The Spiritual Man

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Prayer and Warfare
All Prayer Ought To Be Spiritual. Unspiritual
prayers are not genuine and can produce no positive
result. What abundant spiritual success there would be
were every prayer offered by believers on earth in fact
spiritual! But sad to say, fleshly prayers are far too
numerous. Self-will found therein deprives them of spiritual
fruitfulness. Nowadays Christians appear to treat prayer as a means
to accomplish their aims and ideas. If they possessed just a little
deeper understanding, they would recognize that prayer is but man
uttering to God what is God’s will. The flesh, no matter where
displayed, must be crucified; it is not permitted even in prayer. No
mixing of man’s will in God’s work is possible, for He rejects the
best of human intentions and man’s most profitable prospects. God
does not will He should follow what man has initiated. Other than
following God’s direction, we have no right to direct Him. We have
no ability to offer save to obey God’s guidance. God will do no work
which originates with man, no matter how much man may pray. He
condemns such praying as fleshly.
As believers enter the true realm of the spirit, immediately they
shall see how empty they themselves are, for absolutely nothing in
them can impart life to others or work havoc upon the enemy.
Instinctively they will therefore reckon on God. Prayer then becomes
imperative. True prayer uncovers the emptiness in the petitioner but
the fullness in the Petitioned. Unless the flesh has been reduced to a
“vacuum” by the cross, what use is prayer and what can it possibly
signify?
Spiritual prayer does not proceed from the flesh nor the thought,
desire, or decision of the believer; rather does it follow purely from
that which is offered according to the will of God. It is prayed in the
spirit, that is to say, spiritual prayer is made after one has discerned