Thoughts for Life: #134 Dangers in Warfare Prayer, 4-6

Dr. Wesley L. Duewel: 4. The danger of unguided prayer. Two elements should be before us in all intercession and particularly in prayer warfare: The human need and the divine plan.

To pray with effective prevailing you must get in harmony with the intercessions of Christ on His throne and of the Spirit praying within you. (Google image, Praying woman's hands)

S. D. Gordon writes that prayer is "finding out God's purpose . . . and insisting that that shall be done here. The great thing then is to find out and insist upon God's will." (Gordon, Quiet Talks on Prayer, 148). God's will is always best. What we desire may be good, but it may not be the best.

God is far more eager to answer prayer than you are to receive the answer. He alone knows what is best. Your yearnings are the faint echo of God's infinite yearnings.

Your love is imperfect; His is always perfect. The plans of his love are not only the best—they are perfect. How foolish you would be to pray for anything but His will.

Successful prevailing prayer and prayer warfare thus depend as much on your listening as on your repeated asking. Habakkuk was praying , but he realized he needed to hear from God.

"I will stand at my watch . . . I will look to see what he
will say to me." (Hab. 2:1).

You need the Spirit to convey to you God's perspective, overview, and plan from the standpoint of eternity. Only He know what will be most to His eternal glory and for your greatest eternal good.

"He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his
way. (Ps. 25:9).

As you humble yourself before God, confessing your total need of His wisdom and guidance and being eager only for His will, you will learn to develop a listening ear for His voice and a repeated consciousness of His touch.

5. The danger of wrong motives. Since all spiritual warfare depends on the power of the Spirit, you need to be sure not only that you are filled with the Spirit but also that you keep your prayer motives spiritual.

The only weapons that prevail against Satan are spiritual weapons. Self-generated zeal can cause you unconsciously to pray for what you desire rather than for what the Spirit desires, or can cause you to misunderstand God's timing.

It is very easy for the glory of God to be a secondary motive and for some self-related motive to be primary. That reversal can block your answers to prayer.

You can be very subtly motivated for success more because you do not want to be a failure than because you hunger for the glory of God. You can pray zealously because it is "your" children, "your" church, or "your" nation.

Your boldest prayer, your most faith-filled prayer, your most mightily empowered prayer can be only for those needs in which self does not motivate you in any primary way.

6. The danger of giving up too soon. "Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up" (Luke 18:1). Then after telling about the unjust judge who finally answered the persistent widow's pleas, Jesus summarized,

"Listen . . . Will not God bring about justice for his chosen
ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting
them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and
Quickly" (vv. 6-8).

The danger is that your desire is not deep enough, that your persistence is not strong enough. Don't stop your prayer bombardment just before Satan raises up the flag of surrender and clears out.

Battles are always finally won in the last hour. Don't give up too soon. Some answers to prayer will come only if you hold on in prayer. The only way some people will reach heaven is if you refuse to give up.
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Used by permission of the author and Duewel Literature Trust, Inc., Greenwood, Indiana, (with Jean's impressions added).

Mighty Prevailing Prayer
#134 Dangers in Prayer Warfare, 4-6
by Dr. Wesley L. Duewel
(pp. 258-262) Zondervan

Today's question-

If God desires to change us into His image, what needs to take place to accomplish that?

Read the following quote to get some idea of the answer . . .

Today's quote-

Lisa Buffaloe- (She prayed a dangerous prayer) . . . "I invited God to excavate my life. Twenty-four hours hadn't passed before I was regretting my choice of words."

"Dear Heavenly Father, did I say excavate? Can I take it back? That was but a passionate moment filled with poor word choices. What I meant to say was landscape and accessorize my life.

He did not allow the retraction. He wanted to do something deeper in my life, and excavation had been a Spirit-led word choice. To excavate means "to dig out and remove." When I asked God to excavate my heart, it was like I handed Him a shovel, and asked him to dig out and remove anything in there that doesn't belong. Like so many Christians, I lived with deep longings and shallow prayers." (I invite you to read Lisa's full message, you won't be sorry).

Prayer-

Dangerous prayer

Father, thank You for reminding

us that the two elements in all

intercession, and particularly in

prayer warfare, are the human need

and the divine plan.

May we understand that Your plans of love are not only the best—they are perfect. How foolish it is of us to pray for anything other than Your will in each prayer request.

Help our desire to become deep enough to be persistent, and not quit praying for what we know in our hearts is Your desire to have happen.
I pray this for Your glory, in Jesus's name. Amen.

Today's Bible verses-

(Is. 45:2-3, 5 (KJV) "I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: (v. 3) And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. (v.5) I am the LORD and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me."