2 Powerful Weapons
by David Roadcup
As any elder knows, the church is quite often involved in different levels of spiritual warfare. Satan’s greatest desire is to destroy any community of believers – any church – in which he can get a “foothold” (Eph. 4:27).
Paul shares powerful words about the regular, daily, ongoing spiritual warfare we face in 2 Cor. 10:3-4:
We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.
His main point here is that we cannot fight or defend ourselves with weapons of physical warfare (guns, tanks, mortars, etc.). He makes it perfectly clear that we must defend ourselves and proactively go on the attack with “God’s mighty weapons...to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning.”
What are these “weapons?”
Let me list two that are absolutely key in the battle: prayer and fasting. These two spiritual weapons bring us right into the throne room of our Father as we battle satanic forces.
THE ELDER AND PRAYER
Scripture is clear about the power of prayer. James gets right to the point: “The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results” (5:16). Impacting strength comes from believers of righteousness who join their prayers together.
One of the most significant acts a group of elders/leaders can do for their congregation is to pray – to pray fervently, passionately, and frequently. Prayer is such a power force for our ministries! Prayer will touch our Heavenly Father as we ask Him for the life and ministry of our congregation. I truly believe that prayer is the cornerstone when it comes to the leadership of the elder team.
Our elder team and paid staff can literally stop the onslaught of the enemy with a season of heartfelt prayer. Every elder team should be a powerful fortress of prayer! The elder team should be soaked, immersed, in prayer.
Prayer should surround the elder team like a moat. Every elder team should go before the Lord on its knees, leading on their knees by the power of prayer! Remember brothers and sisters, a prayerless elder team is a powerless elder team!
I enquired of Yahweh and he answered me, and rescued me from all my terrors. …
Yahweh’s envoy camps around the people who live in awe of him and pulls them out.
(Ps. 34:4, 7, The First Testament)
David “enquired” of God, he prayed, and God sent his angel to “camp around” David. Brothers and sisters, let’s ask our heavenly Father, who is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8), to send His angels to “set up camp” around the people of our congregations!
Elders: as leaders of the body of Christ, I am asking you to make it a habit to personally bathe your spirit daily in the fountain of prayer before the Lord. I am asking every elder team to bathe your meetings, retreats and church in prayer. This is your power source. It is our first divinely powerful weapon when overseeing our congregation and protecting our people in the midst of spiritual warfare.
THE ELDER AND FASTING
Our second divinely powerful weapon is fasting.
Combining the powerful practice of fasting with prayer seems to get our heavenly Father’s attention with significant intensity. Fasting can be defined as “cessation from food and drink with caloric value and possibly other important things, for a period of time for the purpose of dedicating oneself to God and His purposes.” Fasting, throughout the Bible, is equated to going without food. Combined with Paul’s direction to husbands and wives to “deprive each other [only] by mutual consent” also for the sake of prayer and seeking God, we can biblically fast from eating and drinking, from sports, from people, from work, from the phone/communicating, from entertainment and the T.V., etc. Fasting is temporarily putting aside something, especially something important, to focus on what is most important – God and our relationship to Him.
When elders fast and pray before the Lord on behalf of their churches, it is a time of power and movement of the Holy Spirit. We put up a firewall of protection around our congregations when these disciplines are employed by righteous men and women. We can truly utilize the divinely powerful weapon of fasting as we shepherd and nurture our people.
I would like to suggest that the elder and staff team of each church should set a regular time to fast together for the sake of the congregation. Whether monthly, weekly, or more than weekly, it could be breakfast, lunch, dinner or some combination. It could be a fast of 12, 24 or 36 hours (i.e. sunrise-sunset, sunset to sunset or beginning after supper one evening, continuing through the entire following day and resume eating with the next breakfast). During this time, the unified group would pray for the lost near them, for the maturing of the saints, for the health and well-being of the entire church family, for those suffering and enduring difficulty, for the young people of the church and community, for the missionaries the church supports and for each other and each other’s families.
If the leaders of churches did so, what would happen? An old adage comes to mind – “Has anything happened in your church over the last six months that cannot be contributed to good planning and effective strategy?” Can we clearly see the Lord’s hand at work in fulfilling His ultimate purpose – winning the lost and nurturing the saved? Friends, we can and will protect our churches through the divinely powerful weapons of prayer and fasting.
If we want to see victories in our church we have never seen before, to go places we have never been before and to see the Lord at work in His church as never before, we will likely have to do things we have never done before. Fasting and fervent prayer can open the door to a new chapter in the life of any church seeking the Lord in this way.
With our ministry partner, Renew.org, we are offering a new resource, Prayer and Fasting: Moving with the Spirit to Renew our Minds, Bodies and Churches. This is a book slightly over one hundred pages filled with practical helps on how to greatly improve your prayer experience and how to practically begin the powerful discipline of fasting.
Find it at this link: https://www.e2elders.org/shop/p/prayer-and-fasting.
