It’s true. You have an adversary who wants to attack your desires, your thoughts, even how you see and treat your body. So you and I need to be on guard against Satan’s schemes.
According to 1 Peter 5:8, “Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (NASB). But God’s Word also gives us a strategy against those attacks by telling us to “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes…” (Ephesians 6:11-18). I find it interesting that every piece of “armor” described in that passage refers to the character of Christ. In other words, put on Christ-likeness – abide in Christ – and you will fend off the attacks of the enemy.
We abide in Christ through surrender and constant communion with Him. As you suit up with the armor of God, here are five prayers to pray against Satan’s attacks on your heart, mind, emotions, mouth, and body.
Table of contents
1. A Prayer to Guard Your Heart
Lord God, Captain of my heart, Satan knows if I follow Your Greatest Commandment – to love You with all my heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:37) – he is powerless over me. Guard my heart, Lord Jesus, so that it beats for You alone. Don’t let me grow complacent toward You or be lured to love anyone or anything more than You. Remove the idols from my heart so that You alone command my allegiance and utmost affections Help me to love and forgive others as You have forgiven me so the enemy can get no foothold through hate or bitterness on my part. Cultivate in my heart Your love that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (>1 Corinthians 13:7, NASB). Finally, Lord, set my heart on things above, not on earthly things. Help me to remember that You died for me and my life is now hidden which Christ in God (>Colossians 3:1-2). Increase my longing for heaven so this world holds no power over me.
2. A Prayer to Defend Your Mind
Almighty God, cover my mind with the helmet of Your salvation, reminding me constantly that I am Your child and the enemy can’t mess with me. Fix my thoughts, Lord Jesus, on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. Help me to think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise so Your peace will guard my mind (Philippians 4:8-9). Don’t let me copy the behavior and customs of this world, but transform me into a new person by changing the way I think. Then I will learn to recognize Your will for me which is good and pleasing and perfect (Romans 12:2, NLT). Saturate my mind with Your truth so I am convinced that the answers are found in Your Word, not out in the world.
SEE ALSO: 5 Areas of Your Life Satan Wants to Enter
3. A Prayer to Calm Your Emotions
Lord, keep the enemy at bay by calming my emotions with the peace of Your presence. Help me to follow Your command and not worry about anything, but pray about everything, with a thankful heart offering up prayers and requests to you so that You can give me that peace that no one can completely understand – a peace that will control the way I think and feel (Phil. 4:6-7, CEV). Remind me, daily, that You are the Only One who can meet my emotional needs so I don’t look to any person for my identity, validation, or for my love tank to be filled. Thank You that You are the God of peace, the God of order, the God who heals my wounds and helps me sort through and make sense of life. You are not the God of chaos or confusion. Fill me with Your Spirit so I may express to others only love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).
4. A Prayer to Cover Your Mouth
Lord, Jesus, guard my mouth so that my words will be few. Help me to be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger (James 1:19). Don’t let me speak reckless words that can pierce like swords. Instead, give me a tongue that brings healing (Proverbs 12:18). Don’t let me give in to gossip or speak careless critical words that will wound others. Keep the enemy far from me so that no unwholesome talk comes out of my mouth but only what is helpful for building others up, according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. Don’t let me grieve the Holy Spirit through my words (Ephesians 4:29-30).
5. A Prayer to Protect Your Body
Lord, I give my body to You. Let it be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind You will find acceptable (Romans 12:1, NLT). I know from Your Word that Satan can not sift me like wheat or even lay a hand on me without Your permission. So place Your hedge around me so that my body – Your temple – can be preserved, pure, holy, and healthy for You (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Block Satan’s attempts to make me doubt that I am “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) and don’t let me listen to his taunts to harm my body through neglect, contempt, addiction or abuse. I am Yours, Lord Jesus, and I want to glorify You in my body so keep me from Satan’s attempts and the temptations in this world and in my flesh to make me impure, to dress immodestly, to make my body a showcase or advertisement for evil or self glorification.
SEE ALSO: Can the Devil Read Minds?
As you pray that God will develop the fruits of His Holy Spirit in every area of your life, you will be invincible through prayer to the one who seeks to tear you down and make you less like Christ.
Cindi McMenamin is a national speaker and best-selling author who helps women and couples find strength for the soul. She is the author of 15 books, including When Women Walk Alone (more than 125,000 copies sold), When a Woman Overcomes Life’s Hurts, When Couples Walk Together, (co-authored with her husband, Hugh), and her newest, 10 Secrets to Becoming a Worry-Free Mom. For more on her books, ministry, or free resources to strengthen your soul or marriage, see her website: StrengthForTheSoul.com.
Publication date: September 7, 2016
SEE ALSO: How Satan Entices People to Sin
This article is part of our larger Prayers resource meant to inspire and encourage your prayer life when you face uncertain times. Visit our most popular prayers if you are wondering how to pray or what to pray. Remember, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us and God knows your heart even if you can’t find the words to pray.
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by Ksenia (FRANCE)
Heavenly Father, first, I submit to You. In Your authority, I bind the spirit of the enemy which seeks to manifest through witchcraft. Help us with my little baby, because my mother-in-low hates us! I know You said that those who bless us, You would bless, and those who curse us, You would curse. Yet , Father, these people are already under Your curse.
Therefore, I pray that You would pour out Your redemptive blessings – those very blessings which shatter darkness with light, overcome evil with good, and bring hope and life to the hopelessly dead. And I ask these things, Heavenly Father, that You might fulfill the redemptive purposes You revealed in Your Son , Jesus Christ.
Help us , Lord, to become a house of prayer for the church in this city. In Jesus name. Amen.
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How to Become a Prayer Warrior
The Power of Prayer
In spiritual warfare, the biggest source of power that we have is prayer. Throughout the ages we have forgotten how to pray effectively. All too often our prayers do not carry any real power behind them because they are diminished when our own desires and biases creep into them. Praying in power is vitally important in spiritual warfare.
How Prayer Works
In order to learn how to pray more effectively with God’s power behind our prayers it is first necessary to understand how prayer actually works. When we pray for something we are in essence willing something into being in the spiritual realm. By willing something into being in the spiritual it will later manifest itself in our earthly realm. This is the reason why we typically end our prayers with the word “Amen,” which essentially means, “Let it be done!”
How to Pray Effectively
Now that we understand how prayer works we can change the way that we pray in order to make our prayers more powerful and effective. Here is the single most powerful and effective prayer that anyone can pray for another person:
Lord, I lift up this person to you and ask that you fulfill all of his or her needs according to your will. Not his or her will, but your will be done in this person’s life. Amen!
On the surface this prayer may seem too simple or too general to be effective. This is a common misconception among some Christians who believe that you must pray long and wordy prayers that ask for very specific outcomes. In actual fact, however, there is no prayer more powerful or more effective than this one. Here are the main reasons why:
- By praying for the Lord’s will to be done we are enabling the Lord to invoke his own will in the spiritual realm, which carries much more power behind it.
- By not praying for a specific outcome we are not putting any limitations or restrictions on the Lord. We may think we know what is best for another person, but all too often we are unable to see the big picture. It is, therefore, much more prudent to let the Lord decide what is truly best for another person. If our desired outcome is in conflict with the Lord’s will, our prayer will be a hindrance to the Lord rather than a help. This is a common reason why many prayers seemingly go unanswered. When the Lord doesn’t act in accordance with what we prayed for it is often a good clue that we were not praying correctly.
Consider the following scenario:
John has been out of work for over a year and is in terrible need of finding a good job to support his family. John has an upcoming job interview and has asked us to pray for him.
At this point we have two choices on how to pray for John. The most common prayer that some Christians would offer would be something like this:
“Lord, please be with John during his job interview and help him to get a good position with this company so that he can support his family. Amen!”
By doing this we have now limited the Lord’s options to either giving John this particular job or not. Little did we know that this job would not be the best choice for John in the long run. We were also unaware of the fact that the Lord already had a significantly better job in mind for John, which would have become available the very next day.
If, however, we had used the following prayer instead, we would have allowed the Lord to fulfill John’s needs in a much better way:
“Lord, I lift up John to you and ask that you fulfill all of his needs according to your will. Not his will, but your will be done in his life.”
Now the Lord can carry out his original plan for John, which was to get him the job at this other company the very next day.
Spiritual Awareness & Protection
Once you become an effective prayer warrior by praying in God’s will you will attract the attention of the spiritual forces of evil in the spiritual realms. It is written in Ephesians 6:12:
“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.”
You must, therefore, become spiritually aware so that you may recognize when you are under attack from the evil ones. You must also learn how to defend yourself against any such assaults.
Recognizing Spiritual Attack
Spiritual attacks can come in the form of physical assaults or emotional assaults. Recognizing these different forms of attack is very important. Here are some common physical symptoms of spiritual attack:
- Excessive yawning (especially during the day). Yawning is the result of oxygen deprivation to the brain. The evil can consume the oxygen around you causing you to yawn frequently.
- Sneezing when there is no obvious cause (allergies, pepper, etc.). Ever wonder why we say, “God bless you” when someone sneezes?
- You may get the chills for no apparent reason.
- Headaches (especially severe ones like migraines)
- You may suddenly feel aches and pains with no rational explanation for them.
- You may also feel extremely tired and drained of energy.
Here are some common symptoms of an emotional spiritual attack:
- The evil have the ability to strongly influence your thoughts. They can plant suggestions in your head to do things or say things that you wouldn’t normally do. Be aware of any strange thoughts that enter your mind that you would not normally think of.
- The evil can also influence your emotions in a strong way. You may suddenly experience severe depression or extreme anger. Sometimes you will be very tense and short tempered for no good reason.
Defending Against Spiritual Attack
If you ever believe you are under attack you should always call on the Lord and ask him to help you. In addition, there are many things which you can and should do each day in order to ensure that you have sufficient protection against the spiritual forces of evil.
- You must put on the full armor of God morning and night by praying to the Lord and asking him to put the armor of God on you. Refer to Ephesians 6:10-18 for more information about the armor of God.
- You must ask for forgiveness of sins both morning and night.
- You must give your will to all three members of the Holy trinity both morning and night. You can simply say, “Lord I give my complete will to you for the next 24 hour period, not my will but your will be done in my life.”
- You must read Psalm 92 both morning and night.
- Whenever in need say aloud “Praise the Lord” nine consecutive times followed by, “O my soul praise the Lord!”
- You may read the first 5 verses of the book of John as a means of forcing the evil to back off of you.
- If in great need you may read Psalm 70.
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