Christians Must Start Thinking Spiritually

A few weeks ago, this column wrote about how all things are spiritual. It examined world events and their progression toward the rapture, the tribulation period, the antichrist, and ultimately the return of Jesus Christ.

Today, we’ll take a step back from the world stage and bring things up a notch by looking at the spiritual forces that are involved with us on a personal level.

In Daniel chapter ten, we read of Daniel praying and fasting for twenty-one days. The chapter explains that an angel was sent to Daniel to answer his prayer “from the first day” that he began to pray. This angel, while on his way to Daniel, was met by a demon. The demon fought the angel to keep him from reaching Daniel and answering his prayer. Michael, the archangel, comes to assist the first angel. It took the angel twenty-one days to reach Daniel.

One question this recollection from Daniel brings to my mind is: What would have happened if Daniel had not prayed for twenty-one days? Suppose Daniel had stopped after two days, or nineteen, or twenty. Would the original angel sent to answer his prayer have ceased in his fight with the demon and returned to where he came from?

Another question that comes to mind is, do we think God answers prayer by the wave of a magic wand; do we even consider that there are other spiritual forces in play?

In the New Testament, James tells us, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16). Daniel fasted for twenty-one days attempting to get his prayer answered. You cannot get more fervent than that, and yet demons were able to slow down the response time for the answer.

I’m not saying you need to fast for three days when praying for your child’s head cold. Still, Jesus did tell us that certain things in life are so serious that we must include fasting to have the situation resolved by prayer (Matthew 17:21).

One thing Christians should learn from Daniel’s prayer experience is that we muster a spiritual army of angels when we pray, which may fight against demons of the spirit world in responding to our call for assistance.

Daniel’s experience also tells us some things about unanswered prayer.

Unanswered prayer can be the result of a heart that does not take the situation seriously enough. In other words, our soul does not bring us to any degree of fervency about receiving an answer.

Unanswered prayer also comes because we do not pray long enough, stopping after not seeing any results. Little do we know, an Archangel may be out there fighting on our behalf. When we stop praying, we give up the fight. Why should the angel continue?

A side note here. Stopping praying because we haven’t seen an answer comes from a lack of faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Faith can move mountains, yet without faith, we cannot expect God to work on our behalf.

Those spiritual forces that fought the angel also fight against us.

Satan and his demons can cripple a Christian through guilt, failure, shame, and regret, among other things. We must realize Christ paid the penalty for all our sins. God sees us as righteous (1 Corinthians 1:30). When we sin after salvation, this does hinder our relationship with God, yet confession brings forgiveness and a restoration of a good relationship (1 John 1:9). The only need for guilt in a Christian’s life is from the moment we sin until confession. Guilt, shame, and regret should not linger with us.

At other times, the forces of evil are more subtle, working in our hearts over time, sometimes for decades. A continuing hardening of the heart brings apathy, a lack of compassion, the loss of our love for God and our neighbor. The lack of love for God leads to a lack of Bible reading, prayer, church attendance, and sharing the gospel with others. After a time, all those fundamental things we need for a victorious Christian life are gone from our lives because we allowed Satan and his demons to erode at our souls, usually unknowingly, that anything spiritual was happening.

The key to fighting the forces of evil is prayer. Daniel’s story tells us that. James chapter five explains that we have not because we ask not, and that sometimes we ask and receive not because our prayers are self-centered and not God-centered (James 5:3-4).

We’ve already seen that fervent prayer receives an answer. Most churches have a prayer list. Reading a list to God of sick people and that so-and-so needs car repairs does not fall into the category of fervency. We need to have that list hit our hearts. Our prayers need to mean something to us. The angels who fight the demons for us need to see that the desire of our hearts is worth fighting for.

Think spiritually, there is far more going on than what we will ever see or realize.