20 But you, beloved, keep building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit.
The Word of God and prayer are two sides of the same coin. Both must be done every day so one’s faith may grow.
Let’s look at it with an illustration:
A person wants to get stronger so he decides to go to the gym. For that to happen he must without exception lift heavy weights or else his muscles will not grow. If he lifts weights every day he will see his muscles getting stronger and bigger, but if he stops, it will start to go down slowly. When he looks in the mirror, he can see a change. The muscles represent your faith and the weights represent prayer. The more you pray the stronger your faith becomes. But, we must understand that prayer without being accompanied by reading the Word of God will not have any effect. The reason being is that without knowing who God is, how can you pray His will?
How does prayer make your faith stronger? In prayer, one has to exercise faith in many ways.
1. You must have faith that God exists
2. You must have faith that God is hearing you
3. You must have faith that God will answer you
4. And you must have faith that God will fulfill your request
All these take much faith and every time you are praying His will, you are exercising your faith and building it up and making it stronger.
If you stop praying and reading Scripture, your faith will start to get weak, putting yourself in a difficult situation. The day that the enemy comes to attack you, you will not stand.
Spiritual Minefield 