# Praying God's Word ![rw-book-cover](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/417x8Q3rdVL._SL200_.jpg) ## Metadata - Author: [[Beth Moore]] - Full Title: Praying God's Word - Category: #books ## Highlights - 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. ([Location 74](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=74)) - 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. ([Location 80](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=80)) - 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.” ([Location 86](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=86)) - 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. ([Location 90](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=90)) - 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. ([Location 94](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=94)) - 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. ([Location 104](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=104)) - 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. ([Location 106](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=106)) - I am utterly convinced that the two major weapons with divine power in our warfare are the Word of God and Spirit-empowered prayer. ([Location 119](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=119)) - Virtually nothing we come up against in our individual Christian lives is more formidable than a stronghold. ([Location 124](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=124)) - Strongholds are broken one way only: they have to be demolished. ([Location 126](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=126)) - 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. ([Location 136](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=136)) - 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; ([Location 139](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=139)) - The fastest way to lose our balance in warfare is to rebuke the devil more than we relate to God. ([Location 143](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=143)) - 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. ([Location 146](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=146)) - 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. ([Location 151](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=151)) - Consider three reasons why praying Scripture regarding the “Godness” of God is so critical in the process of breaking free from strongholds: 1. Virtually every stronghold involves the worship of some kind of idol. For instance, the stronghold of pride is associated with the worship of self. The stronghold of addiction is often associated with the worship of some kind of substance or habit. In one way or another, something else has become “god” in our lives: the object of our chief focus. ([Location 342](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=342)) - “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17). ([Location 347](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=347)) - 2. As long as our minds rehearse the strength of our stronghold more than the strength of our God, we will be impotent. ([Location 349](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=349)) - 3. We may be forced to realize that our perception of God is something that we, ourselves, have conjured up and not the one true God at all. ([Location 352](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=352)) - The most monumental leap we take toward freedom is the leap to our knees—the lordship of Jesus Christ. ([Location 364](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=364)) - My Father, I acknowledge that You are the Lord Almighty. You are the first and You are the last, and apart from You there is no other God. Make me witness to the fact that there is no other Rock but You. Enable me to say with full assurance, “I know not one.” (Isa. 44:6, 8) ([Location 369](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=369)) - My Father, You are my Lord, my Holy One, my Creator, my King. You are the One who made a way through the sea, a path through mighty waters. (Isa. 43:15–16) ([Location 372](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=372)) - My Father, You are the Lord my God. I desire to love You, listen to Your voice, and hold fast to You, for You, Lord, are my life. (Deut. 30:20) ([Location 374](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=374)) - You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship You. (Neh. 9:6) ([Location 380](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=380)) - My Father, how I thank You that it is unthinkable that You would do wrong, that the Almighty would pervert justice. Who appointed You over the earth? Who put You in charge of the whole world? If it were Your intention and You withdrew Your Spirit and breath, all mankind would perish together and man would return to the dust. (Job 34:12–15) Instead, my Lord, You have promised that Your plans for Your people are plans to prosper and not to harm, plans to give us hope and a future. (Jer. 29:11) ([Location 382](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004SP91IU&location=382))