The new covenant that Jesus established for all that are born again, gives the children of God the advantage of an inward power. This power bears the Spirit of God Himself. It sufficiently enables us to take authority over all evil and with the faith of a mustard seed, to actually become the law over earth's physical laws. In fact, those that are Spirit-filled have power over all that is involved with this temporary realm. Our Kingdom is of another place. We are aliens as children of God to this temporary environment that is governed by Satan, and this atmosphere is our battle ground. We as God's vessels, discharge this power through the Word of God in an act we call prayer. Through our prayer the Spirit of God fights the powers of darkness to defeat the forces of evil and right the havoc and damage they have already caused. Again, this power, with God's Spirit in it, is ours. It is the force that drives the Word of God to its mark. If we could learn how to use the different aspects of this power we will surely be the victor.

Prayer therefore is taking direct authority in the spiritual realm to impart or change things in the natural. To accomplish this you must be a bold, passionate, persistent warrior. I say bold because fear will cause doubt. In fact the exact opposite of faith is fear. It is a spirit that erodes our confidence, trust and belief in the love of God, to hinder one from thinking He would even want to meet our needs. Fear is a strongman in the forces of evil that brings torment, and with it doubt, cinching the devil's wish to steal God's answers to our prayers.

We must be determined to achieve our goal in prayer and diligently persevere. Fear has to be routed out of our lives so that conviction, confidence, trust and the belief we need to really stand, can take place.

I said we must be passionate in that we must really love and care about God's people and things we are praying about. A good warrior is one that has feelings that go deep in his spirit and pulls at his heart. This prayer warrior will plead with God for the cause of God's family and gallantly stand between the flock and the enemy. They will tearfully sow the Word of God into seemingly impossible situations, expecting miracles. These warriors are a humble and submissive people that totally know their complete dependency on the Lord. They are Sion prayer warriors.

So, planting seeds of prayer, and watering them with tears, will not only harvest good results, but will bring a sense of joy to the sower! This is the ministry of tears.

We must truly be persuaded of God's goodness to have the boldness and passion to be angry enough to run the devil off when he intervenes in our lives and the lives of those we pray for. Without this righteous anger, the enemy laughs at our little puny attempts to drive him off. Is it OK to be righteously angry? God says be angry and do not sin.

The Word does not say anywhere that we should not get angry at our spiritual enemies. In fact Matthew 11:12 says:

Many Scriptures confirm that God Himself becomes angry, and we are created in His image.

In other words, it is normal to be angry when we see the enemy destroying the lives of God's people. We are the head and not the tail, the lender not borrowers, and greater is He that is in us. These scriptures are truth, yet the devil continues to come in to kill, steal and destroy. As we fight back in prayer, the anger at the injustice, the animosity we feel against an unseen enemy we cannot physically fight, results quite often in angry tears running down our faces as we cry out to God to help us and come vehemently against Satan. This is the ministry of tears.

If we don't expect God to meet our needs for joy, finances, health, and yes, even our heart's desires, just because He is a good God and a Father that loves His children, then we won't be persistent enough to fight through so that His promises can be realized in our lives. We will give up if our desires or needs are not met immediately, thinking God just didn't want to meet the need. Our faith must flow without doubt to the Father for His faithfulness to manifest the answer we are looking for back to us. If we truly believe what the Word promises we will have the tenacity and courage to stand. And at the same time, we will get really angry at the enemy for putting out the illusion that the Word does not work for us or those we care about! Have you ever been so convicted of being right about something and yet to all physical appearances it looks like you are dead wrong? How angry and frustrating this was when you knew what you knew! You perhaps even threw a little fit at those that challenged you telling you that you were wrong. Well this is the same attitude as that of the prayer warrior that knows God's promise in scripture, and isn't afraid to be demonstrative in prayer. They know that they know God's opinion in the matter. So absolute anger arises, because the warrior's heart is fully convicted from hearing and knowing the Word. He is so absolutely positive his prayer is in line with God's will that he hard-headedly, doggedly, persistently battles against the enemy. In the process, boldness, anger, passion, and the intense drive to win erupts in water gushing forth from eyes so focused on the promises of God that he can see nothing but victory. This also is the ministry of tears.

Then there is the prayer warrior, again well versed in the Word, that has done all they know to reach family, friends, even loved ones, who for the most part, do not want to hear about the things of God. Perhaps they are so caught up in themselves and the pleasures of this world, that they want no part of the intense battle to establish God's Kingdom. Or maybe they are just lazy and content with life as it is, and church to them is just a feel good place you go to socialize or to be considered a good citizen in the community. Lukewarm, but good for business.

How sad, tears well up in disappointment as the warrior lifts those he cares about to the Father in prayer. He is tearfully aware of their spiritual condition and fully understands that God will not step over their will to change them. Again, this prayer is the ministry of tears.

Or perhaps the warrior is in love with someone that just doesn't have the same convictions concerning the things of God as they do. He or she may not want to walk the same narrow highway of holiness, or give up their personal agendas in the world to completely serve God. Kingdom lifestyle may not be very interesting to them at all. This can be really heart wrenching for the one that is dedicated to the Kingdom. Especially if they are truly in love with that person and yet dedicated and determined to serve the Lord. As they pray for their loved one, tears of frustration, anguish, disappointment and sorrow come forth in what is known as the ministry of tears.

The Lord sees every tear we shed. He has, at different instances, changed the course of time and history for His children because of their tears. Look what He did for King Hezekiah.

King David sang, begging God in Psalm 39:12, to remember his tears and outcries.

Yes, David, the mighty warrior King of Israel, interceded through the ministry of tears as did all the early priesthood. Their pride did not get in the way, they did not consider this prayer unmanly. In fact there is a very unique role in spiritual warfare prayer that tears seem to play in obtaining a breakthrough. For one thing, God draws near to those with broken hearts and contrite spirits.

It seems as we travail with tears of sorrow, compassion, anger or repentance, victory is birthed.

There are times that surrender and submission to God's sovereignty paves the way for our prayer to be answered also, as we will finally quit praying the way we think God should accomplish things and let Him just do it. As the old saying goes, "let go and let God." As we finally let go of our issues and opinions after many sessions of prayer, we many times release these things to God through helpless tears of frustration and utter exhaustion. It can seem like there is nothing left of us to pray, and we become almost too tired and exhausted emotionally to even care. But even in this letting go guess what, there is victory.

It is at these particular moments when we have prayed all we know to pray without any release or breakthrough, that we just pray in the spirit, or in our prayer language. What happens is, we give up our human understanding and simply let the Holy Ghost take charge of the situation. This is how the Holy Spirit intercedes through us in perfect prayer. Even though we may not know what is being prayed by the Holy Spirit, we can feel the emotion of our spirit welling up in us resulting in what is known as liquid prayer or the ministry of tears.

People, in fact whole denominations that are not filled with the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, miss out on this dimension of prayer.

When we pray in tongues our spirit man is responding through the mind of Christ and therefore bypassing the intellect of our soul man. But, don't become mentally detached or disinterested. Stay connected. Be very sensitive to the Holy Spirit as He joins with your spirit, for together you may become emotional, compassionate or angry and breakthrough comes as you engage in the ministry of tears.

In Ephesians 6:10-13 Apostle Paul advises us to put on the whole armor of God that we may be able to stand against the powers of darkness. He reminds us that our fight is not against a physical enemy, but a well-structured army of evil beings. We are to put on our armor in order to maintain a prepared battle-stance against this invisible realm and to use it offensively against these demonic forces.

Then he directs us to pray with all prayer. In other words, we put on our armor to prepare for the battle and then go to war through prayer.

The Word of God is our weapon or sword. It is wielded through the power of the Holy Ghost that rises up in our defense as we pray in our prayer language. If there are several in one accord or unity of purpose, look at the power that goes forth! The enemy must surely meet with defeat. God said through Zephaniah in chapter three, verses eight and nine:

In our armor, call on the name of Jesus, be united boldly, passionately and persistently in one vision and pray in the language of the Spirit. How can we lose? Let us close with a prophetic picture of the victory that is promised to God's people as we read further in Zephaniah three, verses fourteen through eighteen.