The Art of the Sword (Part Two)

Good morning.

 We’ve seen in our previous message that the Word of God is living and active (Hebrews 4:12). It’s not only a book full of letters. It’s representative of the Lord Jesus.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth,” (John 1:1, 14).” This is why we need to quote the Word, and when we do it we quote Jesus and not only His words, but who He is. This we could do in various areas in ministry, which we’ll discuss in the next few messages.

To make prayer powerful and effective we need to quote the Word to the Lord. The Word is the way He speaks to us and also the most effective way to make sure our prayers are answered with a ‘yes’. The Word represents the Lord’s will. “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. ¹⁵ And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him,” (1 John 5:14, 15).

I therefore pray the Bible whenever I can. Instead of asking ‘protect me please Lord’, I would pray the words Psalm 23 or Psalm 91, but make it personal i.e. “because I love you Lord, you will rescue me, you will protect me for I acknowledge your name...” (Psalm 91:14-16). This prayer has always been answered, without fail. When I look for guidance I would pray a personalised version of Psalm 32:8: “Instruct me and teach me in the way I should go;
counsel me with your loving eye on me.” If I need the Lord to guide someone else I intercede for, I would put the person’s name in the place of ‘me’ in the above passage.

The Bible also has many promises for us, but to every promise a condition is linked. If we desire to have some of those promises and we have fulfilled the condition, we can remind the Lord of His promises. If times are e.g. tough we could pray: “Lord, you said Matthew 6:33 that if we first seek your kingdom and your righteousness, all these things will be given to us as well. Lord, you know we keep ourselves busy with what is important to you. Please meet our needs.” If we quote the passages where Jesus promised He will give what we ask in His name, such as in John 14, and we fulfil the conditions, we’ll receive what we’ve asked.

We often say to someone: ‘Now you’re talking my language,’ i.e., now we are on the same wave length. To get through to a teenager we need to talk her language. If we reach out to certain cultures, we get much further if we talk their language, whether it is a foreign language or a dialect of our language. When we therefore pray, we need to allow the Holy Spirit to lead our prayers. We also need to make sure we know the Word of God well, for as we pray the Holy Spirit will remind us of scripture passages that we should include in our prayer, for then we’re talking the Lord’s language and He is much more likely to respond.

The Word is living and active – use it as accordingly.

Lord, your Word is alive. Please teach me to pray your Word.

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