Today Paul wraps up his passage on the whole armour of God by laying out how these tools and weapons are deployed:
“With every prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and to this end be alert, with all perseverance and petitions for all the saints. Pray for me also, that I may be given the right words when I begin to speak — that I may confidently make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may be able to speak boldly as I ought to speak.”
(Ephesians 6.18-20, NET)
The idea of pray at all times is just that: believers should be praying all the time, constantly (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5.17). Obviously there is a time and a place for quiet, focused, ‘hands together and eyes closed’ prayer, but there is never a time when we shouldn’t be praying: walking, driving, working, serving, resting…
Having told the Ephesian believers what they will need with the authority of an apostle of the Lord Jesus (1.1), Paul is still humble enough to ask for help:
“Pray for me also, that I may be given the right words when I begin to speak — that I may confidently make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may be able to speak boldly as I ought to speak.”
There is no ‘do as I say and not as I do‘ here, Paul is just as much in the fight as his readers. He asks for help to, simply, keep on teaching and preaching with a Divine boldness.
We can wear all the armour, we can carry the weapons, and we can have the tools at the ready, but without prayer our spiritual battle is over before it begins. I recently read this, a fitting thought to take into the day:
“We can say that it is through prayer that spiritual strength and the armor of God go to work. In theory, the prayerless Christian can be strong and wearing all the armor; but never accomplishes anything because he fails to go into battle through prayer.”
James Travis 