NEIL ANDERSON DAILY DEVOTIONAL
from Freedom in Christ Ministries

January 12

With All Prayer And Petition

With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit,
and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and
petition for all the saints (Ephesians 6:18).

The mother of one of my seminary students was a psychic. She said
to him once, “Jim, have you been praying for me?” “Of course I
have, Mother.” “Well, don’t,” she insisted, “because you’re
disturbing my aura.”

I say pray on! We never know completely the effects of our
prayers, but we do know that God includes prayer as part of His
strategy for establishing His kingdom and ensuring our spiritual
victory.

One of the most dramatic deliverances I have observed happened in
a man who was a high priest in the upper echelons of Satanism.
Six months after he was set free he gave his testimony in our
church. At the close of his testimony I asked him, “Based on your
experience on ‘the other side,’ what is the Christian’s greatest
strategy against demonic influence?”

“Prayer,” he answered forcefully. “And when you pray, mean it.
Fervent prayer thwarts Satan’s activity like nothing else.”

What is prayer? It is communication with God by which we express
our dependence on Him. God knows what we need in our battle with
the powers of darkness, and He is more ready to meet our needs
than we are to ask. But until we express our dependence on Him in
prayer, God may not act. In prayer we say, “You are the Lord, not
I. You know what’s best; I don’t. I’m not telling You what to do;
I’m asking.” Prayer is a means by which God guides and protects
His children.

Praying in the Spirit is God’s way of helping us pray when we
don’t know how: “The Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do
not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself
intercedes for us” (Romans 8:26). Helps (sunantilambano) depicts
the Holy Spirit’s role of coming alongside us in our condition of
human frailty and spiritual vulnerability and bearing us to the
other side of spiritual protection and victory.

Thank You, Lord, that prayer is such a powerful weapon in my
arsenal against the powers of darkness.

This daily devotional is published and distributed by
http://www.GOSHEN.net/ . It is written by Neil Anderson at
http://www.freedominchrist.com/ .