How do you begin to use the wonderful, majestic and powerful sword that God has given to you?

The sword is the last piece of your armour and is the only attack weapon you have been given. It is incredibly sharp and extremely powerful and when you know how to use it you become an invincible force to be reckoned with.

Now, once you have put on the armour, or filled your heart and mind with His word to you, those words will begin to rise from deep within you and proceed out of your mouth without you having to consciously think about it. When you are in this position the word of God will proceed out of your mouth and change the world around you.

It is called the sword of the SPIRIT. Note that it is not just any sword but the SWORD or the VOICE of the SPIRIT. The whole theme of the armour has been about the thoughts of Jesus becoming your thoughts. Learning to think like Him will take time, patience and meditation. Changing your thought patterns does not happen overnight. It will require time alone where you focus on listening to HIS VOICE and exalting His thoughts above your thoughts. As you do this more and more your thoughts will transform and merge into his thoughts and the two of you will become one. When your thoughts and His thoughts are the same then you have entered into the SPIRIT.

God exhorts us to pray in the SPIRIT, or from within the Spirit, on all occasions with all kinds of prayer. Spirit filled, powerful, passionate and effective prayer comes from being positioned IN HIM. As your voice unites with His voice and proceeds from your tongue it penetrates the atmosphere with tremendous creative power.

Now, praying in the spirit is twofold. In Hebrews 4:6 it says that the Word of God is a sharp two-edged sword and in John 6:63 Jesus says His WORDS are spirit and they are life. One side of this sword is praying the Word in your own language with your mind and the other is to let your spirit, by the Holy Spirit, pray for you in a spiritual language or in other tongues. When you become skilled in both you become passionate, effective and powerful in prayer.

From this position, in the SPIRIT or realm of the SPIRIT, we are encouraged to keep on praying for all the SAINTS! Please note, the saints, or most holy ones, are the sons and daughters of God – the Church. Even Jesus on the night in which He was betrayed prayed for the saints – those that God had given to Him – and not the world. We are told to PRAY for the SAINTS and PREACH the gospel to the WORLD.

We need to pray for the SAINTS because we are the CHURCH of the Firstborn and bear the name of Jesus Christ. We are here with a call and a mission which is to bring heaven to earth and to see that through US all of creation is reconciled back to Jesus. Big task filled with wonder and awe, but we fight a mean foe whom we are called to bring under our feet – remember the shoes? When you walk in the full armour of God your walk with God will be fixed and established in peace between you and Jesus. This peace that comes from union with God will crush Satan underneath your feet and as we all come together as one, we will finally crush every work of Satan and even death itself.

Pray for the SAINTS, pray for boldness to preach the gospel, pray that the Church would be built up and that we would reach the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fulness of Christ. Keep seeking the face of Jesus, listen for His voice and follow Him.