Cathy's Corner

Cathy’s Corner
I was studying the Armor of God recently. The devotion on the day after the election really hit home with me. I thought I would share it with you.

Luke 18:1-8 – Freedom in Christ Bible - NIV
Paul’s teaching on the armor of God concludes with the following admonition: “Pray in the Spirit 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 6:18). We cannot engage in spiritual warfare without praying. Praying “on all occasions” means that we are to pray when we feel like it as well as when we don’t feel like it. People who are devoted to prayer acknowledge their dependence upon God, and they are ready to pray at any time and for any length of time. Their prayers are effective because the Holy Spirit helps them pray. (see Romans 8:26-27).
Prayer has preceded every great movement of God. Pentecost was preceded by prayer (Acts 1:14), as were the great awakenings in America. There has never been an outpouring of the divine Spirit from God without a previous outpouring of the human spirit toward God. The preeminence of prayer needs to be settled in our minds. Prayer not only precedes a great work of God; prayer is a great work of God.
The Holy Spirit will lead us to pray for all the saints all the time. That means that we will be prompted to ask for divine protection for others. Such prompting can come at any time of the day or night. We may never know the trouble another believer is in, but the Holy Spirit knows. When the Lord puts someone on your mind, we are to stop, lift up that person in prayer and ask God to place a hedge of protection around him or her. We are to keep praying until we sense the peace of God.
The Holy Spirit may also prompt us to pray for those who are in trouble. We have the Spiritual authority in Christ to stand against Satan and his attacks. When the disciples were unsuccessful in driving a demon out of a boy, the Lord said, “This kind can come out only by prayer” (Mark 9:29). The disciples may have tried to drive the demon out by copying what they had seen Jesus do, but they probably didn’t have the same degree of dependence on, and faith in, their heavenly Father that Jesus had.
Jesus told the parable of the persistent widow so that the disciple’s would learn to “always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1). The widow wanted justice against her adversary, and she wasn’t going to stop petitioning the judge until she got it. Her persistence finally won over the judge, who gave her justice. If an uncaring judge can be compelled by persistence to deal justly with a helpless individual, certainly we can expect God to answer our prayers. He will not put us off but will quickly answer our cries for justice concerning our adversaries (see vs. 7-8).
There will be great apostasy in the last days (see Mathew 24:23-24); I Timothy 4:1). In light of that fact, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8) Based on the context of this question in Luke 18, Jesus is probably referring to the kind of faith that never wavers under fire. Let us strive to be persevering in prayer so Jesus will find us faithful.
We need to be in prayer for our nation. We need to lift up those in power to turn their hearts to God and that our nation will turn back to God.