POWER Prayers | Day 3

Welcome to Day 3 – the midway point of our time together. It's that significant moment where we're furthest from where we started, yet wonderfully closest to where we're going.

Again, we’re looking at:

Simple. Powerful. Prayer.

On Monday, we laid the foundation about knowing and owning our prayers, making sure that we’re not praying for the sake or purpose of anyone else but only to God, and that we need to stop overcomplicating prayer.

Yesterday, we looked at how there is nothing we can pray that will be a surprise to God, how faith activates power in our prayer, and how God’s power is limited to the amount of faith we have in His ability to do the miraculous and incredible.

Part of what we ended with yesterday is saying that we’re going to pray over the things we commonly pray about for the year ahead—finances, relationships, health, guidance. All that jazz. Yesterday, we prayed about health.

The difference, we said, between our regular prayers and those we’ll be praying this week is that we’re going back to simple, powerful, prayer. We’re stripping our prayers of all their additional adjectives, removing all the "babbling" (as Jesus called it), and claiming the promises that God has already given to us in His Word.

Today, we’re going to do the same. But we’ve already prayed about health and for God to keep us healthy. So, today, we’re going to pray about the other things in our lives that also affect our health, whether physically, mentally, or spiritually. I’m talking about strongholds, addictions, sin that has a grasp on us, and plans that the enemy has to derail us.

You know, when we are standing in the power of God, and we’re growing in our relationship with God, and when we’re claiming the promises of God… the enemy really gets annoyed. And that is when we start getting attacked.

I was told many years ago—I honestly can’t even remember who it was that told me—but I was told that the more we’re attacked, the more the enemy seeks to destroy us or disrupt what we’re doing, the more we know that we’re doing what we should be. The more we know that we’re following God’s plan and living the way that He wants us to… because that’s why the enemy is attacking us more. That’s why the enemy is trying to derail us and steal our focus, so that we cannot focus on doing what God has intended or called us to do.

From that, we can learn a very valuable lesson:

If we’re coasting through life and we never feel the need to claim God’s promise of protection or never feel like the enemy is stirring to try and pull one over on us… why?

Jesus Himself warned us in John 16:33, He said:

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Yet, we have so many churches, Christian churches, out there saying that unless your life is perfect and unless you’re blessed financially and unless this and that, you’re not really walking with God.

But, in contrast, God’s own Word says, we WILL have trouble. If we’re walking with God, we WILL have to face trials as the enemy tries to stop us doing what God has called us to do. As the enemy tries to stop us from serving in God’s kingdom. As the enemy tries to stop us from worshipping God because He has overcome the world!

Now, that is not, however, to say that we won’t still be blessed by God and that if we are blessed it means that we’re not walking with Him. Because God’s Word also says that He will bless us. So, yes, we may acquire wealth that is a blessing from God, yet we may have troubles in another area. We may be blessed in one area but have trouble in another… that’s just how it is, because if we’re living with God and how God has called us to live, the enemy ain’t gonna be happy.

And that’s what the Bible warns us about… not just where Jesus tells us that we’ll have trouble. Ephesians 6:12 talks about it and says:

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

So, the Bible is clear, our fight is against the enemy. The enemy has plans against us and that’s what our battle is against.

The thing is, the enemy knows how to trap us.

The enemy knows how to catch us, and that is with sin. That is why we are tempted, because it is so easy to make us fall. Not because the sin is irresistible, but because of our own sinful nature and our own evil desire that we are born with before the Holy Spirit lives within us.

James 1:13-16 says:

“When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters.”

The enemy uses deceit to trap us into strongholds and into sin that we cannot escape from. How many times have you heard sins be justified away? Smoking, excessive drinking, drugs, sexual immorality, homosexuality?

‘It’s just a phase. It’s not hurting anyone. They don’t smoke thaaat much.’

We make excuses and justifications for sin that have been birthed by our own sinful desires that we were born with due to the fall of man. And what are we doing when we make these excuses and justifications? We are being deceived and the plans of the enemy are working.

And then, often we realise it. We realise we’ve been hoodwinked and we try and come back to God… only to find that now we need to fight. Only to find that we’ve let the sin carry on too long, we’ve let the stronghold establish itself and now… it is no longer as simple as just walking away.

And so, we pray. And how many times have we heard people pray: Lord, please free me from this. Lord, please break down this stronghold. Lord, please help me stop.

Where is the power in those prayers? Why are we asking ‘Lord please’ rather than saying ‘Lord thank you!’

The Bible has many places where we are told that we have the victory over the enemy! But, we need to know our Bibles to believe that and know what promises we can claim in Christ!

Colossians 1:13-14:

“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

Luke 10:19:

“I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.”

And my favourite verse and our main scripture this evening, 2 Corinthians 10:3-5:

“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Do you notice that nowhere in that verse does it say we try to? We aim to? We hope to?

No, it says we demolish! We take captive! We have the authority! God’s already done it.

God’s already given us the victory over any plan of the enemy.

I go back to John 16:33:

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Again, why are we coming to God as beggars rather than as Children of the Most High? Why are we pleading and asking God rather than standing in what He has already done for us and standing in the fact that He has already overcome the world or that, as Luke says, we have authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm us?

As we said yesterday, the power of God to work in our lives and to make things happen and to free us and to disrupt the plans of the enemy and to bring about release and to restore us to a life He wants for us… it is limited by our faith in His ability to do it.

So, if we’re trying to break a stronghold in our lives, that we’ve been trying to break for years, and we pray ‘God, I claim that you will set me free from this’ but in the back of our mind we’re thinking, I’ve already prayed this 10 times, this time will be no different, then where is our faith?

2 Corinthians says that and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. So, that means that when that thought arises, we stand in the authority we have and say ‘God, I know you’re going to do it! This time, it is different because I am claiming a victory that you’ve already won and although I know that the enemy is going to tempt me even more because I am trying to live the way you’ve called me to do, I have authority over the enemy and no plans that they have will work. I claim your Word in Isaiah 54:17 that says:

“no weapon forged against [me] you will prevail, and [I] you will refute every tongue that accuses you.”

If we do that, and we take our thoughts captive, and we stand in the authority that God has given us, and we claim the victory He’s already given us, then we are praying power prayers.

So, that’s what we’re going to pray tonight. But, like other nights, we’re going to start by praying for the faith to pray in power. So, let’s pray:

• God, increase my faith in your ability to do the miraculous like your Word says that you can do.

• God, help me to have the boldness to stand in faith and claim the promises of your Word and to move mountains with my prayer.

Now that we're ready to pray with power, let's pray for the following:

• Against any deceit that has settled in our lives and fostered sin—whether we’re aware of it or not.

• For the Holy Spirit to show us any area that we need to stand against in God’s authority.

• Against any stronghold or sin that is reoccurring in our lives. Against anything that the enemy thinks has a foothold.

• Against any temptation that may cause us to stumble and fall into the trap of the enemy.

• Against any thought that makes our faith waver and think that God cannot do it.

• Against every plan of the enemy that sets itself up against God, His Word, or His children.

Finally, we should always be thankful to God for what He's already done. Therefore, let's pray:

• Thanksgiving to God for the victory that we have in Him and that He has already won the battle for us.