How Effective Are Your Prayers Against the Enemy?

Do you ever feel like no matter how hard you try, you can’t defeat the enemy against your life? Do you feel as if you pray to no avail, but spiritual warfare won’t cease? The Lord showed me recently that adding a repertoire of words to our vocabulary is necessary for which to tear down and root out the tactics of the devil against our lives.

Jesus came to give us abundant life (John 10:10). He modeled the power and authority of our words as He spoke to things to heal, deliver and activate the spiritual realm to a response. We do this today through declaring and decreeing, but did you ever listen to someone pray and hear the repetitive words in their prayers or your own and wonder if it was even effective?

Are Our Prayers Effective?

We need to double-check on our prayer life and discern if we are simply reciting a prayer repetitively as an action, or if when we are praying or reading a declaration from a book, we are lining up our faith and exuding the same power and authority as Jesus. We don’t need to shout to have authority, just a confident, firm tone.

I believe we can pray legalistically and ritually as Christians and not be aware of it. I had a demon once take over the mouth of a person whom I was delivering and talk through it. He said that they didn’t mean their prayers and that he knew they were just repeating these prayers daily out of unbelief, fear and legalism.

Word Artillery

The Spirit of the Lord showed me years ago and even reminded me recently to add to our arsenal a dangerous amount of word artillery. We’ve heard the popular, “I command, decree and declare,” but what about words such as: “annihilate,” “desist” or “eradicate”?

I was in prayer recently when the Holy Spirit quickened me to use the words I’ve listed to use to desecrate the enemy in my book Speak Out. As I went through the list of words and definitions and used each one in a sentence, I could physically feel things break in the spiritual atmosphere and shift. It felt as if there was a lightness that came over my life and ministry.

Defining the Words We Pray

I was instructing my team the next day on how to expand their words against the devil, and I showed them the difference using the definition of these words.

Compare these prayer declarations and definitions to decide what you’d rather use in your word artillery.

• “I renounce you, devil.” “Renounce” means you “refuse to follow and obey.” (Webster’s).
• “I eradicate the powers and operations of the devil against my family and me in Jesus’ name.’ “Eradicate” means “to remove something completely.” (Webster’s)

Do you want to renounce the devil and just refuse to follow and obey his orders, or do you want him eradicated from your family’s life? We can see that eradicating is more powerful and permanent than renouncing.

If you continue through the list in my book where I have the definitions written, you will see there is more dangerous permanent artillery you can throw into the spiritual atmosphere to generate a response. When you speak out, your words are prophetically assigned and must get results because the Lord has given you dominion.

Creating a Spiritual Shift

When we pray, let’s make sure we are creating a spiritual shift in the atmosphere. Let’s use the power of our words, but pray with such a precision that the devil knows we mean business. I’ve written two books of declarations, Warfare Declarations and Powerful Prophetic Proclamations. However, I suggest people use these only as a prayer tool until they can declare out on their own and allow the Holy Spirit to rise within them.

How do you do that? I’ve written some declarations here for you. Pray them aloud. Repeat them again if necessary, but as you pray them, have the faith that when you get through the list of declarations, the Holy Spirit will use your mouth to speak out the prayer declarations He knows need to be spoken over your life.

Prayer Declarations:

• I send disturbance into the enemy’s camp and command that his orders against me are rescinded and destroyed in the name of Jesus.
• I thwart (prevent and stop) the enemy from attacking and coming against my financial gain. I speak and declare that my finances will increase, that debt will be paid, and I proclaim that I will live in abundance, in Jesus’ name.
• I nullify (cancel the effect of) every evil operation against me. Devil, I say and decree your assignment against me to steal, kill and destroy is broken, abolished (completely do away with) and will not manifest, in Jesus’ name. I order my prophetic destiny to come forth and be released and unleashed.
• I constrict (compress) the power and activation of negative words, gossip and slander against my life. I uproot (remove completely) all demonic activation that has taken place as a result of another’s words against me. I command (direct, send) all words curses to be burned up and dispersed (vanish or evaporate) from the spiritual atmosphere and activation, in Jesus’ name.

Continue to pray and believe your prayer life and language will increase. Keep praying; don’t give up, even when you get tired and feel as if you don’t have anything else to pray. Keep pressing through to your breakthrough, read the declarations over if necessary, and expect the Holy Spirit to take over and pray declarations through you.

As we were in church recently, I kept encouraging my congregation to pray harder every time they felt like quitting. They pressed though, kept praying, and the glory of God fell in our service. We could feel the electricity of God in that room. The Holy Spirit began praying through everyone (in English) proclamations and warfare declarations. It was one of our most powerful services.

Just as with running, you want to give up because you get tired, but when you push through those few minutes you feel like giving up, you can then run as long and far as you want. It is the same thing with prayer. When our flesh feels stagnant and wants to give up, it is then that the Holy Spirit can and does come and pray through us.

Kathy DeGraw is a prophetic spiritual warfare strategist releasing the love and power of God, to ignite and activate people, release prophetic destinies and deliver people from the bondage of the enemy. She is the founder of Kathy DeGraw Ministries and Be Love Outreach. She is the author of several books, including Speak Out, Discerning and Destroying the Works of Satan, Identity Invasion, Who is Speaking? and Warfare Declarations. You can connect with Kathy on Facebook, facebook.com/kathydegrawor visit degrawministries.org.