Teach Us to Pray Pt. 8 :: Spiritual Warfare

In John 15, Jesus proclaimed, “apart from me you can do nothing”. In saying this, he invites us into a deep, intimate connection with Him. Not just for ourselves but that we may bear fruit for the sake of the WORLD.

Prayer, as we know, is the blood flow of life in the kingdom. It’s the air we breathe, the food that nourishes our souls, and the drink that quenches our thirst.

Yet for many, it has become too easy for our prayerful connection with Jesus to be pushed to the margins of our lives - squeezed into brief moments between busyness and distraction. 

For others, prayer comes hand in hand with disappointment. Years of seemingly unanswered cries have left many feeling confused and forgotten.

But it’s time for us to reimagine a life of prayer infused with purpose, hope, and power.

Together, we’ll press into what it means to develop a CONVERSATIONAL life with God — both in the secret place AND in communal agreement.

We’ll expand our imagination for what prayer is and what prayer can be.

Both intercession & contemplation

Adoration & petition

Silence & singing

Lamentation and delight

It all belongs together.

Join us for a season of seeking God together.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Thanks for joining us today as you listen to a portion of a message recorded at Vine Life Church in Boulder, Colorado. If you'd like to connect with us further, you can visit us online at www.vinelife.com.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Which would I think would be kind of boring. But we've had expressions where we're being very quiet and still and engaging with God in conversation that way. And then we have Dee Dee running all around the stage, right? So it's been a huge spectrum. And so if prayer were like ice cream, God did not just give us vanilla, but he's like Baskin Robbins and He's 31 flavors, right? So this morning we're going to be talking about yet another flavor of ice cream. But before we do that, can I have everybody stand up? I'd like us to read together from our kind of hallmark passage that we've been pulling from during this series, Matthew 6, 9 through 13. And here the disciples came to Jesus and said, Will you show us how to pray? How do we talk to God? And this is how Jesus responded. So let's read this together now. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Okay, you can sit down. So this morning we're going to focus on that last line: deliver us from the evil one. And so Jesus is teaching the disciples that part of prayer encompasses praying and asking the Lord for deliverance from the evil one, the enemy, the devil, Satan. And the good news is overcoming the enemy is possible, right? Or Jesus would not be telling us to pray this way. And you might think, wow, the leadership really biffed it this week by talking about spiritual warfare and prayer during the Advent season. So Christmassy, such a Christmassy topic, right? But actually, as I thought about it, Jesus coming on this earth and taking on flesh and being with us and experiencing what it's like to live on this earth with a very real enemy, and then eventually growing up and going to the cross. It was the greatest act of spiritual warfare this earth will ever experience. So I think, yes, talk about it during Advent, talk about it every day because it's important. So deliver us from the evil one. We are battling a very real enemy. And to live as though the enemy doesn't exist, that he's not a threat, that he's not actually targeting us, planning and plotting attack is a very dangerous way to live. Why? Because if we're not living aware of that, if we're not stepping back when trouble comes, when conflict comes, and we're not asking the Father, what's the source here? What's going on? We will not partner with God to stop the enemy. We're just going to lie down and take it. And we're at risk of doing kind of two things, I think. One, we can blame God, right? Or we can start blaming other people, forgetting that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but is it again it's against the principalities of this world and the darkness? And so when we have that boss or that relative that seems to always be grumpy no matter how we try to love them, we'll be thinking it's them and we'll be getting frustrated and maybe building up walls around our heart instead of going after the demonic spirit that is provoking and prodding them. We'll be so busy shaking our fist at God when we're having conflict with our spouse, not realizing that they might be susceptible to some demonic oppression that's going on. Right? And the most tragic thing is that living that way, ignorant, or not asking God for discernment, means that we wound wind up being bound up. We become captives and prisoners to the attack of the enemy. In Galatians 5.13, Paul tells us, brothers and sisters, you were called to be free. We walk around wondering, what's my calling? What's my purpose? Well, part of it is to walk and live free, not in captivity. And John 8, 36 says, so if the Son has set you free, you are free indeed. So we have to live aware that we are battling a very real enemy. And the implication is huge too, not only for us, but the people that we're interacting with. Because not only did Jesus die and raise again to set us free, but he has bestowed upon us a mission, and that is to set the captives free. Right? Luke 4.18 says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon you because he has sent you to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and liberty to the captives. It's a beautiful mission. And if we don't live aware that there is a very real enemy out there who is targeting our friends and our family, our coworkers, our employees, then we're not going to deliver the message that they can be free. And as a result, their finances, their health, their emotional well-being, and their very lives for eternity are at risk of staying in captivity and being bound. When that friend calls us or the relative calls us and says, hey, I'm battling this particular type of cancer, if we don't believe that they can be targeted and we're not using discernment, we will not ask the Lord, is this a demonic spirit that needs to be told to get off of my friend? And when we do, the cancer is gonna leave. So that we can live our calling and be free ourselves and set the captives free. But here's the other thing. We can swing the whole other way, right? So maybe you know we're not we are aware, but we become so aware that we're puffing up the enemy's power. And everything is like, it's the devil, it's Satan, you know, when it's really like stupidity. Or in certain situations, we're giving Satan way more power than Jesus. And there is never, okay, the cross was not about Jesus trying to show that he's more powerful. That has never been a question. Ever. Jesus has always been more powerful. The cross was about something else. And this, let's read, we're gonna um I'll read it, but there's a slide for this. From Colossians 2.15. This is the Passion translation. Then Jesus made a public spectacle of all the powers and principalities of darkness, stripping away from them every weapon and all their spiritual authority and power to accuse us. And by the power of the cross, Jesus led them around as prisoners in a procession of triumph. He was not their prisoner, they were his. I love that verse. It's like, yeah. So, what we're seeing there is that Jesus was not stripping the enemy of his power, okay? I mean, come on, if we look through the pages of history, even what we're experiencing right now in our day, we know the enemy is powerful. And he's doing things all the time to cause great trauma. Horrific things have been done. So the enemy is very powerful. What Jesus stripped him of was his power over us. So the issue for us is not about power and who's more powerful? Christ is in us. Greater is he who is in us than he is in the world, right? So we are powerful because he is powerful. The issue is authority. That's what we have to remember when we're talking about spiritual warfare and prayer. Jesus stripped the enemy of his authority over us. Adam and Eve forfeited that authority, right, at the fall. And so that period between Calvary and Resurrection Day, Jesus is confronting the enemy and stripping him of his power over us and giving back to us our authority. This is our inheritance as sons and daughters, of children of God. We have authority over the enemy so that when he comes and attacks, we can say no. We can stop that. We don't have to lie down and just take it. Luke 10, 19 says, Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. So Jesus is telling us this. I'm giving you authority over the power of the enemy. So, how does this whole thing relate to prayer? Well, Jesus gave, he was such a great storyteller, wasn't he? And he loved to paint pictures for us to help us grasp these really tough concepts of the spirit realm and to bring it into some way for us to grab hold of. And so in Matthew 16, 19, he's using the imagery of keys, keys being this authority, okay? And listen to what it says. This is the third slide. Matthew 16, 19. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. So essentially, Jesus is saying, when you surrender your life to me, and you say, Jesus, I love you. I'm gonna follow you all of my days. You are the Lord of my life. And the Spirit, this package comes from Amazon, right? And we open it, and there's this beautiful key ring for us. And on this key ring are keys that bind and keys that loose. Jesus here is saying, I am giving you authority that when there is activity in the spirit realm that is wanting to manifest on the earth that it's harmful, I'm giving you authority to shut the door to that and lock it with those keys. Shutting it down, it can't happen. But I'm also giving you keys on this ring that loosen. And so the things in the spirit realm, the activity of the spirit realm that is holding God's blessing, his promise, all his goodness. I'm giving you keys that you can open that door and you can usher it in and release that so it can manifest on the earth. Isn't that amazing? Binding, loosening, shutting down, and releasing. That is what we have authority for. So that all sounds great. It's kind of a theory, right? Still floating around these keys that I don't actually have in my pocket. I mean, I do, but I can't touch them. So, how do we do this? How do we actually bind things and loosen them like Jesus is talking about? I'm sure there's lots of ways, but as I was really preparing this message, and I'm the one that's speaking, um I wanted to speak from something that I feel very familiar with, what I've walked with the Lord in. And one of the biggest ways that I have experienced being able to utilize this key ring and wield the authority that Christ bought for me is through my voice. Proverbs 18, 21 says, Life and death are in the power of the tongue. So it is through our words, through our mouth, our speech, that we get to wield authority. And if you think about it, you know, God said that he made us in his image. And what do we see God doing straight away, right in the beginning? Everything that you are seeing this morning, that you're feeling, experiencing in all of your senses, was brought about how? Through his mouth, through words. He spoke in full authority, he spoke and said, Let it be, and it was. And so we, as his created ones, bearing his image, doesn't it make sense that we too would be able to speak and carry authority? But what's really telling is Jesus, because he's always the model. We can look to the way Jesus is living and functioning on this earth and use it as an example that we have permission to do the same, right? And there's so many stories of Jesus using his voice and vocalizing his authority, and things happen. The natural world has to bend its knee, the spirit realm bends its knee and listens because Jesus knows fully who he is and who his father is. And so when he speaks, things happen. He comes across a fig tree. It's not bearing fruit. And with his mouth, he curses the tree and says, May you never bear fruit again. And what happens? Not only does that thing not bear fruit again, it shrivels up and dies. He is executing his authority. There's a scene where the disciples are on a boat, right, with Jesus, and this huge storm kicks up so bad that the disciples are fearful for their lives. And Jesus stands up in the middle of that storm and with his mouth speaks, and the storm stops. He knows his authority that even nature has to respond. But what's always been fascinating to me is there's story after story in the Gospels about Jesus meeting someone who is um possessed, tormented by a demonic spirit or spirits. And many, many times it will say that Jesus cast out that demon or demons with one word. It only took one word. I've always kind of wanted to know what was that one word, you know? But I think they were wise in not letting us know. Because I think we would all be tempted to think, oh, if the power's in that word, if we say, you know, I don't know, whatever the word might be, but if we just say it, then the demons will have to respond. It wasn't what Jesus was saying, it was who he was. So he could have said peanut butter, and that thing would have flown, you know. Because he knew who he was and he knew the authority, and everything else knew his authority. So let me find where I'm at here. Our words matter, and what we say holds authority. So again, how does this relate to prayer? Well, James 5.16 says the prayers of the righteous and powerful are effective. So, if we take the concept that we've been talking about this morning where we have been given this authority, right? And we hold that here, and then we take this notion from James that our prayers are powerful and effective, and we meld those two thoughts together, what is the conclusion that we can make? We have authority, our prayers are powerful and effective. It means that our voice, when we speak it out loud and we pray out loud, our voice is a weapon. And if you forget anything that I say this morning or you've been zoning out and not really paying attention, listen right now and hear what I'm saying. Because if we live with this reality, we don't just think it up here, but we embrace it and it becomes our belief, we will impact this world greatly for good. Your voice in prayer when you vocalize your prayers are a weapon. And I want you to understand something. The enemy does not want you to live this, he doesn't want you to realize it. He's gonna do everything in his power to convince you that either you don't have authority or that your prayers are not powerful. He's gonna make it to where you just think prayers don't really do anything, or that even if they did, that you don't have any authority to pray them. And so, as a kind of illustration of this, I wonder how many of you have ever had a dream in your lifetime where you're feeling some sort of conflict, and the dream itself feels kind of icky, you know? And there's somebody, maybe even it looks demonic, I don't know, but you're in conflict with something, okay? And you're wanting either to protect yourself, or there's somebody else in the dream that you feel responsible for that you want to protect, and you know somehow, if I can just say something, you're trying to say something that that's gonna protect you or protect the other person. And try as you might in the dream, you cannot verbalize anything. It's like your voice is being choked, you don't have words, and you're has anybody ever had a dream like that? Look around the room. Why do you think you're dreaming this? That dream most likely is it was authored by the enemy. He's taking advantage of the of you while you're sleeping, that your soul is at rest, but your spirit is very much alive. And when we dream, either God or the enemy is giving us dreams and they're seeding, they're planting our spirit with things. The hope is that when we wake up, we will come into agreement. Now, when God is seeding us with things, that's the truth. And so we need to wake up and come into agreement with that and let our spirit then inform our soul about how we're gonna live and what we're gonna believe. But the enemy is planting seeds that are lies, and he's hoping you're gonna wake up and you're gonna buy into the lie and let that influence your daily life. And so those dreams where we're battling and we don't get a voice, he's trying to lie to us to say, oh, hey, when attack comes when you're awake, don't think that your voice is gonna do anything. That is not a battle strategy that you can use because you will lose. Right? Because he wants to steal our voice, because he knows our voices are weapons and they're really powerful when we pray. So let's talk about the two types of kingdom. That we have on this key ring. Let's talk about binding prayers for a minute and then we'll get into loosening. So Psalm 68, 18 says, God, you have ascended on high and you have led captive your captives. And when I read that scripture, it reminds me of that Colossians 2.15 verse, right? We talked about Jesus stripping the enemy of his power over us. But what I didn't talk about, but we read, was where Jesus is doing this procession, right? Where he's taking the enemy captive and parading them around, he says, to make a public spectacle. Sounds pretty humiliating, doesn't it? So you may have heard, I don't know, I had heard this before in a sermon, but in ancient Rome, there was actually a custom where when the commanding chief officer returned home from battle victoriously, they would want to throw him a celebration and a party. And so one of the ways that they would do that was they would line the streets and have a parade. And so they'd put this commanding chief officer on a throne, seated on some sort of cart with wheels, think, you know, early Macy's Day Parade kind of thing, right? And they'd put a robe on them and they'd make a wreath out of a crown out of laurel wreath. And everybody would come out and they'd cheer them, Woo, you're awesome, we're victorious, and it was great fun. But one of the things that they did to honor this commanding chief officer would be to take anybody that was from the enemy that they were battling that lived and hadn't been slaughtered in the battle, they would bind them up in cuffs and chains and tie them all together and chain that to the cart and parade them through the streets behind the commanding officer. And you can imagine people, I'm sure, were jeering and throwing stuff at them and booing them, right? And it was extremely humiliating. So when I read that passage in Colossians and read this one from Psalms that I just read, you kind of get this picture of Jesus parading around, you know, in his robe and his crown, and the enemy being tied up behind that cart and being humiliated and brought into captivity. So there's a super fun story that I particularly love in Judges about Deborah and Derek. I looked it up. I had somebody, you know, one of those they have those little things where you can put a name in and get the sound. So I spent time on that for you, so I would make sure that I said the names right. You're welcome. So I'll try to say it right. But anyway, so in this story, Deborah is a prophetess and she's a judge. She's pretty much awesome. And during that time, the Israelites were being threatened by the Canaanites. And Barak was the commanding chief officer, but he was a little nervous, a little scared for some reason about going to war. And so Deborah has to come and say, get up and go to war, you know, and use the anointing that God had given her as a prophetess and as a judge to really exhort him and say, Go to battle, you can do this. And he listens and he does, and they win. And so this portion in Judges, the two of them come back from battle victoriously, and they begin singing to the Israelites, recounting the whole events leading up to the battle and the battle itself. And it's really cool. And there's this one line where Deborah herself is actually singing, and she says, Arise, Barak, take captive your captives, O son of Abinoam. Now, obviously, in the natural, she is speaking to the events of what just happened. But several years ago, I'm reading this passage, and have you ever had this moment where you're reading scripture and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit just quickens your spirit and you just feel like the Lord is here. I mean, he's always here, but then you just know he's here. You're reminded, God is with me. It was one of those moments. It just felt holy, it felt like the Lord was speaking. And I heard him say, there's something else going on here with this line in particular. And I believe it is for us today as well. In the spirit, I believe she is speaking to something deeper. She is a prophetess, you know, and she's singing, and much like we see happening on Sunday mornings when people kind of go off script from the song and the spirit of the Lord comes over them and they sing. I believe she wasn't just singing about what was happening in that moment in the natural, recounting what had happened, but I believe that she was singing a prophetic song whose message is still ringing out from the from the halls of heaven today for us. And if we will embrace it and have ears to hear, I think we will be encouraged. One of the things that we can do when we are looking at something with a prophetic kind of perspective and with eyes of our spirit, and not just our eyeballs, our natural eyeballs, you can take names and look at the name's meaning. Because oftentimes what the name means, there's a hidden message in it for us. So it's interesting because barak actually means lightning in Hebrew. How many times in the Bible is lightning referenced to be God's voice? It'll say that God's voice was like lightning and thunder. It's a lot of times, I didn't count, but it's a lot. And Abinoam actually means my father is delight. So what I felt like the Lord was showing me in this verse is that Deborah was saying this. Arise. O one whose voice holds the authority of God. And when you speak his words out loud, it is like lightning that's piercing the darkness. Take captive your captives, children of the Father of delight. Take captive your captives. Who is it that we're supposed to be taking captive? It's not people, it's the enemy. And she's exhorting us today to get up and take captive our captives. And so one of the ways that we do that is through binding prayers. I want us to be clear about something though. We aren't defeating the enemy. Jesus already did that. When we use those keys on our key ring for binding, what we are doing is reinforcing what Christ did on the cross. Okay? So funny enough, it's Monday this week, and I'm sitting at my desk at home preparing this very message. My husband and I had been talking about spiritual warfare that morning because he knew that I was preaching. And so I'm working away and I get this text from him. Speaking of spiritual warfare, Monday was Cyber Monday. My husband's business is that he sells products online. And Cyber Monday is to help promote people to buy things online, right? And so it's one of the largest days for his business to bring in income. So super important, right? And he messaged me and says there's something going on with the shipping to where all these orders that are coming in, my shipping, I'm gonna wind up spending way more than what I should be paying. And so, bottom line, it's gonna mean hundreds of dollars are gonna eat into our profits. And so when I read that, I get really frustrated and angry because I'm like, I am in total agreement. This is spiritual warfare, this is not acceptable, and so I just tell him, praying now. So I'm like, okay, time to bind some things, right? So I flip to that Colossians verse about Jesus stripping the enemy of his power, and I read it out loud. I'm reading out loud because I want to remind myself of the truth. I also want to remind the Lord, not that he forgets, but it's just good to do that to say, look, this is what you've done, this is what you said. But I'm also all the spiritual activity in the spirit realm that's going on, whatever side they're on, that's swirling around my family, that's swirling around my husband's business, I'm reminding them. You have been stripped of your power over my family and the finances. And this is not okay. You are trespassing, you are breaking and entering, and you're trying to rob from my family, and it is not okay. And so then I began to pray and rebuke the enemy and say, no, you cannot do this. This is illegal, not on my watch. And I want to be clear, because sometimes we think we've got to get really tough. I don't know, maybe it's because I'm so tiny that I feel like I have to overcompensate sometimes. But I was so certain of my authority here that this was this really was robbery, that I didn't even raise my voice, I didn't even get up and pace my room like sometimes I do. Then I began to pray in tongues for a little while and asked the Lord, is there anything else that needs to be done? This piece came over me that said, Okay, you're good. And so then I went back to my message. But then I could feel myself kind of being distracted and wondering, like, what's going on? You know, did this thing actually lift? You know? Um, and so I prayed and I said, Lord, um, I really like to be able to focus on my message, and I and I don't know. I felt like you said I was good and I could stop, but I don't know. Is there something else more that I need to be praying? So can you give me an update? And I'm not kidding, like three minutes later, Travis texts me and says, Um, we're good. It's all fixed. Thanks for praying. To which I sent him some little um clip of this guy dressed up like Jesus breakdancing. Because honestly, in that moment, that's how I found them. It's like, yeah, you messed with my family. And you know, I can see Jesus up on the cart with his robe and the crown, and he's like, get up here, girl, we're gonna party, and I'm like, oh yeah, and heaven's like and then Jesus says, Look, look behind you, and I see the enemy bound and humiliated, and I'm like, hmm, how those cups feeling, right? This is what we get to do, this is fun stuff. But I also want to tell you, I left something out before I before I quit. I didn't just bind, but I also loosened. I'm like out of breath now. How ridiculous I need to work out. Um I loosened too, okay? Because I've found, and I don't want to make this like this law, but I've personally found in my life that oftentimes if something is needing bound, there's something that needs to be loosened. And so I've learned to just ask, Lord, if if you're wanting something to be bound, what is your intention then? Because look, the enemy's not dumb. He's been around a lot longer than us. And he can see things and sense things. He knows when the father's getting ready to pour out blessing in a certain way, right? So there's a reason often that he's attacking something. So you better believe if he's attacking something, then God has blessing for it. And so this is how the loosening looked for me. First, I've just begun to thank Jesus for his blood. Because I know it's his blood that protects and guards my family. And so I applied the blood of Jesus over our finances, much in the same way as the Israelites took the lamb's blood and put it on the doorway of their homes to protect their homes from the angel of death coming and robbing their children. And so I applied the blood of Jesus and I thanked him for the authority. It is through his blood that we have authority. When we take communion, that's what I tend to often think about. God, it's through your blood and the pain that you went through that you gave me authority. What a price. But I am so thankful. And then I began to release the blessings, trusting that God had provision for our family through what the labor that my husband was bringing that day. And I wish I could say to you that I came to this conclusion about the binding and the loosening thing kind of going together really well very easily. Like I read it and I just believed it and did it. But yeah, no, that's not usually how things work for me. Maybe someday. I tend to kind of learn things the hard way. And so there was an instance in my life several years ago, before this week, that there was a relative in my family who was severely being targeted and oppressed from demonic things. And it was causing tremendous turmoil and pain for me personally and for others in my family. It's probably one of the toughest things I've ever walked through in my life. Um, it was a horrific season. But I knew at that time to bind, right? So I'm binding things, I'm rebuking the enemy. I even had permission from this relative to cast out demons if that's what was going on, you know. And it felt like things were good, but then it just, I don't know. Transformation really wasn't happening, relief really wasn't happening. They were dealing with major anxiety and depression, and it just seemed like we weren't getting anywhere. And when I've talked to people about this season of my life, I'd often say that it felt like my authority wasn't keys, but it was like a big old bat, right? And what was surrounding this person was like a beehive. And so I'm whacking that beehive, and chunks are coming off, and things are happening, but it's also stirring up what that's in the beehive? The bees, and they're like swarming around, they're stinging them, they're stinging me, they're stinging everybody else. And I'm like, Lord, what is going on? Where is real breakthrough gonna come? There's so much chaos that feels like it's happening right now. And the Lord during that season began to show me the power of his blessing and blessing someone's spirit. And that, yes, bind, bind, bind, bind. That needs to happen, but loosen, loosen, loosen, loosen, and release the blessings of God. And so how this looked was me, of course, praying and asking God, what is the future hope that you have for this person? And so I'd get prophetic insight on their future, and I would prophesy that I would go into their space and their room with anointing oil, and I was anointing everything that they were touching. I was praying and asking the Holy Spirit to hover over them because during this time, everything that they were going, they were pushing God away. But I think the biggest thing that I learned during this time, and what I believe was kind of the breakthrough transformation place was actually taking scripture, passages of scripture, and really meditating on and studying and kind of understanding the concepts and the themes that were being talked about, and then taking that and crafting it into a prayer. So I'd ask the Lord, what what are you wanting to pray? What are the things that you're wanting to bless them and release over them? What are the principles of your kingdom that you're wanting them to be saturated in in this time? And then he would take me to Galatians or something, you know, and I'd take that Galatians and I'd form it into a prayer that I would write down into a book. And then I was praying that stuff constantly, day after day for them. The same things, knowing that I was praying scripture. And it wasn't like, you know, it was one day just a boom change, but over time, the battle and the struggle and all the swirl that they were in began to just settle and peace came. And their heart began to soften and be tender to the Lord again. And the anxiety and depression lifted and where to where the doctor said, You don't even need to come see me anymore, you're good. So this season made such an impact on me when I saw the fruit of what I was doing with this crafted prayer that it has changed the way that I pray now. And I was like, I'm gonna do this for everybody that I love. So I have a book for my family that has prayers for my husband and all my children. I have a book for vine life that I'm praying for all of you all. And so I just want to give you some examples of what that looks like, because I'm trying to be really practical. So this is a prayer over one of my daughters that I took from Philippians chapter 4, and I'm only gonna read a little portion. But it in this instance, I'm praying and I'm blessing her spirit because people don't have to be an earshot where they hear things in the natural, right? Their spirits can receive something. We could be halfway around the world. Jesus shows us this principle with the centurion. This commanding officer comes to him and says, My servant who's miles away is sick and dying in bed. You don't have to come and physically lay hands on him and pray. Just give the word. And so Jesus blesses him with this word be healed. He doesn't even rebuke the enemy, he blesses the servant's spirit with healing. And as soon as he does that, the servant miles away is healed. And so most of the time, the work that I was doing for this particular relative during the season, they didn't have no awareness that I was doing. I would go into their room and I'd pray things. Uh now I'm to the point, like I put a lot of this stuff on my phone. There's voice memo. And when I'm doing laundry, I'll go in my kids' rooms. They don't even know that, so some of them are gonna find out now. But I take my phone and I have the recorded blessings that are blessing their spirit, and I hit play and I go about doing things elsewhere, but that's my voice. Releasing and using its authority to bless and lose so it works. So this is Philippians chapter 4. I would bless my daughter's spirit by saying, I bless you to remain cheerful with joyous celebration in every season of life. Let your joy overflow onto all you see and touch, for you are united with the anointed one. And this is a prayer over one of the male counterparts in my home, 2 Corinthians 1. This I'm praying to God. I say, God, may you understand favor, may your undeserved, sorry, favor and endless peace be his continually, and may he recognize it and walk in it and be postured in thankfulness to you, Father, the source, and to Jesus Christ, our Lord, the anointed one. Mark him with your overwhelming love, tender mercy, and endless comfort. And it goes on and on and on. And this is how I pray, and you can do this too. And you will be obeying a beautiful command that God gives us, even in the Old Testament, and is sprinkled out throughout His Word. Because He tells us to meditate on His Word day and night. Now, when I say meditate, you probably all think what I thought. Meditate is kind of like what Ed was talking about two weeks ago, which is beautiful. But we tend to think meditation is Studying the word, right? And thinking deeply about it and reading it, right? Well, what's really fascinating is when you look at that word in Hebrew, Haga, it does mean imagine, which would show like thinking deeply. It means meditate, and it also means study, okay? But there's actually eight other um characteristics, and over half of them have to do with verbalizing. Listen to this. Hagah means imagine, meditate, mourn, mutter, roar, speak, study, talk, and utter. Our modern understanding has completely eliminated that talking is part of meditating. And so when God is instructing us and saying, meditate on my word day and night, he's saying study it, know it, think deeply with me about it, but he's also saying, use your voice and speak my word. And sometimes we even have permission to roar. So you can get loud if you're feeling like that's what is required in that moment. So one of the things that I've done is this is this is causing me to look at scripture a little bit differently than maybe I did a few years ago. And I'm really taking the word, like for a long season, Ephesians 1 was my jam that I would be praying to bless my own spirit. And you could find me daily pacing in my room, reading Ephesians 1 out loud, you know, and blessing my spirit with the truth of all of that and the prayers. Um, and you'd think, oh, isn't that gonna get boring? I mean, you get so familiar with it, does it lose its kind of zing, you know? And I really thought that that's what was gonna happen. But what I found would be one particular day, maybe verse three, all of a sudden, like surprisingly, I'd feel the presence of the Lord very strongly. And maybe it would cause me to cry, maybe it would make me laugh a little, maybe I'd be like, oh yeah, and remember in that parade and you know the captivity piece and all of that, and just be like pumped up. And it was fun. Then the next day, verse three, I just kind of ran over and it didn't hit me any special way. But verse 15, that's where the special sauce was that day. And so it became fun. Like, ooh, what are you gonna be on today, Lord? You know? And I but I do want to say there were some days that I would read the whole thing and it was like nothing. But it's not that nothing's happening because his word never returns void. So it's doing things even if my emotions aren't responding. But there's been, it's just been powerful, there's powerful, powerful encounter that's happened as I've read the word and gone back and forth about it. And honestly, Jesus grew up this way. He was praying morning, noon, and night because that was the Jewish tradition. They had the same prayers and the same scripture that they would be reading over and over and over again. So there's something really good about taking the word and meditating on it day and night, and including in meditation being speaking out loud. So oh, I'm doing good on time. Okay, so I just want to pray and kind of pull all of the things that we've been talking about this morning into a prayer to bless all of your spirits. Okay, so can we do that? Oh Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for coming and for going to the cross so that you could confront the enemy on our behalf and strip him of his power over us and win back for us the authority that we handed over. I pray, Father, that we would use the authority that Jesus has given us, that we would not be ignorant, we would not be unwise, but that we would be discerning people. Help us be a mature and discerning bride for you, Jesus, that is aware that we are in a battle with the enemy and that is not an issue of power, because we acknowledge, Jesus, that you are the most powerful. And we thank you for giving us the gift of your spirit to dwell inside of us so that we can be powerful as you are powerful. And help us to use the authority that you've given us, Jesus, to not let those keys sit in our pocket unused, but that we would be pulling them out daily to use for us, to use for our family members, to use for anyone that is around us. To stop the enemy. To say no and refuse him when he executes his power. Help us to take captive our captives. Thank you that that is our reward. We want to be people that take captive the captives, to pray them around, to bring them to humiliation so that you are glorified, Jesus. But help us also to loose, to be people that are using the keys to release your blessing, God, to always be asking, what is it that you're wanting to do? And to release your blessing. And may we love and cherish your words, God. Taking your scripture and your anointed beautiful words, crafting them into prayers for the people that we love. And daily meditating, studying, thinking deeply, but also speaking and using our voice as a weapon. May we never forget that as we pray, our voice is a weapon, doing damage to the darkness and goodness to the earth. Amen. So if there's some things that you're battling, or if there are people that you know in your life that are battling and you would love to have somebody stand with you in prayer to bind things this morning and say no, or if you're needing blessing released over your bodies for healing or anything going on emotionally or anything at all, I want to invite our prayer team now to come and they would be so delighted to pray with you. Okay. Um, but that concludes the end of our service, and I thank you guys for coming. Don't just run out, make sure you hug some necks. And if you're new, we'd love to get to know you better. So come say hi. Right? Thanks, guys.