Prayer warriors and the rosary

By Prosper Tingini | May. 7, 2023

BIBLE

The term “prayer warrior” is usually used to describe someone who prays continually, day in and day out for long periods. The person becomes a soldier engaged in a battle of prayers, for self and for others.

The focus is on engaging with God in order to win His heart for Him to answer to the prayers at hand. For Christians, the prayers are normally channeled through Jesus Christ, if not directly to Jesus as some would prefer.

The Bible does not specify exactly what classes of people are to pray more often than the others apart from the roles given for priests.

However, there are some people who feel inclined to be warriors in prayer such that they take it upon themselves to engage in a spiritual battle to fight the good fight of faith wearing ‘the full armour of God’.

They fight in the ‘spiritual realm’ using all kinds of prayers and requests directed to the Heavenly Father. The emphasis is on prayer.

Prayer should also include thankfulness for the good the Lord our God is doing for us in our lives or that of others.

In order to walk with God, we have to communicate with Him through prayer. If we seriously meditate daily in our engagements with Him and doing His will in accordance with the guided ways, we thus become humble. Humility is essential for effective prayers to be heard. Prayer is thus indeed work, as we expect some results to emanate in response.

Sometimes we battle with Satan and his evil ways such that we need the strength to overcome our entanglements with sin.

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This spiritual battle will need the added strength from the Lord our God to release us from any grip of evil, to overcome the devil through the gun barrels of our prayers.

The biblical Moses continually engaged with God. He secluded himself to speak with God countless times. Twice, he climbed up the mountain at Mt Sinai for forty days and nights, each time communicating with the Lord both in prayer and face to face, according to the book of Exodus.

After the initial forty days and nights, he brought down with him the tablet of stone on which was written the commandments of God. However, he released from his hand the tablet of stone in shock and it broke into pieces, after witnessing his people praying to a golden calf. He had to go back for another forty days in the mountain to be with God and pray to get a replacement.

In the New Testament, we have the story of Jesus Christ who went for forty days out into the wilderness, let by the Spirit. The dual purpose was for him to fast in seclusion so he could pray to his Heavenly Father and to overcome the devil, Satan (Mathew 4:1-11). Prayer warriors need to seclude themselves to focus on praying, away from prying eyes and away from the disturbances of people and other external factors. It’s more effective when you pray alone. It becomes more like a congregation of worshippers if you pray as a group, although it doesn’t take away the warrior in you.

For those who wish to be in a long. spiritual separation to commit themselves to pray to the Lord for a targeted duration, this is what God told Moses to say to the people; “Say to the people, when either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the Lord, he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink; he shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink and shall not drink any juice eat grapes, fresh or dried. All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins.

“All the days of his vow of separation no razor shall come upon his head; until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the Lord, he shall be holy; he shall let the locks of his head grow long.

“All the days he separates himself from the Lord he shall not go near a dead body. Neither for his father nor for his mother, nor for brother or sister, if they die. He shall not make himself unclean; because his separation to God is upon his head. All the days of his separation he is holy to the Lord (Numbers 6:1-12)”.

There is another type of prayer worship that uses what is termed the ‘rosary’. It is mainly practiced within the Catholic Church and a few of its splinter religious affiliates. It sort of basically looks like a necklace of beads linked together, with a cross representing Jesus Christ nailed to it, hanging from the circle of beads.

A rosary is normally made up of 59 beads and each of the beads on the rosary is intended to have a prayer recited while holding the individual bead. While there might be some variations on how it is used, there are two main distinct types of prayers to denote each of the beads. These are the “Hail Marys” and the “Our Fathers”.

Also incorporated within them are what are termed “Gloria” prayers in honour of particular mystery occurrences of the New Testament era. Basically, 53 of the beads are meant to be reserved for “Hail Marys” and the other six are intended for “Our Fathers”.

However, this sequence of prayers can vary here and there in accordance with the religious denomination that practices such a culture of prayer. A person then keeps count of the prayers by moving the fingers from one bead to the other as the particular guided prayers are recited. It can take around an hour or more to recite all the prayers.

The origin of the use of the rosary is said to have been traced back to the era of the Christian Crusades.

The Crusaders are said to have adopted this practice from the Arabs, who had also copied the use of beads in prayers by people from India. Archeological findings also revealed that ancient Ephesians made use of such beads in their worship of their goddess, Diana, also known as Artemis, whose temple was one of the seven wonders of the world. A full reference of Artemis of the Ephesians is written in the book of Acts of the Apostles, 19:23-41.

However, Jesus Christ castigated public prayer worshippers and those who repeat the same prayers over and over again. In Mathew 6:5-8, he told his disciples: “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you that they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and our Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him”. Amen.

Prosper Tingini is the Scribe of the Children of God Missionary Assembly — God’s messengers. Contact details: Mobile and whatsapp: 0771 260 195. Email address: ptingini@gmail.com