Facing the spiritual battle

Finally, dear brothers and sisters, I ask you to pray for us.
Pray first that the Lord's message will spread rapidly and be honored wherever it goes, just as when it came to you.
Pray, too, that we will be saved from wicked and evil people, for not everyone believes in the Lord.
But the Lord is faithful; he will make you strong and guard you from the evil one.…
May the Lord bring you into an ever deeper understanding of the love of God and the endurance that comes from Christ.
2 Thessalonians 3:1-5 NLT


In order to be effective on the battlefield a soldier must be both well trained and properly equipped.
The warrior must be alert for surprise attacks.
So it is in our spiritual battle with Satan.
Determined to destroy our faith by leading us into sin and discouragement, Satan attacks with blatant temptation and deceptive lies.
The Bible teaches that the best weapons for this warfare are the Word of God and prayer.
The faith of the Thessalonian believers was being tried by persecution. Undoubtedly some of them were wavering, even failing, as the surrounding evil put them to the test.
This was an important time for Paul to remind them that, no matter what happened, God's faithfulness would prevail over evil and strengthen them so that they could endure.

From the TouchPoint Bible (Tyndale House) pp1277,1059