The Authority Prayer
In cleaning out my garage and going through some old boxes, I found sermon notes and messages from way back in the day. Among those was a set of written "prayers". I am not certain where these came from but I thought I would share them here. On their face I guess there's nothing wrong with them... if that's what you believe. They just made me laugh though.
I claim for myself the full victory the Lord Jesus Christ has won over Satan and all his forces. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I take back all ground I may ever have given to Satan and I break all demonic connections and subjections. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I resist the devil and command him to flee from me. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I command all wicked spirits to leave me and go to the pit. I am bought with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and I choose to be entirely His and used for His glory.
Presto. Chango. Just add water. And now you have authority. Congratulations! Nothing like a good formula to save the day.
I claim for myself the full victory the Lord Jesus Christ has won over Satan and all his forces. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I take back all ground I may ever have given to Satan and I break all demonic connections and subjections. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I resist the devil and command him to flee from me. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I command all wicked spirits to leave me and go to the pit. I am bought with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and I choose to be entirely His and used for His glory.
Presto. Chango. Just add water. And now you have authority. Congratulations! Nothing like a good formula to save the day.
posted by Steve at
1/28/2007
22 Comments:
Steve, I struggle with this area too. I often find myself going back to Pauls words where he says that he does things that he knows are wrong and doesn't do the things he knows he should do...He talks about the war waged in the body. Unless Paul was lying, it's pretty clear that being free from this influence isn't really possible, at least here in the body.
But, that's what people want to hear. They want to believe that they can be in control. It's too bad none of us can live up to it.
Wait, you mean that doesn't work? Next, I guess you're going to tell me that my territory won't be enlarged, either.
That means I have to go to work today. I guess that if you want something done, you have to do it yourself. [/dammit]
It reminds me of a series I did for an adult Sunday School by that guy Neil Anderson. He was one of these spiritual warfare guys...everything was to be seen in terms of the supernatural first.
There was a couple in the class, and the wife had bipolar disorder with serious depression. In her former church, they tried to "treat" her with invoking the Name and the Blood of Christ. All of that landed her in a psych ward with profound doubts about her faith, which took a long time to deal with. As soon as I started teaching the material - boom, they were gone. They were such a neat couple. I feel horrible, especially now that I know a lot more about bipolar disorder.
This sounds like something out of "The Adversary" that I read a million years ago - what a trap and how gullible are we that someone just has to suggest something like this works and BAM there are our little written prayers banning Satan from our lives... Who comes up with this and - just out of curiosity - I would love to know where we can find support for this in the Bible...
I can recall incidents where in the middle of the night where I felt a manevolent presence while I was sleeping and I would invoke the name of Christ and I would be free. It turns out that such disturbances are night terrors and have a brain physiology behind them. Two of my sons have the same issues. I just call them night terrors and the demonic presence dissipates.
I like this one.
I always find it interesting how closely some Christians bring their religious faith to a place of self-worship. We pick songs for God that we like. We make all of our prayers about ourselves and our own selfishness and we come up with ways to turn faith into magic. People do it with Baptism all the time. They believe that they must add just the right amount of water or potion won’t “work”. Here the problem is the same. It’s more about magic than faith. This prayer is selfish and it is all about control. It is about a human trying to wield the divine to do his bidding by spouting some wild incantations. The problem with this kind of stuff is not so much the poor theology (which it is) as much as it is a problem of self-worship. This is an attempt to use God; to make the creator of the universe your servant - when it should be the other way around.
I had a thought...assuming "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" was based on a true story, Emily wasn't released despite the ardent faith of the family and the priest, and that of Emily herself. What makes anyone think they can just "rebuke the Devil" anyways?
Reminds me of the youth pastor at my old church (who was a 50-something dude). He was into this crap.
He also suggested to my daughters that if only their faith was strong enough then my wife's genetic disorder would be cured. That sent them home in tears.
When I confronted him about his name-it-and-claim-it baloney, using scripture, he fell back on "the Holy Spirit." When I took the issue to the pastor, he begged off, implying that he couldn't afford to actually pay someone to be youth pastor and nobody else wanted to do it.
What a mess.
"This prayer is selfish and it is all about control."
This may be the case, but I have a huge amount of compassion for people who pray this way. I've known a lot of addicts and a lot of abused women who wanted a little control... who wanted to do the "right thing" so that God finally intervened and their pain could end.
What you call selfish, is sometimes desperation.
Bruce_Almighty: What makes anyone think they can just "rebuke the Devil" anyways?
Please correct me if I am worng, but didn't Jesus rebuke devils?
Aren't we supposed to do what He did as our example?
Acts 19:13-16 comes to mind.
Ninja,
I'm curious as to why you would quote that portion of Acts. Because in those passages I read about a group of Jewish excorcists who invoked the name of Jesus Christ to drive out demons in people who were possessed. Saying "I adjure you by the Jesus, whom Paul proclaims". I don't believe this is how a believer in Jesus Christ would go about casting out a demon. A believer would more likely say something like "I am Christ's representative on earth, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command you, unclean spirit, to come out of this person!"
I think the reason that the evil spirit in those verses in Acts didn't listen to the Jewish excorcists is because the evil spirit knew that the Jewish excorcists had no faith in Jesus as the living Christ and the Son of God. Which is why I believe the evil spirit responded in verse 15 saying "Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?"
So by referring people to these passages in Acts are you saying that none of us have enough faith in Jesus to effectively drive out evil spirits? Or that we are all just like those Jewish excorcists, because we call ourselves Christians in name only and do not prove that we are in our deeds or speech? I'm sincerely confused here. Please help.
We can rebuke the devil all we want, but will he listen? Jesus has a bit more pull than you or I.
Don't have a problem with "prayers" like this. They are actually very old and not an invention of the "name it and claim it" brigade. Go and have a look at the awesome prayer of St Patrick to see some ancient Celtic "formulaic" prayer. Or how about the (misnamed) "Lord's prayer" ... just a formula?
Of course anything becomes "just a formula" if you treat it like a formula. But thankfully God looks at the heart. I say the Lords prayer "Formula" just about every day. I've recited St Patrick's prayer for quite a while [note the interesting twist on binding & losing in that prayer!], as well as a few others. Being of the Anglican persuasion I use "Formula" prayers in every service I attend (we call it liturgy).
And aren't we forgetting that prayer is actually more for our benefit than God's. Saying/declaring these things is for our benefit more than God's. If the effect is purely psychological then so what ... didn't God create our psyche anyway ... it's no surprise if He knows that 'formula prayers' can be good for us.
Cynicism is a great faith killer.
This does remind me of Neil Anderson - I've slid too far away in my perspective of scritpure to even think of mouthing this prayer ditty. But I like the fact that someone noticed this is for our comfort (more or less) and offers some psychological comfort - which it does for those trapped in this crazy good/evil theology - a bad view of the way the world works. A lot of this prayer also seems superstitious.
Bruce_Almighty said: "We can rebuke the devil all we want, but will he listen? Jesus has a bit more pull than you or I."
That's true, Jesus has ALL the pull. But if we are Christ's representatives on earth and are in a right relationship with Him, act in faith, invoking His name and all the power and authority over demons that His name has, then I believe Jesus will give us the power to battle demons.
But how many people are truly possessed by demons anyway? Alot of mental illnesses were commonly thought to be demonic possession. So how do we, as Christians, determine if a person is truly possessed or not? That's always been the tough call for me.
hahahahaha i like your website.
You are now officaly "linked"
rad.
The very definition of faith is not wishing or hoping for OUR outcome but HIS. But of course, we are human after all, so this isn't really a black or white issue.
However, I do believe that we have lulled ourselves into this place where God here's and then instantly answers our prayers...to OUR satisfaction. In other words, I do believe that the demons/satan/whatever will flee (if spoken out of true faith), but who says that just because they've left everything goes back to Hunky-dory-ville?
How pissed off and insulted must God be with our constant need to shove Him into our little convenience boxes?!?!
bottom line: be careful what you pray for... it might actually come true!!
Zec,
It's my concern for mental health issues that makes me treat the whole topic of spiritual warfare with more than a healthy dose of skepticism, so that's why I said what I did.
Perhaps there is a spiritual battle taking place and as you said, a person in a right relationship with God would be able to engage the fray, but I would hate to treat someone by rebuking demons when Abilify would deal better with their schizophrenia.
Bruce, I would hate to treat soemone by rebuking demons too, when there is another cause for their affliction. That's why I posed the question of "how can we tell, if a person is denomically possessed or not"? How do we know when it's demon-related activity or when it's psychological in nature? I honestly don't know. I would chalk most psychosis up to a medical reason, than a demonic reason.
Did you go to a prayer of Jabez church....I'm sorry if you did...
To me, this sort of prayer is somewhat akin to saying in a bold voice, "I hereby prepare and cook my dinner. I eat my dinner and claim the nutrition that is mine," while actually just standing in the kitchen and doing nothing. It's just words.
If someone wants to "resist the devil" then it's something that has to be done in the real world. Just saying "I resist the devil" is meaningless unless actions accompany that statement.
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