and especially I challenge you to think about the awesome power of God and the authority He has to work through your prayers to accomplish really great things. Praying is a spiritual action any way you look at it because when you pray you enter the spiritual realm and talk to the most powerful being in existence: the God of the universe, whom you cannot see with physical eyes but whose authority you recognize with your spiritual eyes.

-HK



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