Prepare-for-War

will be too ill to get there. This may mean false accusation against you from members of your church saying, "You are sick because you don't get to church." Are you willing to take this kind of false accusation and keep silent as to the real reason why you weren't there? Standing in the gap for someone is a way of"laying down your life for a friend." You can't put yourself in the gap. Only the Lord can do that because only the Lord controls your spirit body. What you must do is ask Father to put you there ifthat is within His will. You must be willing to allow Father to use you in any way He wants for the benefit of another person. You cannot decide how you are to be used. Because the gap is in the spirit world, and because our battle is not "against flesh and blood" but against demon spirits, our spirits do the fighting. Flesh and blood cannot fight on a spirit battlefield. Have you ever experienced a time of intense intercessory prayer after which you felt completely exhausted? That is because, while you were praying with your physical body and mind, God had taken your spirit body and put it into combat with the demonic forces you are praying against. The battle occurred on the battlefield of the spirit world. The fatigue you felt is a result of two things. First, it is a re flection of the stress your spirit experienced in the battle, and secondly, it is a natural "drain'' created by the fact that your spirit was not, during that time, present in your physi cal body. This is why we must be sure to ask God daily to put His full armor on us as in Ephesians chapter 6. This armor is more than just a symbol. It is literal and real armor which goes on our spirit bodies to protect them in the battle. Let me make one point clear. You will rarely be consciously aware that you are "in the gap." This is because the Lord has complete control of our spirit bodies. We do not "see" the spirit world at all times like we do the physical world.

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