For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers, over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm.
– Ephesians 6:12–13
And then what flows after this is incredible verses about the armor of God. That is to say, the armor God has given to us for spiritual battle. But the reality I want us to pray according to is that we are in a battle right now.
Ephesians 6:12–13 Reminds Us We Are At War
Certainly, at all times we are surrounded by spiritual warfare, not just sometimes. At all times there is an adversary who wants to destroy your faith. There’s an adversary who wants to discourage you. An adversary who wants to harm you, the people around you, and your relationships with people around you. There is an adversary who does not want your marriage to thrive. An adversary who doesn’t want your relationship with your parents or your kids to thrive. There’s an adversary who doesn’t want your relationships with your friends to thrive… Your relationships with your coworkers, your relationships with the world around you… With all kinds of people you’ll interact with today. Because he’s working to keep all of them from God. In short, he’s working to destroy people and defame God at every single moment.
Sort of realize this and to realize when we think about spiritual battle, it’s not against other people. It’s against rulers, authorities, cosmic powers over this present darkness, spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. We love people. We don’t love those cosmic powers of darkness and spiritual forces of evil.
Ephesians 6:12–13 Encourages Us to Stand Firm
And so we have a call today in the midst of spiritual battle. And what is it to do? It is to stand. You see that word multiple times in Ephesians 6. You may be able to withstand in the evil day to stand firm. Verse 14 says, stand therefore by the power of the Holy Spirit in you. This is really what the armor of God is all about. To stand as you face attacks from the adversary today, hold fast, to faith in God, to live in obedience to God, and to proclaim the gospel of God, to stand firm, to not shrink back from trust in God and from the spread of His glory in the world, knowing that the more you do this, the harder it will get in this world.
Because the more resistance you’ll meet from spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms, the more you press into obedience to God and the spread of the glory of God and the world, the harder it will get for you in this life. But you have the full reward of God and the full armor of God for the battle.
This Verse is a Call to Imitate Christ
So God, I pray over every one of our lives today based on your Word in Ephesians 6:12–13, we pray together. Help us to stand firm against all the attacks of the evil one today. God, help us to fight spiritual warfare in our minds and our hearts and our lives. Help us to, as we prayed according to Ephesians 5:1, imitate your character and spread your glory and spread the gospel today.
God, help us to fight for the sake of others. Help us to protect others from the attacks of the adversary. Help us to proclaim good news to people that they might be saved. God, help us to build up your church, that your church might live with the power that is available to us in your Spirit. The church might live in the full armor you’ve given to us. God, help us to faithfully fight in spiritual battles today against not flesh and blood. Lord, help us to love the people around us today, just as you command us at the core of what it means to know you, to love you with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength and love others as ourselves. God, we pray that we would stand in that kind of love today, all day long.
And then flowing from this God that the gospel and your power in your Holy Spirit would go forward through us today, right where we live and God, we pray for this around the world.
Prayer for the Harari People
God, we pray for the Harari people of Ethiopia for 56,000 of them who most of them never even heard the gospel.
Lord, we pray for the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms that are keeping the Harari in the dark that they would be defeated, that you would raise up your church to go and take the gospel to the Harari, that they would be reached with the gospel, that spiritual forces of evil would be taken down and the gospel disciples would be raised up, that churches would be planted among the Harari. God, bring it about there and among all 7,000 other unreached people groups in the world where the adversaries having his way. God, we pray for the advance of the gospel through your church. Help us to stand firm and make disciples of the nations.
God, we pray all of this according to your Word, trusting that the power of your Spirit is in us today to stand firm. In Jesus’ name we pray all this according to your Word in Ephesians 6:12–13. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
