The devil hates prayer because God works through prayer.
C.S. Lewis, the great British writer and professor, described Satan's problem with prayer in a dialogue between a senior and a junior devil called The Screwtape Letters, first published in 1942.
In it, Screwtape tells his nephew Wormwood "whenever there is prayer, there is a danger of His (God's) own immediate action." So, he urges his nephew to do everything he can to keep the new young Christian he is dealing with from praying - and, if he prays, from praying to God from his heart.
When Christians pray to God in faith, Screwtape says "our (the devils') situation is desperate."
Lewis was not exaggerating.
Talking about prayer, Jesus said that "whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." And he went on to say that "if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven." (Matthew 18:18-19)
Those are powerful promises. They are a call to fervent prayer.
Jesus lived what he preached. He prayed before speaking to great crowds. He prayed before making key decisions. It was his way of determining what God wanted and then carrying it out.
Perhaps Jesus' most critical prayers came on the Mount of Olives, the night before he died on the cross. While his disciples slept, he prayed so hard that he sweat drops of blood, fighting Satan's effort to keep him from going to the cross. The Father answered by sending an angel to strengthen him in his resolve (Luke 22:39-46).
The apostle John wrote in 1 John 3:8 that "the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work."
When we pray to our Lord, we are destroying the devil's work.
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