“I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (John 14:13-14)

‘Give me a lever and a fulcrum on which to rest it, and I will lift the world,’ Archimedes declared. Of course science has yet to come up with a tool strong enough to lift the world (!) but what we can do in prayer is quite another matter. God has given us a gift with unlimited potential. As we flow in the gift and the power of prayer, rather than its being a mere shopping list of people and issues, there is an artistry about it that brings many things to birth.

In his important book, God at War – A Biblical History of Spiritual Conflict, evangelical theologian Greg Boyd shows how much of Jesus’s ministry can be viewed as spiritual warfare – for He came to overcome and win back territory from the enemy. This is an important perspective to keep in mind in our own day, when so many ungodly strongholds are being established and reinforced in the nations.

One of Boyd’s main contentions is that when ugly things happen, Christians are often content to sit back and resign themselves to them as being God’s will. This is a view that lies perilously close to the fatalism of Buddhism and Islam. The early Church, by contrast, had no problem with seeing the enemy at work.

Smith Wigglesworth is characteristically direct on this matter:

‘When things are not going right, and there are satanic forces in operation, what is my solution? To rebuke the condition of sin, death, disease, or whatever it is. I can pray in the Holy Ghost, and that prayer is effectual to bring down every stronghold of the enemy.’

Quite!

Boyd’s book is weighty, and there is a good deal to grapple with in its many and densely written pages. But while I cannot agree with his every contention, I do recommend that those who are able read at least the second half, and allow his view of our spiritual warfare to help you form your own.

Another – much shorter! – book that is very well worth reading is Brother Andrew’s ‘And God changed His mind because His people prayed.’ He was privileged to enjoy many precious times of prayer with Corrie ten Boom, whose passionate urgency and excitement in prayer was utterly infectious. He wrote that,

You couldn’t pray with her without being changed by the experience. “Lord,” she would say – except she always pronounced it ‘Lort’ like a good Dutchwoman – “Lort, You must do something – there’s no time to waste!” And then she would tell the Lord very specifically what she wanted Him to do. She spoke just the same way she spoke to me, her old friend . . . She held nothing back from God, and He seemed to hold nothing back from her.

Many times, in the midst of these lively prayer sessions, she would quote God’s own words back to Him to remind Him of His promises. She would have made a great lawyer! When she grew especially impassioned, she would grab her Bible and thumb through the pages until she found the exact passage she could use to prove the case. Then she would lift her Bible into the air, point to the verse, and say triumphantly, “here, Lord – read it Yourself!”

I always love that. I’m sure God did too. He loves it when we know him well enough to talk to Him that way. I don’t know of anybody’s prayers that had more influence with God than Corrie’s . . . After all, she was not asking God for anything He had not already promised. She never hesitated to thank him when He did what she had asked. “I knew You would do it,” she would say with a jubilant smile. “I just knew it!” It never crossed her mind that He wouldn’t.

Jesus said ‘Ask Me for anything,” and Corrie took him up on this, always basing her prayers on her deep understanding of God’s will. And God answered her prayers. How could he do otherwise? We don’t pray out of a desire to change His mind, or to tell him what to do; our desire is to know Him better as our Friend and Father. But we must be focused.

(And God changed His mind – because His people prayed. Marshall Pickering. pp. 89-90)

It is a book that covers many areas of intercessory spiritual warfare, and is full of faith-inspiring stories and punchy teaching. We benefit greatly from such anointed models as Corrie and Andrew! Praise God for them!