The battle in prayer (Part I)
Verse of the day: Colossians 4: 12: " Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always WRESTLING in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured”
Everyone knows that life is a struggle, but a Christian life is more than just fighting because it ends on the day of death. We must first understand that before the conversion we belong to the kingdom of Satan and once converted, we change the camp. Like all masters are attached to their slaves, Satan cannot stand to lose any of his. If we invite Jesus as our Savior and Master, the devil's agents get together just to get us back. This is exactly what happened when the Israelites were released by Moses. Just after being released, the pharaoh ran after them in order to take them back (Ex 14: 10).
Prayer is the most effective way to fight the devil. Some say they can fight him just by faith but I remind you that faith (The Shield) is just one of the weapons required in the Bible (Ephesians 6: 16). I hope you agree with me that we cannot fight a trained enemy just by using the shield! The shield is a defensive weapon, but not offensive. We cannot defeat the enemy without being able to attack.
The verse of the Day (Colossians 4: 12) speaks of Epaphras who never stopped fighting for the Colossians in his prayers. He was not content to have faith or positive thinking, he was not consoled by speaking about the name of the Colossus church in prayers but he understood that he had to fight for them in prayer. Why fighting? Because the enemy is very aggressive and ruthless. According to the verse of the day, Epaphras was fighting in prayer for the Colossians for one purpose: He wanted them to have a complete submission to the will of God while today many Christians are fighting to realize their own dreams and passions. Very few Christians fight for the church or the country. We should all fight to be in the perfect will of God.
I suggest you read this teaching until the end because we will discover that the target of the battle in prayer is not only Satan but it is also to set a communion with the Lord. Prayer is the only way we connect to the Almighty. Being human, we must necessarily fight against flesh which actually is the first enemy of the Christian. Satan comes in the second position because he often uses the flesh to fight us.
In the second part, we will discover the nature of our adversary.
Chris Ndikumana
Fighting in prayer (Part II)
Verse of the day: Luke 22: 31-32 " And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you; that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren"
God's heart is touched when his child is fighting in prayer for someone else or for his country. It is natural to enter into prayer to fight for yourself but taking time for someone else is not always easy. In fact, it is the selfish nature of the flesh that prevents us from it, that is why we have to fight to overcome it. If someone is not able to fight for himself, how can he fight for someone else?
In the verse of the day (Luke 22: 31-32), we are told of Satan who claimed Simon (Peter) to sift him as wheat but Jesus fought for him in prayer. He said: “I have prayed for you; that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren "(Luke 22: 31-32). Peter would never make it without Jesus’ fight in prayer. Notice that Jesus has recommended Peter to do the same for his brothers by fighting for them. God's will is that everyone who is standing in prayer can fight for those who are still weak.
When you are in a country at war, where you see only scroll tanks and soldiers in the streets filled with gunfire noise, you cannot afford to go to the beach for fun and your daily schedule must change. We must remain vigilant and armed. The Bible actually asks us to be sober and vigilant because our adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5: 8).
Paradoxically, today Christians behave as if they were on vacation, at a quiet beach in a very quiet town and seeing their comfort one may wonder if the devil is still present. The devil can keep silent when we read the Bible or when we go to church but when we humble ourselves in prayer, he trembles and does everything he can to stop us.
Peter was saved by Jesus' prayer. The Bible asks us to pray for each other (Jacques 5: 16) because it is the mutual prayer that breaks the plans of the enemy. Each of us should usually have at least one person to whom he prays for every single day. You should also have someone who supports you in prayer (intercedes for you) on a regular basis. I must say that Christian experience has shown me that most of those who claim to pray for you do not really pray. That is why you must pray for God to give you a real and sincere partner in prayer.
You need someone you can totally trust, with whom you can share your burdens for prayer. If you build such a union, the devil loses his mind because you build a throne for Jesus.
You will have the details in the third part.
Chris Ndikumana
Fighting in prayer (Part 3)
Verse of the day: Matthew 18: 19-20 "Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them."
In some of my teachings, I insist that a Christian must have a secret place for prayer alone with God because intimacy with God is very important. But in this teaching, I want to show you that in addition to intimacy with God, we need second person to fight together in prayer. I have heard Christians say that individual prayer is enough but the verse of the day shows the importance of a prayer made by more than one person. That's not to say that the two are necessarily physically in one place but it is the union of the spirits that counts because prayer is a spiritual act.
In the verse of the day (Matt 18: 19-20), Jesus reveals an extremely important principle for every Christian. He says that if TWO Christians on earth agree concerning anything that they ask, it will be done by God the Father who is in heaven. At the end of the passage he clarifies things by saying: " For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them". In other words, if two Christians agree about anything they ask in prayer, they invite Jesus in their midst, and if Jesus is in their midst, prayer becomes very strong as the Bible describes Him as our High Priest who always lives to intercede for those who come to God through Him (Hebrews 7: 25).
Do not misinterpret my thought ... God hears and answers your individual prayers but there's a high efficiency when you share a prayer request with TWO or more, even if you are not physically together.
Some of you may wonder why I insist on the number "TWO!" The explanation is in the Bible. By principle, God made strength to be defined by unity and when someone agrees with a brother / sister in prayer, there are two united forces. If we unite in prayer, your faith is united with mine and we are a force. This is why the devil always wants to create division because division reduces the striking force.
Here is what says the Ecclesiastes: “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor” (Ecclesiastes 4: 9). This is not to say that one does not count but TWO are better than one. He continues by saying: “For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up" (Ecclesiastes 4: 10).
To be continued in the fourth part
Chris Ndikumana
Fighting in prayer (Part 4)
Verse of the day: Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up”
We all know there are times when we do not want to pray, times when we are frustrated or weakened but when we have a prayer partner, we cannot weaken at the same time. As the Ecclesiastes says in the verse of the day, we always needed someone to sustain us especially when going through hard times. Some say that we need nobody and all we need is just entering in prayer alone but there are times when we do not even feel like praying. If one falls, the other can lift him up but one alone will have no one to lift him up. In the twelfth verse (Ecclesiastes 4: 12), he said that a threefold cord is not quickly broken, which means that if you have a partner in prayer, the devil will know that if he attacks you, he attacks two people and he will expect to face greater resistance.
As I said in the second part, I encourage you to have at least one partner in prayer with whom you regularly share prayer requests even if you are not physically together. It is not good to be alone in this spiritual world full of evil attacks. Whether you believe it or not, you are on the hitting list if you have decided to follow Jesus. Yes Jesus is our victory but He is the one who says that we must pray so that God the Father intervenes.
I received emails that showed me that some people did not understand how to choose the prayer partner and I prefer to answer you all here:
It is not about thinking of someone that you feel is spiritual and call for asking him to be your partner in prayer but you must choose someone who is already close to you, with whom you have already a relationship that God has already established. This can be a friendly relationship, parenting, professional, or a ministry partner. This is not just a commitment or a contract but it is a covenant. A prayer partner is someone you trust, someone you can entrust your secrets for prayer purpose.
Many Christians do not like being asked to pray for others because they find it difficult but there is a secret they do not know: When you take enough time to deal with other people’s problems in prayer, God will take care of your own problems. No true intercessor can say the opposite. I experienced and heard testimonies that confirm this. This is already enough motivation to deal with other people’s problems because by doing so, God sees love in you and He allows His principle to be realized in your life: The principle of reaping what you sow. If you sow love, you must normally reap love. By sacrificing your time for your brother or sister in the Lord, God will take care of your own problems.
When you are in a fight, you always need to know the strength and weakness of the enemy. You should have enough information regarding the strategies of the enemy. Many Christians are unaware or do not want to know how the enemy attacks but Paul said he was aware about the devil devices (2 Cor 2: 11). We need to know them if we want to overcome every day.
To be continued in the fifth part
Chris Ndikumana
Fighting in prayer (Part 5)
Verse of the Day: 2 Corinthians 2: 10-11 “ If you forgive anyone anything, I too forgive that one; and what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sakes in the presence [and with the approval] of Christ (the Messiah), to keep Satan from getting the advantage over us; for we are not ignorant of his wiles and intentions"
This scripture is very important because it shows how Paul was concerned about the strategies of the enemy against the people of God. I often hear Christians minimize the attack of the enemy saying that they have nothing to do with the devil because Jesus defeated him on the cross. This is the truth, but I must say that in some letters written by Paul, he often shows that we face principalities, rulers and spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6: 12). To underestimate or to ignore the strength of the enemy does not give us the victory but makes us fall into the trap of the enemy. Yes Jesus disarmed the devil on the cross but why are there still problems that we see in the Church? Why sin is still a reality in the Church? All this shows that as long as we are in a corruptible body, we always have to fight otherwise the victory of Jesus will not be visible in our lives. The fight that will allow us to enter and walk in Jesus' victory is the fight in prayer.
Let's go back to the verse of the day based on the Amplified Bible: At the end Paul asks the Corinthians not to let Satan get the advantage over them because they do not ignore his wiles and intentions (2 Cor 2: 11).
Unfortunately most of the children of God ignore or underestimate the wiles of Satan. The enemy wants Christians to be ignorant by believing that there is no more fight, that we are untouchable because of the victory of Jesus on the cross; such belief gives him a great advantage. If Christians just believe, sing, read the Word without praying, NOTHING will stop the devil! Constant prayer is a fight and it is for this reason that in writing to the Romans who were passing through a very difficult time Paul insisted by saying: " rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing STEADFASTLY in prayer"(Rom 12: 12).
In order to understand how Satan attacks Christians, we must first know the man's constitution. A human being is made of three parts: body, soul and spirit.
The physical body is all you can touch or see with your physical eyes
The soul contains the emotions, the feelings, will and the intellect
The spirit contains the consciousness, the subconscious, the intuition and God discernment
In the sixth part, I'll show you the devil's strategy to attack us and how to fight against him in prayer.
Chris Ndikumana
Fighting in prayer (Part 6)
Verse of the Day: Matthew 26: 41 " Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak"
As I said in the fifth part, man is made of spirit, soul and body. When we are converted and we accept Jesus as our Savior and Lord, we receive the Spirit of God that resides in our spirit. It is in the spirit that we discern the presence and the voice of God. Our spirit is supposed to obey completely to the Spirit of God, but it faces another influence from the flesh. The flesh is the combination of the soul and the physical body. The soul is made of emotions, feelings, thoughts, will and intellect. Many Christians do not know the difference between the flesh and the body because in several African languages, the flesh (the soul plus the physical body) and body have the same name.
The verse of the day (Matt 24: 41) tells us that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. In other words, the spirit is strong but it is the flesh that is vulnerable. The devil knows that the human spirit is strong but he can attack it by means of the flesh for if the flesh is attacked, the spirit is affected because both are in the same body.
Why then Jesus says in the same verse that prayer helps us not to fall into the temptation of Satan? This is because when we pray, we trigger an exchange mechanism and communion between the human spirit and the Spirit of God. The more we pray, the more we accumulate power of the Holy Spirit who gives us the capacity to overcome the lust of the flesh. The spirit of the Christian who does not have a life of prayer cannot resist the lust of the flesh which lead him to fall into temptation by yielding to the traps of the enemy.
It may be abstract for some but I will try to go deeper in order to clarify the operation of the flesh. As I said before, the flesh is made of soul and the physical body. If a man looks at a girl’s body and sexually desires it, it comes from the sexual instinct in his body but there is also the intervention of the soul (emotions and feelings). It is this combination "body and soul" that the Bible calls "lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5: 1-17). The soul is the favorite asset of the devil to make us fall into sin. Every Christian should know that the devil often prefers to start at the level of our thoughts to influence our will and the two (thought and will) are in the soul. The will receives information from the thought and it (the will) allows us to take action. The devil knows that if we have the power to control our thoughts, there are a lot of chances that we will execute the will of the Holy Spirit present in our spirit. It is extremely important to know that even if we would control our thoughts, we can easily fall into sin because of the heaviness of the strength of the flesh. This force can only be broken by a CONSTANT prayer.
To be continued in the seventh part
Chris Ndikumana
Fighting in prayer (Part 7)
Verse of the Day: Ephesians 6: 12 " For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places"
To conclude the thought of the sixth part, I showed you that the devil attacks our flesh to make us fall into sin and according to Jesus, the solution to overcome the temptation of the flesh is to WATCH and PRAY (Matthew 26: 41). It is not only praying but we must also ensure praying without cease. I believe that all Christians pray but very few watch. In the original Greek verse, the word "watch" is translated from the Greek "gregoreo" which means "to be vigilant". Praying is a good thing but we must also be vigilant because our enemy is cunning. I saw men of God that the Lord has raised but ended up to easily fall into the trap of the devil for lack of vigilance. We cannot be vigilant as long as we do not know the strategies of the enemy. There are many of them but I would like to share two of the most used to bring down the servants of God and many Christians.
The first strategy of Satan is to convince Christians that he cannot hurt them because of the victory of Jesus on the cross. Satan will not come with horns but he will come in a form of teachings to convince Christians to ignore him. Yes, Satan wants us to underestimate him and to ignore his tricks. When you underestimate thieves and you believe they cannot robe you, you will not lock the door before sleeping. This is exactly what is happening in the Church today; many Christians underestimate the devil and his wiles are unaware, that is why they easily fall into the trap. The devil is not offended when you underestimated him but he is rather happy because in underestimating and ignoring him, you give him time to build his plan against you. This is why Paul asked the Corinthians not to let Satan the advantage over them and not to ignore his wiles (2 Cor 2: 11). Writing to the Ephesians, the same Paul reminds them that they must fight against principalities, against the rulers, against spiritual hots of wickedness in the heavenly places and therefore they should put on the whole armor of God so that they may be able to withstand in the evil day and stand after having faced all (Eph 6: 12-13).
I have heard many sermons on the armor of God to resist the devil but almost all speak of six weapons mentioned in Ephesians 6: 12-17 (the belt, breastplate, shoes, shield, helmet and sword ) but many forget the seventh weapon mentioned in the next verse where he says: " Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints"(Eph 6: 18)
Constant prayer is the seventh and most powerful weapon of God that we need to resist the wiles of the devil. So, do not limit yourself on the seventeenth verse but you should also consider the eighteenth (Ephesians 6: 18).
To be continued in the eighth part
Chris Ndikumana
Fighting in prayer (Part 8)
Verse of the day: James 4: 6 "But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble"
In the seventh part, I said that we cannot be vigilant as long as we ignore the strategies of the enemy. There are many but I preferred to talk about two of the most used to bring down the servants of God and many Christians.
As I said before, the first strategy of the devil is to convince Christians that he has no more strength because of the victory of Jesus and therefore they must ignore him and pretend he is not there. I remember the day I went for the first time in an evangelical church, the pastor was teaching from the book of Revelation and he said that Satan is now in jail and can only send his demons while still in his cage. Later I discovered in the Bible that Satan will be imprisoned for the millennium but is free now. I also understood that in order to defeat him, we must watch and pray while keeping the total trust in the Lord.
The second strategy of the devil is to sow pride in Christians’ hearts. The devil knows how to create pride in the hearts of Christians using the gifts God gave them. Pride is the favorite gateway for the devil that allows him to penetrate into the life of Christians. If you let pride invade your heart, the devil will not have to struggle to get into your life because a large door will be opened for him. A prideful life devalues prayer. You can pray and fast but with no effect because of pride. The devil can show you how much you are very strong, intelligent and beautiful for the sole purpose of having a door to enter in your life. Without realizing it, many Christians fall into the trap of appropriate the gifts of God and when their hearts are puffed up, the verse of the day (James 4: 6) says that God resists them. Notice that this is not the devil who resists them but God Himself. In the contrary, God gives grace to the humble. The devil manages to block some of the children of God's blessings despite their prayers because of their pride.
The fight in prayer is very effective to the humble. In the next verse (James 4: 7), it is said that if we submit to God, we resist the devil and he will flee from us. Nothing can scare the devil as humility in prayer life.
In closing this teaching, I want to clarify one thing: The devil does not need your car, your house, your money or anything valuable for you but when he attacks all these things, know that your faith is the target. If you lose your faith, you can no longer pray. Let us be firm despite opposition and persevere in constant prayer in all humility. Let us watch and reject all negative thoughts that the enemy is trying to inform our minds and let us be sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
The fight in the prayer made in all humility is a fight won in advance.
God bless you
Chris Ndikumana
