Would a Navy Seal, Green Barret or Army Ranger allow himself to be dropped behind enemy lines with no bullets and armed with only a BB gun. Well, unless he had a death wish or was just a Fool he wouldn't.
No soldier in their right mind would ever go into any battle situation unprepared. Yet, soldiers for Christ seem to do it all the time. They head off with tracts in one hand and their Bible in the other. Yet they are leaving their barracks, aka their home, without the most powerful weapon against the stronghold of the enemy, Prayer!
The book "The Fundamentals" states it far better than I could hope to attempt:
Everything else, therefore, depends upon prayer. To the praying soul there becomes possible the faith which is the grasp of the human spirit upon the realities and verities of the unseen world. To the praying soul there becomes possible and the natural obedience which is the daily walk of the disciple with the unseen God. To the praying soul there becomes possible the patience, which is the habit of waiting for results yet unseen and hopes yet unrealized. To the praying soul there becomes possible the love that, like a celestial flood, drowns out evil tempers and hateful dispositions, and introduces us to a new world of gentle and generous frames. To the praying soul there becomes possible and increasingly real the holiness which is personal conformity to an unseen Divine image and ideal, and the innermost secret of a heavenly bliss.
Those who yearn for revivals naturally lay much stress on preaching. But what is preaching without praying! Sermons are but pulpit (or street, I might add) performances, learned essays, rhetorical orations, popular lectures, or it may be political harangues, until God gives, in answer to earnest prayer, the preparation of the heart, and the answer of the tongue. It is only he who prays that can truly preach. Many a sermon that has shown no intellectual genius and has violated all homiletic rules and standards has had dynamic spiritual force. Somehow it has moved men, melted them, moulded them. The man whose lips are touched by God's living coal from off the altar may even stammer, but his hearers soon find out that he is on fire with one consuming passion to save souls.
Praying souls become prevailing saints.
Praying feeds missions at home and abroad.
A praying heart is the one thing that the devil cannot easily counterfeit.
The pivot of piety, therefore, is prayer.
The revival of the praying-spirit is not only first in order of development, but it is first in order of importance, for without it there is no advance.
Prayer imparts God's Power!
One last key point; We cannot make up for lack of praying by excess of working. In fact working without praying is a sort of practical atheism, for it leaves out God. It is the prayer that prepares for work, that arms us for warfare, that furnishes us for the activity.
For to go it "Alone" without a praying heart is a relying on self and not on the Giver of it all.
How do you prepare for battle? Do you lay aside prayer as something that is an accessory to only be grasped at a time of desperation, or do you embrace this most powerful blessing given unto man? Before you head into the streets, before you head into the mall, before you head to that "Outreach" arm yourself. The more you shore up your soul now, the less weaknesses the enemy will have to use against you then.
Take the time, prepare for the battle on your knees and rely on God and not yourself.
If you have been blessed to have an opportunity to be involved with prayer with like minded brothers and sisters. I urge you, take advantage of it and unleash the power of prayer.
My prayer for any brother or sister that reads this is, that you will pray.
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