Ephesians 6:17-18

Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And 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 Lord’s people.

There’s a reason when we started this study that we began by first focusing on a relationship with Christ, and then moved secondly to His Word, and now find ourselves at prayer. That answer is found in these verses. On day 53 we covered the first part of the dynamic equation that ensures we “move forward” against darkness as “good soldiers” – memorize the Word! The more of God’s Word we have inside of us, the more we know what to pray and how to pray. There is no punctuation in the original language between these verses. To read this in context and in flow with how the original Ephesians would have heard it the first time, I generally read it as…

Take… the sword of the Spirit, which is the [spoken & memorized] Word of God as you pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests…

Talk about READINESS! Paul’s vision for our lives is that on “all occasions” our hearts are full of the Word of God, so that we can pray those promises into any and every situation we encounter. This is why God’s  Word & Prayer are inseparably linked together. Weak in God’s  Word equates to weak in prayer. It also closes the “relationship loop” i.e. God talks to us, we talk to God = RELATIONSHIP.

Discuss what you think Paul meant by “pray in the Spirit.”

Give one example of actually praying God’s  Word. Write out a one or two sentence prayer that you might actually pray for a friend, family member, or even yourself, that contains either a promise from God’s  Word or a direct quote found in Scripture.