Praying God's Word: Breaking Free from Spiritual Strongholds

By Beth Moore

Beth Moore's #1 best-selling book (more than one million copies in print) is available in paperback for the first time!

Praying God's Word is the perennial favorite Scripture-prayer resource designed to help us decisively overcome specific strongholds: pride, idolatry, addiction, loss, depression, unbelief, temptation, and more.

No matter how overwhelmed or out of control a person may feel today, Beth boldly reminds us that nothing is bigger or more powerful than the Lord. With this landmark book we learn to wield the sword of the Spirit, praying God's Word to break free from anything that has a hold on us until the joy and authority of Christ rules in our lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BH Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781433668654

Beth Moore

Author and speaker Beth Moore is a dynamic teacher whose conferences take her across the globe. She has written numerous bestselling books and Bible studies. She is also the founder and visionary of Living Proof Ministries based in Houston, TX.

Book preview

me.

INTRODUCTION

As long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever comprehend why God has allowed me the unspeakable joy of serving Him through full-time ministry. Goodness knows I didn’t deserve it. My entire life has been a mission of God’s mercy. I am increasingly awed over my salvation and find the privilege of knowing and loving God to be unfathomable. A long time ago I had to accept the fact that I could do nothing to repay God for His bountiful grace to me, for if I could, grace would be nullified. What I could do instead was pour my life on His altar and make every effort to press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me (Phil. 3:12). Translation? Fulfill my calling. Not anyone else’s—just mine. To know Him. To love Him. To serve Him. I believe that is what He’s called you to do too.

For reasons equally mind-boggling to me and known only to Him, God has called me to teach. I think perhaps because I had so much to learn. Still do. In fact, the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know . . . but I hunger to know. I have often been asked how a believer might identify whether God had given her or him the gift of teaching. I believe I have stumbled on at least one possibility: if you are compelled to tell others virtually everything you learn from God, you might be a teacher! My friends who have other spiritual gifts can learn something from God without feeling the overwhelming need to share it with everyone they know. Not me! The second I receive the least spiritual insight or learn anything at all about the practicality of Scripture slapped on the hot pavement of real life, I want to make the world’s biggest conference call. Perhaps I should mention that not ­everyone I tell wants to know. The beauty of a sanguine personality is that I’m too blinded by passion to notice rejection! I am not content to keep to myself any hidden treasure I’ve discovered. What little I know, I want others to know. Before God tells me a secret, He knows up front I’m going to tell it! By and large, that’s our deal.

Overcoming Strongholds

Often times, the precepts I feel the most urgency to teach are those lessons I learned the hard way. Somehow I keep hoping that someone else might learn through my mistakes and not their own. Oh, my friend, have I ever learned things the hard way! I’ve been educated in the power of God and His Word through the field trips of my own failure, weakness, and past bondage. This book is a result of my unquenchable desire to share one of the most effective approaches to the liberated life in Christ that God has ever taught me: praying Scripture to overcome strongholds. Actually, I didn’t discover what a vital part of my liberation this approach has been until long after I had begun practicing it. I suddenly realized it was no accident that I was finally set free from some areas of bondage that had long hindered the abundant, effective, Spirit-filled life in me. After the failure of all my formulas, in my desperate search for freedom I cast myself entirely upon God. He faithfully led me to several deliberate practices that He knew would work. Stunningly, in fact. He also knew that He had given me a mouth to tell!

The key to freedom from strongholds is found, not surprisingly, in 2 Corinthians 10:3–5. Read the words carefully:

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.

Let’s lay down a few basic principles so the purpose of this book will become clearer.

What Is a Stronghold?

The apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, did a masterful job of explaining it in 2 Corinthians 10:5. Basically, a stronghold is any argument or pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. The wording in the King James Version draws a clearer image of a stronghold: every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God. A stronghold is anything that exalts itself in our minds, pretending to be bigger or more powerful than our God. It steals much of our focus and causes us to feel overpowered. Controlled. Mastered. Whether the stronghold is an addiction, unforgiveness toward a person who has hurt us, or despair over a loss, it is something that consumes so much of our emotional and mental energy that abundant life is strangled—our callings remain largely unfulfilled and our believing lives are virtually ineffective. Needless to say, these are the enemy’s precise goals.

Where Is the Battlefield?

In any warfare waged by the enemy against the individual believer, the primary battlefield is the mind. The goal of our warfare as stated in 2 Corinthians 10:5 is to steal back our thought life and take it captive to Christ instead. The enemy’s chief target is the mind because the most effective way to influence behavior is to influence thinking. Our minds are the control centers of our entire beings. The enemy knows far better than we do that nothing is bigger or more powerful than God. That’s why everything that exalts itself in our thought life is called a pretension. Satan plays make-believe. He can only pretend because he lost all rights to presume authority over the believer’s life when Christ, having disarmed the powers and authorities, . . . made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross (Col. 2:15). Unfortunately, Satan is very good at his job because he’s had so much experience. He plays make-believe and does a remarkable job of trying to make us believe it. Repeat after me: nothing is bigger or more powerful than God! Absolutely nothing! Not even the strongest addiction or overwhelming feeling of rage. One of the purposes of this book is to help you downsize anything that has a hold on you until you have, in effect, commanded it to bend the knee to the authority of Christ. Is this really possible? You bet it is!

What Are Our Weapons?

According to the 2 Corinthians 10:3–5 passage, we have four vital pieces of information identifying the weapons of our warfare:

1. They are not the weapons of the world.

2. They have divine power.

3. They are associated with the knowledge of God.

4. Their purpose in warfare is to take our thoughts captive.

In Ephesians 6:10–18, Paul listed the whole armor of God. Only one piece of the armor is actually a weapon. The figurative belt, shield, breastplate, shoes, and helmet are all defensive pieces of armor intended to keep us from being injured by the weapons of the evil one. The sword of the Spirit, clearly identified as the Word of God, is the only offensive weapon listed in the whole armor of God. Second Corinthians 10:3 uses the plural, assuring us we have weapons for warfare. What would the other ­primary weapon be? Perhaps additional weapons might be identified elsewhere, but I believe the other primary weapon of our warfare is stated right after the words identifying the sword of the Spirit as the Word of God in Ephesians 6:17. The next verse says, And pray in the Spirit on all occasions. I am utterly convinced that the two major weapons with divine power in our warfare are the Word of God and Spirit-empowered prayer.

These two weapons have divine power. The original Greek word for power is the adjective form of the term dunamai meaning to be able. It is the achieving power of God applied.¹ Perhaps this Greek term might pack a little more punch if we meditated on the fact that our English word dynamite is derived from the same root word. Stick with me here, because this is important: Virtually nothing we come up against in our individual Christian lives is more formidable than a stronghold. The very nature of the term tells us that whatever it is, it has a strong hold on us. Strongholds can’t be swept away with a spiritual broom. We can’t fuss at them and make them flee. We can’t ignore them until they disappear. Strongholds are broken one way only: they have to be demolished. Have you ever seen a building demolished? In the Word of God, the term fortress is the closest equivalent to a literal, ancient stronghold. Both were fortified buildings. The most common way a modern fortress is demolished today is by deliberately and strategically placing dynamite in the building and then detonating it. Imagine the demolition crew showing up at the building with sticks and stones. They could holler at that building with all their might and throw sticks and stones until they fainted from exhaustion and it would still be standing. No one would doubt they had tried. They simply had the wrong tools. What they needed was dynamite.

You and I are just about as effective as the crew with loud mouths, sticks, and stones when we try to break down our strongholds with carnal weapons like pure determination, secular psychology, and denial. Many of us have expended unknown energy trying hard to topple these strongholds on our own, but they won’t fall, will they? That’s because they must be demolished. God has handed us two sticks of dynamite with which to demolish our strongholds: His Word and prayer. What is more powerful than two sticks of dynamite placed in separate locations? Two strapped together. Now, that’s what this book is all about: taking our two primary sticks of dynamite—prayer and the Word—strapping them together, and igniting them with faith in what God says He can do. Hallelujah! I’m getting excited just thinking about it!

What makes these two sticks of dynamite so powerfully effective when strapped together? Let’s consider the stick of prayer first. Prayer keeps us in constant communion with God, which is the goal of our entire believing lives. Without a doubt, prayerless lives are powerless lives, and prayerful lives are powerful lives; but, believe it or not, the ultimate goal God has for us is not power but personal intimacy with Him. Yes, God wants to bring us healing, but more than anything, He wants us to know our Healer. Yes, He wants to give us resurrection life, but more than that, He wants us to know the Resurrection and the Life. Please let this truth sink in deeply: It is never the will of God for warfare to become our focus. The fastest way to lose our balance in warfare is to rebuke the devil more than we relate to God. The primary strength we have in warfare is godliness, which is achieved only through intimacy with God; therefore, God will undoubtedly enforce prayer as one of the weapons of our warfare because His chief objective is to keep us connected ­entirely to Him. We will never win any spiritual battle without prayer, but when the heat of battle has momentarily cooled, the plunder from the battle is a far greater intimacy with God. Prayer is not the means to an end. In so many ways, it is the end itself.

Then what makes the Word such a powerful stick of dynamite to demolish strongholds? Take a look once again at 2 Corinthians 10:3–5. In the process of demolishing strongholds, our objectives are to cast down anything that exalts itself in our thought life and to take our thoughts captive to Christ. What does Scripture mean by taking captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ? This is the key that I finally recognized after many months of studying these verses: We take our thoughts captive, making them obedient to Christ, every time we choose to think Christ’s thoughts about any situation or stronghold instead of Satan’s or our own. What are Christ’s thoughts? The Word of God revealed to us. I finally learned that the way to make our exalted, overpowering thoughts bow down in obedience to Jesus Christ is to choose to think His thoughts about the matter rather than my own or those influenced by the enemy. In this book, I am sharing with you exactly how I began to think God’s thoughts over controlling strongholds in my life. I’ve also applied the same approach to several other strongholds that I have not personally experienced. For fourteen different strongholds, I have identified numerous Scriptures suggesting God’s thoughts on the matter and reworded them into prayer. In praying Scripture, I not only find myself in intimate communication with God, but my mind is being retrained, or renewed (Rom. 12:2), to think His thoughts about my situation rather than mine. Ultimately, He resumes His proper place in my thought life as huge and indomitable, and my obstacle shrinks. This approach has worked powerfully every time I’ve applied it. It takes belief, diligence, and time, but the effects are dramatically liberating and eternal.

I am anticipating the following question: Beth, do you use Scripture every time you pray? The answer is no. We have such a tendency toward extremes. We find security in always and nevers. I don’t always pray any certain way, but I can confidently tell you this: I have never discovered a more powerful way to demolish strongholds in my life than praying Scripture. When it comes to warfare, this approach is without question the one I most often apply. Take note of a rule of thumb I’ve tried to apply in each Scripture-prayer. The words preceding the Scripture reference appearing in parentheses are a paraphrase of that reference. Any words following the parentheses are my own additional prayer suggestions. The following is a Scripture-prayer excerpt out of the chapter on overcoming the stronghold of unbelief:

Lord, Your Spirit clearly says that in the later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. (1 Tim. 4:1) Please help me to be very discerning of deceptive teaching. Help me never to abandon the faith to follow after a lie.

In addition to the Scripture-prayers, I have included other encouraging quotes relating to each chapter’s topic. If the quote is mine, it is unidentified. Otherwise, the author of the quote is referenced.

Please hear my heart as we conclude this portion of the book. The last thing I want to do is set myself up as any kind of proper example. Remember, our objective here is to learn not to allow anything or anyone to be exalted in our minds but Christ! I am a fellow sojourner with you. I have made so many mistakes and learned so many hard lessons. Please don’t misunderstand my intention and think I’m suggesting my own formula here. This is not my formula. With all my heart, I believe it is one of God’s. This book is about Him and the divine weapons He’s given us to demolish strongholds. If I am an example of anything at all, I am an example of life after failure. Abundant life. And I am living proof that God can liberate anyone.

To Get the Most out of Your Book . . .

1. Consider praying a few Scriptures out of chapters 1 and 2, Overcoming Idolatry and Overcoming Unbelief, every single day, no matter which other stronghold you’re specifically seeking to demolish. These Scriptures will remind you how powerful God is and will work to increase your faith in His Word. Please do not confuse this book with a name-it-and-claim-it philosophy. Our chief purpose here is to develop the mind of Christ in areas that seek to hold us captive. With every Scripture-prayer, we are asking God to fill our minds with His thoughts instead of ours. One thing of which you can be absolutely certain is this: It is most definitely God’s will for you to be free from all areas of bondage. Galatians 5:1 says, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. God may not always will for us to be physically healed in these earthly bodies or tangibly prosperous, but He always wills for us to be free from strongholds. You’ll never fail to have His cooperation as long as He has yours.

2. When seeking to demolish a specific stronghold, don’t just pray through the list of Scriptures once, unless you experience the rarity of immediate release without sensing any threat of relapse. Pray the Scriptures over and over until you experience lasting freedom. Even after freedom comes, you are wise to pray occasionally the Scriptures that God seemed to use most powerfully. I can think of a particular stronghold that hasn’t had power over me in years, but I pray certain truths on a fairly regular basis for maintenance purposes. That stronghold was costly! I never want to go back to it as long as I live! Be wise. Some strongholds are simply more threatening than others. Never take for granted that you are beyond a return to captivity, but also do not live in inappropriate fear. I often think of the apostle Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 1:9–11 when I think about my former captivity and the freedom God has given me. "But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On Him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers" (emphasis mine). God has all the power we need to free us and keep us free, but in the matter of demolishing strongholds, He also demands our prayerful cooperation.

3. If you like the approach of strapping two sticks of dynamite together, prayer and the Word, to demolish strongholds, let this practice spur you on to write your own Scripture-prayers. You will find lined pages at the end of each chapter so that you can continue on by searching the Scriptures and compiling your own. Look for any Scripture that you believe reflects the mind of Christ toward your stronghold, reword it into a prayer, write it at the end of the chapter, and pray it! My hope is that you will learn a practice that will be beneficial for the rest of your life.

4. Allow this approach to be a complement to any other means by which God may be teaching you and leading you to freedom. For instance, if your obstacle has been overwhelming and God has led you to sound, godly counseling, don’t stop the counseling as long as it’s beneficial. Simply add this practice to it. Praying Scripture is not the only means of demolishing strongholds; I’ve just found it to be among the most effective. God may use many different elements to usher you to freedom, but one thing I believe with all my heart: The Word of God will be the absolute common denominator in all genuine deliverance from captivity. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:32). He sent forth his word and healed them (Ps. 107:20). I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts (Ps. 119:45).

5. As you single out one obstacle you desire to overcome, don’t forget that other issues may be involved too. In other words, if you are praying to overcome the stronghold of unforgiveness or the stronghold of anger, pride is virtually always involved. Ask God to give you discernment about coinciding areas that may be hindering your freedom and abundant life in Christ. Pray the mind of Christ in those areas as well.

6. Consider using this prayer guide as a preventive measure as well as a prescriptive measure. For example, if a situation arises that suddenly fuels fear in your heart, don’t wait for Satan to bind it into a stronghold. Pray about it long before it becomes a serious, abundant-life-strangling problem. If you happen to feel a little depressed one particular day, pray a few of the pertaining Scripture-prayers in this book, and I think you’ll sense the Spirit of Truth ministering to you. You don’t have to have a stronghold to pray these Scriptures! On the contrary, perhaps they’ll help us avoid a few. Whether you’re facing a stronghold or a momentary struggle, I believe you’ll find grace and mercy in your time of need.

7. Use the book any way and at any time you wish! Consider keeping it with your daily prayer time materials and pick it up any time you desire a little extra guidance in prayer. Turn to several chapters and pray a number of Scriptures . . . out loud if possible. The Scriptures will help you develop the mind of Christ in all sorts of areas, whether or not you presently battle a stronghold. As I prepared the book, I was delightfully surprised to be immeasurably blessed by chapters addressing strongholds that really had never been my personal struggle. One of my coworkers who helped with some of the data processing remarked, I’ve found that you don’t have to have a problem in an area to be blessed by praying Scripture over it! I shared several of the chapters with my Sunday school class along the way in my preparation. We all laughed as we remarked that some of us had been set free from strongholds we never even had! Praise God!

8. Pray pertinent Scriptures as intercession for someone else whom you know is struggling to be free. Be careful, however! The enemy is very shrewd. Sometimes he successfully schemes to keep us in bondage by fueling our focus on others’ strongholds rather than our own. We have such a tendency to see the speck in the other person’s eye when a log is lodged deeply in our own. I am convinced that as a general rule, strongholds are almost always broken between God and the individual captive. As 2 Corinthians 1:10–11 tells us, we can help others with our prayers, but we cannot do it for them. We can and should pray for an individual’s willingness to let God set him or her free. We can and should pray for the enemy to be withheld and for the individual’s eyes to be opened to truth, but freedom rarely comes to a person who does not get intimately involved with God for himself/herself. You see, God is far more interested in our getting to know the Deliverer than our being delivered. Remember, freedom comes through taking thoughts captive to Christ. We cannot take another person’s thoughts captive. The thought life is the most intensely personal part of each individual. We may have influence upon another person’s thought life, but God is the only one who has direct access. As Psalm 139:2 says, God perceives each of our thoughts from afar.

In concluding this section, please allow me to say that I would be thrilled for God to use these pages in any possible way to enhance your walk with Him. I hope you’ll feel like it’s your book. Let Him completely personalize it to you just as He has to me. The truths of each book God has given me have been deeply engraved upon my heart. I have a feeling, however, that this will be the first book He’s allowed me to compile that I will actually keep with me and use over and over. Why? Because it’s far more of His Word than mine . . . and we’ve got a written guarantee on His.

So is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

You will go out in joy

and be led forth in peace;

the mountains and hills

will burst into song before you,

and all the trees of the field

will clap their hands. (Isaiah 55:11–12)

Four Common Questions about Strongholds

1. Do only unbelievers have strongholds?

Absolutely not! The Book of Galatians, the New Testament’s primary treatise for freedom, was addressed to believers in Galatia. Galatians 5:1 says, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Likewise, 2 Corinthians 10:3–5, which addresses the demolition of strongholds, was written to believers. The Word is very practical. God never addresses non­issues. If a believer could not return to a yoke of slavery, He would never have warned us of the potentiality of it. If we would never have to deal with a stronghold, God would never have told us how. It is interesting that the great majority of Scripture addressing captivity and ­liberty concerns God’s own people. Without a doubt, all people who have never accepted Christ as Savior are held captive by the enemy, their primary stronghold being unbelief. This book, however, is primarily for the ­believer. Based on my understanding of Scripture, anything that steals, kills, or destroys the abundant, fruitful life of a believer can be considered a stronghold of the enemy. God used my own battle with strongholds coupled with years of traveling and speaking to open my eyes to the disturbing numbers of believers who live in daily defeat. Yes, believers can have strongholds!

2. Why has the subject of strongholds suddenly swelled in popularity?

I believe that the primary answer is the timing of our generation on God’s kingdom calendar. The Word of God clearly teaches us that satanic activity and influence will increase dramatically as the day of Christ’s return draws nearer. Revelation 12:12 says of Satan, He is filled with fury, because he knows his time is short. This Scripture appears in context concerning believers and their war with the enemy who is called the accuser of our brothers. In other words, Scripture intimates that much of Satan’s fury will be directed specifically toward Christians as the clock ticks closer toward Christ’s return. Please understand that Satan knows the Word better than we do. He knows the signs of Christ’s coming. He knows every detail characterizing the last generations. He sees the present evidence of 2 Timothy 3:1–5 in our generation with clearer vision than we do. Satan is in a time bind; therefore, like the heat of Nebuchadnezzar’s blazing furnace, he’s turning up the fire on every modern-day Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. As Louie Giglio, a fellow bondslave to Christ, says, We’re dead center in the crosshairs of Satan’s weapons.² So, do we run scared? God forbid! We put on the full armor of God, take our stand, and fight the good fight. Satan’s already been defeated. Most of the power he wields is from pure deception and bluffing. Greater is