Battle Prayer- starts with love

 Greeting Sisters, last week, we kicked off our Battle Prayers focus for the upcoming summer months. 

We are instructed in Ephesians 6:18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

A recap of Battle Prayers:

1. we are fighting a battle (spiritual and ongoing until our commander stops it), one that our enemy wants us to believe is not real

2. we know our commander and he knows us (his soldiers, through our communication with each other) This is our prayer when we come to have communion with him

3. we come to his command post and ask him what our orders are. This is when we come to prayer in petition.

4. he gives us our orders, we put on our armor and we go to battle. This is when we come to prayer in intercession.

It is in prayer the Armor of God is activated. Through the Holy Spirit, we have the spiritual strength. Prayer puts us on the offense of this war.

Now heading into week two, I thought we would be heading into the next part but the Holy Spirit isn't done with our preparation going into this battle prayer. There is one key that is missing, and that key is Love. Not just any kind of love but his love, the love that one would have to die for another. This is the reason why we are prayer, why we are battling. We fight so there is not one casualty, not one that would be lost.

In a dream (the seed he planted months ago for this), I remember thinking, I am never going to stop. I love them too much to stop. I will die before I stop fighting and praying. And I remember hearing in my spirit, "and this is just a taste of the love that I have for my creation, my children". I was like wow, my mother's love feels so great and he says it is just a drop, talk about mind blown.

What is this love and what isn't it? The Word tells us exactly in 1 Corinthians 13. 

13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

So number 5 is the reason. 

5. We join this battle because our God loves us, and we love others the same way.