Fighting Words

Daniel 10:13 “But for 21 days the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the archangels, came to help me, and I left him there with the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia.” (NLT)

Remember when you were in school and kids used to snap on each other. They would battle back and forth throwing blows of insults to one another to see who would break first. Then like clockwork one of the opponents would take it too far, and someone would get offended.

The cheering squad of laughter around them would turn into a rumbling “oooooh” when someone seemingly hit below the belt. Immediately those words of playful insults would turn into fighting words.

Fighting words imply that I am so heavily insulted by your comment that I now need to cause you physical harm to defend the emotional scar that you inflicted. Your words have impacted me in such a way that I now have to take this from a verbal sparring to a physical altercation.

As Christians we too have fighting words. Our fighting words are not so much insults, but are more so verbal outcrys that sometimes result in spiritual warfare. Our fighting words are powerful, and have the ability to appoint angels to our situations.

Our fighting words are our prayers.

In this chapter of the book of Daniel we find Daniel in the middle of a spiritual fast. He has been fasting and praying for 21 days, but his prayers were held up from being answered due to the “spirit Prince of the kingdom of Persia”.

What does this mean?

It means that while God sends his angels to see about our prayers, the devil sends his angels to block our prayers from being answered. “…Then Michael, one of the archangels, came to help me, and I left him there with the spirit Prince of Persia”

Daniel’s consistent and fervent prayers had the power to release his angel that was being restrained. In the Bible the archangel Michael is known to be the “leader of the heavenly hosts” the “warrior helping the children of Israel”. Think of Michael as your cousin Ray-Ray that you call to fight for you when you find yourself in some mess.

Michael was left there to fight with the “spirit Prince of Persia” so that the angel could get to Daniel. Here we see our verbal prayers fighting spiritual battles. This is a visual of just how powerful our prayers really are.

How they move God, release angels, fight and win battles in the heavenly places. This is why the bible says to “pray without ceasing”, because you never know if you’re one prayer away from your archangel coming to fight for you and release your blessing.

How well do you use your fighting words?