SA Ep67 - Becoming a Prayer Warrior (Part 1)

SA Ep67 - Becoming a Prayer Warrior Part Summary

In this opening episode, we begin a powerful series on the Lord’s Prayer by uncovering a truth many believers overlook: prayer is not merely devotion, it is spiritual warfare. Jesus did not give the prayer in Matthew 6:9–13 simply as words to repeat, but as a pattern that prepares believers for the spiritual battles of daily life.

The Bible teaches that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces that oppose the work of God. Because of this reality, prayer becomes one of the most important weapons in the believer’s life. Yet many Christians treat prayer as a routine religious habit rather than a deliberate act of engaging the enemy and seeking God’s protection.

In this episode we explore the danger of a prayerless life, the spiritual exposure that comes when believers neglect prayer, and why Jesus designed the Lord’s Prayer as a strategic preparation for daily spiritual conflict. We also address a common problem among Christians today: praying words without truly expecting God to work.

As this series begins, listeners are challenged to rethink their approach to prayer. Prayer is not simply speaking to God. Prayer is stepping onto the battlefield and depending on the power of God for victory.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Seeking Approval Podcast. I'm Dr. Chris Smelser from Iliad Baptist Church. You know life moves fast and faith is not meant to be rushed. I want to take some time and slow down with you and have some honest conversations from the Word of God about daily living. So join me here today on Seeking Approval. If you were walking into a dangerous battle tomorrow, wouldn't you want a strategy? Wouldn't you want protection to know who the enemy is? How you're going to win? The truth is that believers wake up every morning and step into a battle, whether they realize it or not. The Bible tells us that we have a war going on every day, but it's not against flesh and blood, but it's against the spiritual principalities and powers of the air and of darkness. And the problem is that we face this battle with things that we cannot see, in places that we cannot go, and with things that we cannot hold. And yet still, Christians, for some reason, want to fight the battles of life with tangible objects. They want to hold a phone in their hand, talk about it on Facebook, they want to uh talk to their friends or or they talk to their family. And the problem is that if the battle is against things that we can't see in places we can't go, and with instruments that we can't hold, then why are we not taking these uh battles to God in prayer more often? Most Christians understand about praying. They know that we should pray. And many times Christians will even pray from time to time. But few Christians realize the importance of prayer. You know, I often say that because of things like credit cards and the the the ease in which we have in society today that we've lost the need for prayer. You know, because you know, each of us have a a Visa in our wallet, an endless amount of uh supply of money and goods that we rarely have a need anymore. If we can't get it, Visa's got it. You know, a credit card will take care of it. And that's where a lot of our needs are. I mean, let's let's be honest. I mean, uh you go back 50 uh years ago, well, actually we're almost into 2030 now, so let me I gotta add some years to that. Let's go let's go back 75 years ago, before credit cards were you know in in every wallet and and purse of anybody who is 16 years or older. And that was not an option. You didn't have government assistance, you didn't have the Visa MasterCard, American Express, you know, on down the line, Discover. You didn't have those. And you you would, you know, the the the husband, the father would would pray every morning that God would give him the work laid out in front of him, would keep him strong to be able to finish. The mom, the wife would would stand in the kitchen praying that God would supply the groceries, the needs for the kids, the shoes, the clothes, safety, protection, warmth. I mean, like the basic needs of life, people were it was it was an everyday prayer that that those needs would be met. And so we don't have to do that anymore. Now it's like, you know, only we only pray when it's the big things that happen. And then by that time we've forgotten how to pray. We've forgotten that we're supposed to pray. Then it becomes just a conversation as we're driving down the road. It's just uh, you know, something, well, yeah, I I prayed today. I talked to God. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I think we forgot that prayer is actually one of our uh battle weapons for war. And I want to, over the next few episodes, look at how we can increase our prayer life, how we can protect ourselves in prayer. Not not just I don't want to just look at it in in the battle sense, but I want to I want to look at it in in this how to make how to make prayer more important, I guess. I think we've lost the importance of prayer in our life. And that's what I want to look at in the coming episodes. So in this kind of uh kickstart episode, I want to look at at just the overarching theme of prayer. And prayer is it's so often it's just pictured as a quiet moment, maybe something peaceful and reflective, mostly detached from our real life. I mean, we we rarely want to, you know, involve our our real life into our prayer life because you know prayer life is supposed to be something that's formal and reverent. And we don't want to really get into our personal time, you know, our personal life with prayer. We'll save that for Facebook, you know. That's kind of what prayers become. Many people imagine prayer just to be a pause in the day, you know, thank you, Lord, for this food, thank you for all the many blessings, even though I'm struggling and feel like I'm at the end of my rope and uh uh you know, about to just give up and give in. But thank you for all the other stuff, God. And we'll just you know move on. It's a private devotion. Yet when we look in God's word, we discover that prayer is far more than just this religious exercise that we've made it. It's an act, it's it's a it's a weapon of uh of war, it's a it's not a retreat, it's an engagement, it's it's a calling down of the the power of heaven to our life for God to intervene. And when we when we bow our head, when we pray, when we call upon the name of the Lord, we're not just entering into a conversation with a friend. We're not just trying to escape for a moment from this life, just to step right back into it. We are calling upon the power of the throne room of God. We are told to come boldly before the throne of heaven. I mean, that's no small thing. Jesus gave us what's often called the Lord's Prayer, it's the model prayer. I don't chastise people when they say the Lord's prayer. There's some preachers and teachers out there that will, they'll they'll they'll kind of jump on you. Well, that's not the Lord's prayer. His prayer was his prayer was prayed over in Gethsemane. I we understand that. I understand that, and I'm I'm not one of those people who will chastise people over uh you know semantics like that unless you're trying to change the word of God, and then then we'll have a discussion about that. But for somebody to affectionately call this the Lord's Prayer, we know what each other are meaning. You know what I mean? So he gave us the Lord's Prayer in uh Matthew 6. We just had a wonderful, it's been um back in January. I had these podcast series laid out whenever I started this podcast back in December, and I had this laid out, and um the series on prayer was one that I had coming up actually fairly re fairly soon in the uh in the podcast, but and uh Dr. Bagwell began to preach on it. I didn't I didn't want to hit it right then. I didn't want it to feel for those who are at our church and listen, I didn't want it to be uh you know just uh kind of doubled up on you. So I kind of pushed it later on down the road, and which has worked out great because the Lord knew what he was doing. There have been some folks who've really gotten help as I've kind of switched some things around. But in Matthew chapter number six, uh, we see that it says, and after this manner, therefore pray ye our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. For many of us, those words are very familiar. For uh folks who maybe have played sports in the past, like myself, that was a repeated pattern, which we used, I guess, a modified version of it. Um that we would say, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on us, heavy. Forgive us, give us his day or day bread. Um forgive us our uh trespasses, we forgive those who trespass against us, lead us not to date us, but deliver us from he will find the kingdom, power, glory forever. Amen. I can remember that all the way back from high school and college sports days, which has been over 25 years ago. I can remember that because I've rehearsed it so many times, every practice, every game. We would say that together. But when Jesus gave us this prayer, it wasn't something that we were just supposed to recite uh informality. He gave it as the pattern, the outline, the framework that should show us how to approach God and how to prepare ourselves spiritually for the realities that we're facing every day. And the reason that a prayer is so important for the Christian as our lives unfold, we find that we are in constant spiritual conflict. Jesus said it, our our spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Paul said, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places. Paul said, I'm torn. I don't want to do these things and I do them, and I should do those things and I don't do those things. I'm I'm constantly in a struggle back and forth. And we're all in that in that same struggle. And it just it's a continual reminder that the greatest battles that we're going to face are not physical battles. I mean, sure, we have physical elements. We all have things that we can write down in our physical life. I say that, I always say that preachers could spend their entire career preaching on the what I call the big Fs, which one of them is actually a Ph, but uh, we can preach on faith, we can preach on family, we could preach on physical ailments and we can preach on finances. We could preach on those four things, we could spend the rest of our life, and every single person who is sitting in any congregation or crowd that we're preaching to will find help in those things, those four things. And and many of those things are tangible things the physical, the finances, the family problems. But it's those faith problems. It's the problems in the spiritual world that deal with our faith. And we spend so much time fighting people and circumstances and political systems and finances and all these things, but we we forget that the real battle is taking place in an unseen realm with unseen things, with unseen weapons. And it's not just a human opposition that we're standing against, it's a spiritual force at work out there. And until we learn that we need a spiritual uh a spiritual weapon, which is the spirit of God, and and and prayer being the most active weapon that we can until we realize that we're gonna we're gonna continue to struggle. And not saying that all of a sudden you just start praying and all of a sudden the struggle is gone. No, the struggle will be there. But until we stop treating prayer like a religious ritual and more like a spiritual weapon, it's gonna be hard to find victory in some of these battles that we're facing because we're we're trying to fight again unseen things with tangible objects. The danger of a prayerless life cannot be overstated. A life that is lived without prayer is a is a is a life that is neglected. And a neglected spiritual life becomes exposed and easy to pray. A family without prayer is like a city without walls. The pressures of the world, the temptations of the flesh, the attacks of the enemy, it is it is uh so important that a family should be in constant prayer together. Peter says in in first Peter 5 8, very familiar verse be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, has a roaring line, walketh about seeking whom he may devour, and he will find the cracks. And the problem is he didn't have to scale the wall of most families or most churches. He didn't have to try to find some way to sneak his way in. Most of the time he can walk right through the open door. We leave the gates unguarded, we leave the doors wide open, and Satan walks right in. He walks in through our our television screens, he walks in through our our cell phones that we just hand our kids and send them off to their room, you know, just sometimes not even hoping that they won't get on, you know, the the the bad sites. It's just, well, you know, they're my kids, they're not going to, they know better. Are you sure? What Peter wrote reminds us, should remind us that we should be vigilant. Think of that word for a moment. Be vigilant, be sober. He's not saying, you know, just don't drink. He's saying be spiritually sober. Be vigilant. And he gives us words in here, a roaring lion whom he made devour. Those are some strong words. And he's actively seeking after us. That's why Jesus gave us the prayer in Matthew 6 that it should be understood more than just a daily devotion that's on the calendar on your desk. It's a battle strategy, it's a war cry. It's a father calling out in the throne room of heaven to protect his family. It's a mother calling out in the throne room to protect her children, to keep her husband's uh mind uh clear so he can uh have a have a uh a ready mind to protect the family. Every part of the prayer that that Christ gave us prepares our heart and our mind to be ready for the battle. The prayer it begins with reverence to God. And we'll go we'll we'll look more at this prayer later, but it begins with a reverence unto God, reminding us that He is the Father, His name is holy, it aligns our heart with God's kingdom and his will. It teaches us to depend on God daily for our provision, reminds us the importance of not only forgiving others, but asking forgiveness for ourselves. Because, hey, newsflash, we're all wrong sometimes. I know we like to think that you know we're not the ones that are wrong. It's everybody else who's wrong. And then it also prepares us to face the temptations uh and the spiritual opposition of which we will face every single day. One of the greatest problems with many of our uh Christians' prayer lives today is that we pray without expectation. We say words, but we don't expect God to respond. And I t I tell my church all the time, if you're listening to this, you're part of my church, you'll you'll you'll you know you've heard these words recited many times. If you're gonna pray for rain, carry an umbrella. I have prayed for some things at church and I'm expecting it to happen. We pray without expectation now. God, I know that you can work in this situation, um, but um anyway, I'm just gonna get up and keep worrying about it because I don't expect you to really do anything. But we've got to be we've got to offer our prayer in faith and anticipation that it's gonna work, that that that God is gonna be there. And the the first thing that many of us can do is a step and a step forward in our Christian life is have a stronger prayer life. Simply understanding and recognizing the importance of prayer is one of the greatest steps we'll take. So as we begin this series, I want to put a very simple challenge out to you. That we we need to begin approaching prayer with intention and expectation instead of routine and instead of just getting things off of our chest, unleashing the burden that's been tied to us, instead of instead of we need to pray with focused intention and a great expectation. And if we'll take the this this Lord's prayer, the model prayer that we've been given, and use it as the skeleton, the backbone, the framework of our prayer life, I think we'll begin to see a difference. And I want to hear your testimonies. I want to hear that. You if you're listening, you know how to get in, you know how to get to me. Gileadbaptistchurch.org. You can email me, Gilead Baptist Church, Knoxville at Gmail. Let me hear the testimonies of how your prayer life, the things, the victories that you have seen, what has changed. I would love to hear those things. I would love to be able to read about them on the air and tell people the great uh victories that's been won through an intent and expected prayer that was prayed. So before we go, I want to I want to pray with you. I feel there's no greater way that we can start this series and end this first episode than to pray together. And I'm not one of those that, you know, pray with me as I pray, and you know, you can be saved. You know, that's a very personal thing that's between you and God, between the Spirit of the Lord and between you. But I think that we can pray together. And I want to do that as we close. Heavenly Father, uh, I want to say first of all, thank you for giving us the opportunity to enter in such a place that is as holy and as, Lord, as powerful as the throne room in which you allow us to enter and not only allow us to enter, but you you call us to enter in boldly. Lord, I thank you for sending the words of Paul that tells us to bring our supplications and to bring our petitions to in front of a holy and almighty God. Lord, one who created the cosmos, one who whose hands formed this world in which we live in, Lord, one who can who can uh Lord handle the principalities and the powers of the air, Lord, that we can't see, that we don't know, Lord, that we are ill-equipped, Lord, to be able to battle. Lord, it's it's that throne room, it's it's this God, it's this power, Lord, that we want to bring ourselves in the in the entries of. Lord, we know that there's folks that are listening, Lord, all over the world. Lord, I don't know what each need is. I don't know what the uh what they may be facing, but Lord, you know that there are some that are listening this today, Lord, that their hearts are burning with a need. And Lord, they may not understand how to pray. They may think that their need is bigger than the God that they serve. Oh, Lord, help. I pray that you would show them the greatness of the God that they serve. Lord, I pray that we would stop telling you how big our problems are and start telling our problems how big you are. Lord, we've we've got a Lord, a manual of 66 books that shows us the greatness of God. Some of the prayers that have been prayed throughout history, throughout antiquity, Lord, all the way to the modern prayers of the mamas and the daddies and the pastors and preachers and evangelists and missionaries of the world that have seen great wonders and works done. Lord, I pray that the folks who are hearing this today will be able to see and to feel and to understand that great power that radiates from the throne room. Lord, I ask you to forgive us, Lord, where we fail you, where we come short. Lord, where we forget to thank you for the many blessings that you have poured out upon us, for the provisions that you've given us in our life, Lord, to where we foolishly think that we have played some part, Lord, that we worked hard enough, that we were good enough, smart enough, right enough, Lord, to be able to provide anything for ourselves, that all good things come from you. Lord, I ask you to forgive us in that. Lord, and for those who have wronged us, Lord, I pray you'd forgive them. Lord, allow us to have an open heart, an open mind, and a clear path, Lord, to the victory, Lord, that we know that you have settled for us already. We ask all this today in your holy and precious name. Amen. Thank you for joining us today on Seeking Approval. You know our faith oftentimes grows in quiet places. I hope today's conversation gave you something worth carrying throughout the rest of this day. And join me, Dr. Chris Smelser, again next time as we continue thinking, learning, and walking together. Until then, grace and peace to you from Seeking Approval at Gilead Baptist Church.