Welcome to Timeless Truth with Pastor Jim Thomas. In season 1, Pastor Jim is leading us in a study of Ephesians. Today’s passage is Ephesians 6:18-20.
“It’s easy to be a soldier in a parade,’ he writes. ‘The weapons aren’t loaded, there is no enemy to be found, and all your leader has to do is make sure you keep in step. But when you’re in a war, your weapons are always loaded, the enemy is in sight, and your commander is telling you what to do in order to stay alive and win the battle. Far too many believers in Jesus Christ think they are in a parade instead of a war.”
-Tony Evans
Verse 18 contains 6 all’s (4 actual + 2 implied) that direct when, how, for whom and for what we should pray.
- All prayer
- All petition
- At all times
- All perseverance
- All petition
- For all the saints
“Prayer is the highest activity of the human soul, and therefore it is at the same time the ultimate test of a man’s true spiritual condition (there is nothing so much as prayer life that tells the truth about us as Christian people.) Everything we do in the Christian life is easier than prayer.”
– Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones
“Prayer is awe, intimacy, struggle—yet, the way to reality. There is nothing more important, or harder, or richer, or more life-altering. There is absolutely nothing so great as prayer.”
– Tim Keller, Prayer
“Prayer is abandoning my reliance on me and running toward the rest that can be found only when I rely on the power of God.”
– Paul Tripp
“Everybody heard about this new community which had come into being in Thessalonica, its bold rejection of idolatry, its joy in the midst of opposition, its transformed values, its faith and love.”
– John Stott
Prayer is the antidote to my selfish ambition and chronic anxiety. Prayer is the solution to the frustration of my failed attempts at control, especially self-control.
“The challenge facing us today is not so much the temptation to be relevant to the point that we lose the gospel, but the tendency to unknowingly accept a secular understanding of our faith while believing that we are boldly declaring the gospel.”
– Alan Noble, Disruptive Witness
