When all has been stripped from you in this life and you are left alone with just you and your conscience, the only sound you will hear is a plaintive cry ascending from your lips to your Father in Heaven, begging for mercy and comfort! Ask a prisoner-of-war captured by the enemy, cast down upon the cold concrete of a barren jail cell with only the prospects of hardships and torture ahead. Ask the fatigued soldier dug into the foxhole with explosions on every hand and the acrid stench of gunpowder burning in his nostrils. Combat conditions clarify a man’s view of his true nature, and prayer to the Creator then becomes almost as natural as breathing; and far more important!

But maybe you don’t think we are living under combat conditions here in America. Though our soldiers are at war right now, the rest of us still live in relative ease. All the comforts of this life are at our prosperous right hand; as handy, almost, as the remote control. We don’t sleep on the ground, or on a cot; some of us even have something called a sleep number. About the closest most will come to combat is the battle of the bulge, seeing how our food is abundantly provided to us. Watching war in movies and television may have unconsciously left us with the impression that war is not real. So, maybe you are right. Maybe we are no longer in combat. Or could it be that we have been captured by the enemy, and don’t even know it?

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12) “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;” (Ephesians 6:18). The Bible tells us that there is a spiritual battle raging, and if we haven’t already been captured by our Adversary, we will be busy employing the spiritual arsenal provided by the Lord to overcome Satan! One of our key weapons is the ability to pray to our Heavenly Father in the Name of Jesus Christ!

Can you imagine an army having a powerful weapon in their arsenal, but never using it? Yet the Lord’s army is often guilty of forgetting their privilege and duty of prayer. Is it any wonder that Satan infiltrates the Camp of the Saints when prayer lays a rusting in disuse and neglect? “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41)

Prayer to the heavenly Father is the work of His Royal Priesthood (1 Peter 2:5,9; Acts 2:42) and a duty that God expects His children to be engaged in “without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Not only is prayer work, it is good work, and sometimes hard work! Notice how Paul spoke of brothers who were faithful in prayer: “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. For I bear him record, that he hath a great zeal for you, and them that are in Laodicea, and them in Hierapolis.” (Colossians 4: 12,13) This godly brother is commended for fervently labouring in prayer for his brethren. Will the Lord be able to commend us for our work in the honorable profession of prayer?

“I would rather be the Master of the Art of Prayer than MA of both Oxford and Cambridge. He who knows how to pray has his hand on the leverage that moves the universe.” (Charles Spurgeon)

The Captain of our Salvation has set us a perfect example. No one ever employed prayer more effectively than Jesus. Prayer was what Jesus offered to His Father even as the glistening drops of Jordan River water trickled down his newly immersed body! (Luke 3:21) When it was time to choose the twelve apostles, Jesus worked the night shift: “And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.” (Luke 6:12) When the hour came to be offered as the Lamb of God, it was time for Jesus to do some of His most arduous work: “And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22:44). Where would we be today if the Son of Man had not laboured for us in prayer? How many will we save through our labors in the great privilege of prayer?

When will we pray? Part of the answer is determined by the zeal we have for the Lord and His Kingdom. We will pray whenever we focus on eternal things instead of trivial things that don’t matter; when we think less of money, and more about riches in Heaven! Remember when Jesus cleansed the Temple of the commercialization that had sapped it of religious vigor? The Scripture that described what Jesus was doing is found in Psalms 69:9: “For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.” Jesus had zeal for God, and it was according to knowledge. He knew what God’s House was supposed to be as prophesied in Isaiah 56:7: “Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.” When we care like Jesus about our Father’s House, we will pray, and no constitutional amendment or legislation from the bench will be able to stop the prayers that will rise up to Heaven to be treasured as golden vials of sweet perfume! (Revelation 5:8)