There are so many powerful scriptures in the Bible of which we use to live day by day.  We use Psalm 23 whenever we need a reminder of God’s true protection for us; we also use it during funerals for hope.  We claim great scriptures like Philippians 4:19 which tell us that God will meet all of our needs according to His glorious riches.  These are two texts that are powerful and that we use for comfort and guidance.  There is another text that   we often use that has great power.  We find it in Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10-18.  There we are invited to put on the full armor of God; armor such as the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the gospel of peace worn on our feet,  the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and finally the sword of the Spirit.  What a great and powerful equipping promise we find in Ephesians 6:10-17.  Often though we read this text and stop at verse 17 missing the ignition for this great power that come from God so lets read verse 18 which reads, “And we pray on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.  With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” 

            Ephesians 6:10-18 has power, it is a heart busting bomb, but it is truly powerless; the full armor of God is just a prop used in a church play if it does not come equipped with prayer.  It is so easy to reap the benefit without the work, it is so easy to look at the picture and forget the strokes that were required in order for the picture to take form, prayer is the strokes that completes the picture of our relationship with God; a relationship that is explosive with unlimited power and blessing.  I would like to take Ephesians 6:20-28 and mine from it the method of using this power that it mentions from prayer.

            We see that in our text in Ephesians, there are three dimensions of prayer that can be seen.  The first dimension we see in Verse 6:12.  It reads, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and against authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”  Here we read that there are things that we cannot see, and unlike the famous saying; what we cannot see can hurt us, so the first dimension of prayer is that it has an unknown dimension, in other words that prayer deals with what we do not see.  We know that there is a cosmic battle over our hearts and souls.  There is a battle for our allegiance and it is happening everywhere.  How can we be aware of this battle let alone survive it? With prayer of course.  Prayer takes us to our unseen mediator who in turn intercedes for us in miraculous ways.  Knowing this my friend, it is just too risky not to pray. 

            While this first dimension of prayer deals with the unseen that can hurt us, it also deals with the great things that God does for us in mystery.  Let’s read together Romans 8:26.  It reads, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not now what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”  The Holy Spirit helps us with what we need help and cannot do for ourselves.  During Christmas the holiday Clari and I went to visit our family in Florida where we had a wonderful time with Clari’s niece who just turned six months.  Let me just tell you that everyone is in love with this child, she is quite adorable.  But as adorable as she may be, she cannot do anything for herself.  If you leave her on the bed, you have to watch over her because she may fall off and get hurt.  If something smells a little off, then it could be the poor baby that just soiled herself.  If she is hungry, it’s not like she can get up, open the fridge and make herself a turkey sandwich, babies are dependent.  More than dependent, babies do not know that at times they are in need so the parent must fill in that roll.   To me that is amazing, how one human being can understand what another human being needs when that human being cannot even communicate it.  Such is our relationship as is promised in Romans 6:26 by the Holy Spirit.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit of God does.  This aspect of the unknown dimension of prayer informs us that prayer is powerful because through it God meets all our needs, even the ones that we do not know that we have.  Incredible! 

            Prayer has an unknown dimension because it deals with a power that is outside of us.  This brings us to the second dimension of prayer that we see here in Ephesians 6:10-18.  This dimension we see in verses11 and 13.  Lets read it.  “Put on the full armor of  God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes….  Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything to stand…”  Whose armor are we to put on?  The armor of God of course, when we pray, we pray not for anything that is of or from us, but we pray for what comes from outside of us.  So the second dimension of prayer is that prayer has a foreign dimension. 

            I cannot pray and depend on my own will, I cannot pray and expect to heal myself or change my own character let alone change the character of others.  When we pray we expel our opinions and embrace God’s, when we pray we undo our patience and adopt God’s patience.  When we pray our truth fades and God’s truth takes the lead, when we pray our broken promises are replaced with God’s unbroken promises.  My friend, prayer is beyond us, it is dependence on a power outside of ourselves, for we cannot have a jot or a tittle to do with our own lives. 

            The foreign dimension of prayer also reminds us that when we come to God in prayer, we are in the place to receive a transfiguration experience.  Remember what Jesus went to do in  Luke 9:28,29 with Peter James and John? Luke 9:28 tells us that they went to the mountain to pray.  The story takes a drastic turn when this usually quite time became a transfiguration.  We are told that Moses and Elijah came to Jesus and had a talk with Him, a talk of encouragement and affirmation which reconfirmed in Jesus’ heart what He was to do at Calvary.  Can you imagine such an experience in your own life? Do you think it is possible to be ministered unto in such a way? Notice that before this great event happened, Jesus who came to be like us, (Hebrews 4:14) was simply praying.  If Jesus prayed and received great blessing and encouragement, why could that not happen to us? Of course it will, God cannot wait to bestow His blessings upon us, He says, “If my people pray” (2^nd Chronicles 7:14) this to me sounds like an invitation to reach beyond ourselves and grab hold to God’s raw and unadulterated power.

            While the first dimension of prayer mentioned in Ephesians 6:10-18 is the unknown dimension which reminds us to grab hold to the unseen power of God, and while the second dimension of prayer reminds us that prayer connects us to a power that is beyond our feeble limitations, the third dimension of prayer is the preverbal marriage that occurs every time we open our hearts to God in Prayer.  Our last dimension is that prayer is an intimate union with God. 

            Prayer brings us face to face with God.  Face to face with God is what we have been trying to do since the fall of man which caused such a great separation.  Prayer is like the miracle that brings together two lovers that have longed for so long to see each other.  The essence of prayer is the entrance into the throne-room of the Most High and we are told that we can come boldly, (Hebrews 4:15) and find grace in a time of need.  I don’t know about you, but to me this means that in prayer our relationship with God finds it’s completion.  We read in the book Councils For the Church Page 294 that “Prayer is the most holy exercise of the soul.  It should be sincere, humble, earnest-the desires of a renewed heart breathed in the presence of a Holy God.”  I long my friend to breathe my sighs of pain and suffering; my sighs of spiritual exhaustion in the presence of God so that He may take me and hold me in His righteous right arm.  God through Jesus Christ waits for us to enter into His presence by prayer daily so that we can dwell with Him, even if it is for a minute.  That is what prayer does for us, it reverses the effects of the fall and seems to dip our hearts in the river of life and sprinkle some of the juice of the fruits of the tree of life onto our tongue so that we can have a taste of what is promised to us.  That is prayer. 

            The intimate dimension of prayer is also an invitation to enter not alone, but together with our brothers and sisters as a church.  We are invited as where the disciples in Acts 1:14 to pray together, for prayer also creates corporate intimacy.   This corporate intimacy is what brought about the coming of the comforter in Acts chapter 2.  Do you see why it is so important as a Christian church to pray? Without prayer, our churches are just a conglomeration of people and not the body of Christ.  It is not body of Christ because it is not connected to Him; we cannot be the body of Christ because many of us seem to be divided.  Remember that a body without arms and lets is not much of a body.

            I invite you today my friend to pray with passion.  I believe that we do not pray enough, and with intensity.  I believe that we are playing church yet lack the power that makes a church relevant which is prayer.  I would like to invite you to enter into a personal campaign of prayer.  The Lord in Isaiah 1:18 invites us to reason together.   To me that sounds like an open invitation to enter into prayer.  Would you begin to passionately pray; my goal, is that we connect to God in ways never connected before.  I will be praying for you my friend that you may accept this call.  Come and complete the armor promised to you in Ephesians 6:10-18; pray.