We often pray out of a sense of duty, paying a sort of lip service to what we believe. The average prayer meeting today is a sad event for this very reason.
Sometimes we who are there scold those who are absent, and we look down on them. Sometimes those who attend the prayer meeting feel themselves to be better than those who do not. This attitude hinders real prayer.
We are inclined to say the same things over and over again without really ever getting down to the real business of praying.
Prayer is one of our weapons against sin. But if we remain indifferent to the seriousness of sin, our prayers will lack fervor, and we will not care about those who are lost or the interests of God. We just do not know how to pray.
Paul told us in Romans 15:30: "Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me."
Paul encouraged his readers to pray fervently and to strive in prayer. This involved agonizing and wrestling in prayer.
Ephesians 6:12 says, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
When these things confront us, we need to know how to pray fervently. That is why Paul said in Ephesians 6:18, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints."
"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit" (Eph. 6:18).