In Matthew 16:18, Jesus wasn’t referring to Peter’s nomenclature, instead, he was speaking about His destiny. The name “Peter” referred to the knowledge that God had about Peter, the knowledge of his destiny. Every one of us has this in the mind of God, and when he calls us this, it does not necessarily mean that we have arrived there yet. Our life’s journey is usually a progression from what we currently are unto God’s ordained destiny for us.
The intention of the devil is usually to sell us another idea to distract us from what God purposes for us. There are really no coincident happenings in the earth realm and we have to be spiritually intelligent. For instance, the devil can convince a man that he is Abram and not Abraham, this will cause such one not to bear his promised child. However, such may give birth to only Ishmael.
In times like these, understanding is very much needed when lies are being peddled everywhere. One is such lies is that young people cannot master supernatural things. Many times, the Lord brings prophetic pictures to our hearts, but we get trapped when we begin to interpret them with our human understandings. This does us no good because a man that sees and hears without right understanding is no better than the man that does not hear.
The only practical way to learn warfare is to actually be engaged in warfare and the only way to learn how to pray is to actually pray. Our generation needs to learn the art of prevailing prayers because Satan is not scared of our degrees, without prayers, he will mess us up.
Another very important tool in warfare is patience. Even after doing the will of God we would not see victory without it. Prayer is a trigger that opens up the spiritual realm. For every assignment that the Lord gives us, we have to fight warfare and that warfare can even be as quiet as tiredness.
In 2 Kings 6:15-17, God surrounded one man, Elisha with a battalion of angels. He always walked with a consciousness of security wherever he goes. If a man under the law got such results we under grace need to start asking questions to be sure that we are not just dull of hearing. He needed Gehazi’s eyes to be opened to see this his reality.
In Spiritual warfare, we need revelational knowledge. When we begin to pray we should first trust God to bring us into revelational knowledge where we receive directions to pray better. There are prayers that unsettle territorial spirits and we cannot learn it with convenience.
Another side to warfare is submission, which Jesus typified when he submitted to his parents. This was, in fact, his entrance into wisdom and stature. Another time that warfare by submission came his way was when he submitted to John to be baptized by him. He embraced humility and the heavens opened over him.