The Power of Prayer

Our enemies are always vicious and determined to destroy us. They will try to devalue our strength and magnify our insecurities until they dominate how we see ourselves, disabling and disarming us from fighting back, from being free, from being who God has created us to be. They work hard to ensure that we never realize what God has given us so we will doubt the power of God within us.

The enemy wants us to suffer from a case of mistaken identity.  This Makes his job a whole lot easier, and makes our defenses a lot weaker. Our enemy who is the devil is working overtime to keep  our identity masked, to keep the truth from coming out—that we are indeed alive and free and empowered by God’s own Spirit to fight victoriously against him. He’d rather conspire to keep us in a constant state of mourning, grieving over who we wish we were, instead of relishing who we really are, exacerbated by insecurity and crippled by self-doubt.

That’s why the enemy doesn’t want us praying—not fervently— because fervent prayer keeps our true identity in focus. Reminds us of who we really are and taps into the power we really have in Christ. This authentic identity is possibly quite a bit different from the one we perceive when we look at ourselves in the mirror each day, or when we  are fidgeting through an awkward social encounter, or when we are sizing ourselves up against the well- dressed accomplishments of other friends, other church members, even (and we know it’s true) even total strangers.

It’s also not the identity our enemy wants in our heads when he’s moving strategically against us, when he’s maneuvering himself into attack position. He wants us lifeless, disengaged, brainwashed into believing we have nothing of value to offer.

That’s why the devil doesn’t want our nose in the Word or our knees on the hardwood. Because that’s where the light comes on. That’s where we find out the good news, perhaps the surprisingly euphoric news—that we are alive, fully equipped to stand firm against him. “Formerly darkness,” the Bible says, yes. Formerly. At one time. But now “Light in the Lord” . . . “children of Light” . . . able through Christ to produce “the fruit of the Light” (Eph. 5:8–9).

That’s why Paul, in his colossal letter to the Ephesians, came roaring out of the starting gate with one reminder after another of the spiritual blessings we’ve been given, purely as the result of Christ’s love toward us, commensurate with the enormous value He’s placed on us. I almost hesitate to list them for fear you’ll skim over them, feeling all too familiar with them, knowing them already. But I’m asking you to soak them into your soul. Let Paul’s identity sketch from Ephesians 1 embed itself into the floorboard of your deepest insecurities.

You are:

• equipped through Christ with “every spiritual blessing” (v. 3)
• chosen in Him “before the foundation of the world” (v. 4)
• regarded as “holy and blameless before Him” (v. 4)
• adopted through the “kind intention of His will” (v. 5)
• redeemed and forgiven, “lavished” with grace (vv. 7–8)
• recipients of a glorious “inheritance” in heaven (v. 11)
• secured forever by “the Holy Spirit of promise” (vv. 13–14)