#PrayForParis  #PrayForWorld #ParisAttacks

Most of us are aware of the horrific attacks against the City of Lights, the beautiful Paris.  The news coverage has been non-stop and frankly scary.  It makes me fearful.  In fact, one of my friends on Facebook had to decide if they were going to a concert after the news last night.  Their conclusion, “Yes because we cannot let them win by keeping us all in our houses.”  And in another show of what the culture calls solidarity, thousands of Parisians came out of the soccer stadium singing the national anthem.  Not that that is bad in and of itself.

I recently just started this amazing Bible study by Priscilla Shirer called Armor of God.  Obviously it is all about the armour of God.  But here’s the kicker – even though I just started it, it comes from an entirely different perspective than I’d ever heard before.

Priscilla starts the study by pointing out what our enemy is not.  In Ephesians 6:12 it says, “¹² For our struggle is not against ^[e]flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

So while we are all focused on solidarity and what I would call being defiant toward these people with our weapons, our laws, our everything, there is a war being fought against them in the spiritual realm.  And our true enemy is not the flesh and blood people we see carrying out these terrible attacks.  Our true enemy is Satan, the devil himself.

One of Priscilla’s most fabulous points is that prayer is the key to putting on our FULL Armour of God.   After all, how are we supposed to put on the entire thing by ourselves?  A full plate of armour is heavy, maybe even more than we can carry out by ourselves. Even in Midieval Times they had help.

But wait!  It says our battles and our help is found in heavenly places… and here we are down in the physical realm.  Let it suffice us to say, that is another entire blog by itself which I will have to write later…

How do we then tap into our “help”?  Prayer!  Prayer!  PRAYER!

¹⁴ and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14

I hear my law enforcement friends discussing how we are already infiltrated and an attack like the Paris attacks is eminent – it’s just a matter of when.  I hear my political people talking about new leadership so we can stand up and be counted.  I see the world coming together to try and fight this evil that is ISIS.  I hear all kinds of solutions, and yet, not one of them is truly facing our true enemy.

“Victory in spiritual warfare is inseparable from prayer.” Priscilla Shirer And yet we don’t cry out to God, we don’t look to where our help comes from.  We are still trying to put on our armour by ourselves. We are still being stubborn. We think we can handle it better than the creator of the universe. Who do we think we are!  To use an old southern saying, “We have gotten too big for our britches!”

The verse says ‘HUMBLE YOURSELVES AND PRAY!” And in all this defiance, I have not yet seen anyone humbling themselves.  Daniel humbled himself and prayed for his people in Daniel 9.  In it he says, “WE have sinned”.  Now you know, Daniel was pretty sinless… and yet he humbled himself before a mighty God.

So I say, it’s time to stop finding our own solutions, it’s time to stop plotting and planning… it’s not going to work anyway.  It’s time to humble ourselves and PRAY, JUST PRAY!