Prayer & Spiritual Warfare

by John Paul Jackson

Prayer is spiritual warfare. It destroys evil, brings light into darkness, and affects, impacts, and changes things in the unseen realm. God’s Kingdom comes and His will is done when we pray. Prayer does not alter what God has determined. He is sovereign. Instead, it enforces what He has already foreordained. It asks God to overthrow Satan’s plan and implement His.

The force of prayer lies not in how much we pray, but in how much our prayers line up with the principles of prayer found in Scripture. It is not an outlet for expressing what we need. God knows what we need. But rather, it is asking God to fulfill His purposes in our lives and in the Earth.

Prayer is our cry to God for His help. It is the recognition of our weakness and His omnipotence. It is the belief that God, who is all-powerful, hears and acts on our behalf. When we refuse to pray, nothing happens. Change only occurs when we pray for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done. God allows many of His resolutions to be placed on hold because we will not pray.

How can we achieve this effectual level in prayer? The Jewish, Middle-Eastern mindset calls it, in Hebrew, kavanah. Kavanah means “concentration” or “intent,” and involves the awareness that we are speaking to God. For this level of prayer to be effective, we must focus on God alone and be free from every distraction.

Only God can grant this pure state of communication and communion called kavanah. Achieving this attitude in prayer is only possible when our desire to pray intersects with His ability to help us maintain our focus on Him alone. But we must have it. Prayer without kavanah is like a body without a soul.

Only when we come close to hearing the eternal theme of the Kingdom of God, can we begin to accurately perceive our place in His realm. Then our prayer life becomes like a seamless garment—inextricably interwoven with the infinite. We intertwine with Him–we are His and He is ours. In that moment of connection, we choose to exchange our will for His wisdom, and the temporal, natural world, for His Kingdom.

If you want to learn more about the fascinating subject of prayer, John Paul has just released a 22-hour online course called Prayer and Spiritual Warfare.