Chrysostom
Beloved of All
Your prayer has been heard and we join with you in giving thanks to God for His promises. It is true that the battle belongs to the Lord as it is written in 2 Chronicles 20:15, and that greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world according to 1 John 4:4, and that Christ in us is the hope of glory. We also rejoice that Christ Himself ever lives to make intercession for those who come to God through Him, and therefore we are able to be saved to the uttermost, not by our own strength but because He does not die and has no successor, but continues as our High Priest.
We pray with you for grace to stand firm in the Lord and to wrestle lawfully. Scripture teaches that our wrestling is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces of wickedness, and that this present life is a contest and warfare that calls for vigilance, sobriety and endurance rather than ease or luxury. God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able to bear, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape so that you may be able to endure it, and He gives patience and brings release in His time.
We also pray that your fasting and prayer would be sincere and humble. Fasting rightly done makes the soul light and winged and fervent in prayer, quenches wicked desires and humbles the heart before God, and nothing is more powerful than a person who prays sincerely. Yet this must be done not as a boast or as sounding a trumpet before others, but in secret before the Father who sees in secret. If the body is weak for continual fasting, the avoidance of luxury and the discipline of a simple life still helps greatly to weaken the schemes of the evil one, for luxury and excess are a fountain of many evils.
As you weep between the porch and the altar and sigh over abominations, keep your intercession according to the mind of Christ. We are warned not to make intercession against our enemies or to call down curses upon them and their households, for that turns prayer into vengeance. Instead we are to war a good warfare with truth, righteousness, faith and the pure gospel of peace, preaching the death of the Messiah for sin and His righteousness given as a gift, so that even enemies blinded by the adversary might be saved. The weapons God has given, prayer, fasting, preaching, teaching, love and suffering in fellowship with His Spirit, are mighty to extinguish the attacks of the ancient serpent, but the binding of that serpent belongs to the Lord Himself in His time as shown in Revelation 20, and our part is to resist by faith and to proclaim His word as a sword.
May the Lord keep you from temptation and deliver you from evil and from the evil one, and may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. We pray that utterance may be given to you to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, and that you may stand firm clothed in truth and righteousness by faith, trusting not in your own power but in Him who has already won the victory. In Jesus are all the promises Yes and Amen, and in His name we ask these things.
We pray with you for grace to stand firm in the Lord and to wrestle lawfully. Scripture teaches that our wrestling is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces of wickedness, and that this present life is a contest and warfare that calls for vigilance, sobriety and endurance rather than ease or luxury. God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able to bear, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape so that you may be able to endure it, and He gives patience and brings release in His time.
We also pray that your fasting and prayer would be sincere and humble. Fasting rightly done makes the soul light and winged and fervent in prayer, quenches wicked desires and humbles the heart before God, and nothing is more powerful than a person who prays sincerely. Yet this must be done not as a boast or as sounding a trumpet before others, but in secret before the Father who sees in secret. If the body is weak for continual fasting, the avoidance of luxury and the discipline of a simple life still helps greatly to weaken the schemes of the evil one, for luxury and excess are a fountain of many evils.
As you weep between the porch and the altar and sigh over abominations, keep your intercession according to the mind of Christ. We are warned not to make intercession against our enemies or to call down curses upon them and their households, for that turns prayer into vengeance. Instead we are to war a good warfare with truth, righteousness, faith and the pure gospel of peace, preaching the death of the Messiah for sin and His righteousness given as a gift, so that even enemies blinded by the adversary might be saved. The weapons God has given, prayer, fasting, preaching, teaching, love and suffering in fellowship with His Spirit, are mighty to extinguish the attacks of the ancient serpent, but the binding of that serpent belongs to the Lord Himself in His time as shown in Revelation 20, and our part is to resist by faith and to proclaim His word as a sword.
May the Lord keep you from temptation and deliver you from evil and from the evil one, and may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. We pray that utterance may be given to you to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, and that you may stand firm clothed in truth and righteousness by faith, trusting not in your own power but in Him who has already won the victory. In Jesus are all the promises Yes and Amen, and in His name we ask these things.
