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. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.  2 Corinthians 10:3-6

This is a very well known passage from the writings of Paul, but I’m not sure how many Christians actually know how to use divine weapons or even know what they are.  The Greek word translated as stronghold is an ancient  military term that means a fortified place.  A fortified place implies that someone has intentionally built up defenses to protect something. Strongholds, as Paul uses the term, are well established belief systems deep within us that are opposed to God’s truth.  In the context of Paul’s writing, these strongholds or belief systems actively argue against God’s truth.

The word translated as pretensionmeans anything that arrogantly sets itself up above the word of God.  Anything that wants to exalt itself above God or his word is demonic.  Isaiah, speaking of Satan said, “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit” (Isa. 14:12-15). The word translated as demolishcan also mean “to dethrone.”  These strongholds are built and reinforced by Satan and contain thoughts that always want to argue against and exalt themselves above God’s truth.

Undoubtedly, each of us has to contend with some measure of strongholds in our life.  We are constantly bombarded by the belief systems of the world from childhood as we listen to television, read books, attend secular schools, pick up the strongholds of our parents, etc.  On top of that, we have experiences that establish beliefs about ourselves, God, and life in general and act as filters for every subsequent experience we have. For instance, an abused child will walk away from that abuse believing that something is so defective in him or her that they cannot be loved. Why else would a parent treat them that way? An abandoned child may grow up believing that, sooner or later, everyone they love will leave them.  Others will grow up in homes where whatever they did was “never good enough” and so will always struggle with feelings of incompetence and fears of failing.  Others will experience some disappointment and walk away believing that God doesn’t hear their prayers. These strongholds begin as some childhood conclusion we draw from a hurtful experience but then Satan reinforces those beliefs that oppose God’s truth.

Each of those strongholds will limit a person in life and in relationships. Each of those strongholds produces beliefs contrary to the word of God when it comes to those who are born again and have a destiny in Christ. God says he will never leave us or forsake us.  He tells us that we are more than conquerors in Jesus Christ and that nothing can separate us from his love.  He tells us that he has made us competent and that we can do all things through Jesus.  He tells us that whatever we ask for in the name of Jesus that is aligned with his word will get his full hearing. As long as we have persistent thoughts that are not aligned with God’s truth, strongholds exist that war against and argue against our faith and our obedience.

When believers hear these scriptures enough, they come to believe them on an intellectual level but may not believe them in their hearts.  They tend to believe them for others but not themselves or always have a “Yes, but…” response when called on to believe a promise enough to act on it.

Those belief systems that are buried deep within us are reinforced by the demonic realm at every opportunity.  In the parable of the sower, Satan comes to steal the seed which represents the word of God before it can put down roots and bear fruit. When strongholds exist, the enemy will provide any number of reasons not to believe God’s truth when it is offered. Because these strongholds are places fortified by the lies of the enemy as he operates in the spiritual realm, it takes divine weapons to dismiss the demons that keep rebuilding the walls of those lies and divine weapons to destroy the stronghold.

Counseling and therapies that do not engage the enemy on a spiritual playing field will not be able to truly demolish these spiritual fortifications.  We may learn to manage our issues to some degree or learn coping skills, but that is far from freedom and victory over the issue.  Most churches still send their members out to counselors who do not believe in or have skills in spiritual warfare, although Paul clearly says our struggles are not against flesh and blood but spiritual powers. Even churches that have counselors on staff, typically have counselors who were trained in secular approaches to counseling.  They may pray and offer a scripture but do not know how to confront the enemy and exercise authority to break these strongholds. Because of that, only a small percentage of Christ’s body actually walks in the full freedom that Jesus has purchased for them.

Divine weapons include Spirit-led counseling, the spiritual gifts of discernment, healings, wisdom, revelation, deliverance, prayer, hearing God, and so forth. If you think about it, most strongholds are established as a result of some intense experience or trauma.  Most life-altering transformations also occur as a result of an experience with God –  Moses at the burning bush, Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, the apostles seeing the resurrected Christ and experiencing the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Gideon watching an angel ascend in flames, the servant of Elisha seeing chariots of fire all around him, Jewish neighbors seeing Lazarus emerge from his tomb and so forth.  Divine weapons allow us to experience the presence and power of God so that strongholds are discredited, demolished, and them replaced by the truth that comes through encounters with God. It often takes an experience with God to overwrite what we have believed because of an experience with Satan.

In addition, a huge part of destroying strongholds is offering obedience in every part of our life.  Many believers don’t experience freedom because they withhold slices of their lives from God and do not willingly submit to him in the areas of relationships, giving, entertainment, forgiveness, addictions, and so forth.  Each area that remains “unsubmitted” to Jesus is an open door for the enemy to come in and rebuild the very fortifications they are trying to tear down. Paul says, “we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete” (2 Cor. 10:5).  In other words, when we have submitted all of our life to Jesus, then those who oppose us in the spiritual realm and the natural realm will be punished or caused to suffer by God. When we are obedient, demons can be driven out and the strongholds they have defended can be torn down.

I would venture to say that nearly every believer has some stronghold that remains within him or her – myself included. So many strongholds have been with us for so long that we don’t even recognize them.  They seem like a natural part of who we are and the enemy has provided numerous justifications for our beliefs that don’t line up with the Word.

Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any strongholds that exist so that divine weapons can be applied and the stronghold torn down. In its own way, every stronghold is a form of bondage though we may not recognize it is that.  A stronghold is simply a slice of our thought life that has been taken captive by Satan.  Our goal should to surrender every thought to Jesus because surrendering to Jesus truly brings freedom.  An essential part of deliverance is discovering these strongholds and pulling them down. Giving some serious thought to our personal strongholds on a regular basis is also essential to becoming all that he wants us to be.

Most mainline churches in America today still seem to fear an over-emphasis on the Holy Spirit. They certainly believe in the Holy Spirit as that part of God or that part of the Trinity that resides in God’s children, gives life to the spirit of man, and who shapes our character as Christians (fruit of the Spirit). However, the idea of power, revelation, prophetic words, words of knowledge, gifts of healing, visions, dreams, etc. are not on the menu in these churches. They seem to believe that if Christians pursue these supernatural manifestations of the Spirit, they will be led astray by the enemy into all kinds of deception and a faith focused on miracles rather than Jesus.

At the same time, there is a frustration in these churches, or at least among some of the people and leaders, that what we have in our faith is insufficient to truly meet the needs and challenges of the day. What do you do when your members suffer for years with depression, anxiety, fear, suicidal thoughts, addictions, doubts, gender confusion, or vaguely diagnosed illnesses and your prayers and Bible study only seem to give them temporary relief but no real victory?

Typically, churches that do not operate in the “supernatural” gifts of the Spirit, either conclude that these people have insufficient faith to be set free or send them out to secular doctors and psychologist for treatment. Even if they go to Christian counselors or therapists, most of them have been trained in secular approaches to treatment…so our people only get what the world offers with the simple addition of a prayer and a scripture. A theology then arises from our inability to help our people that declares that it is God’s will for his people to suffer in this fallen world, just as those who have no faith but the promised healing and freedom will come as we enter the presence of Jesus in heaven.

At the same time, we have the presence of Jesus within us already here on earth. Why shouldn’t that presence (the Holy Spirit) provide healing and freedom here as well as in heaven? In addition, Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 10, that we are not to wage war as the world wages war, but are to use divine weapons to pull down strongholds. He states this need for divine weapons because he also declares that our real struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual powers in heavenly realms. What doesn’t touch the spiritual realm will not set us free, if there is a spiritual component to our physical illness or emotional torment. And Paul suggests that most of the time, there is a spiritual component. Churches who don’t want to “over-emphasize” the Holy Spirit leave their people in the grasp of dark spiritual forces because secular treatment doesn’t touch the spiritual realm.

Of course, all churches pray for the healing of physical illnesses and emotional torment. Typically, however, the prayer is more of a wish than an expectation because if God doesn’t operate supernaturally in his church any more, then we can’t really expect more than secular doctors, science, and therapy can deliver. More than that, if God has provided solutions for infirmity and emotional distress through supernatural gifts of the Spirit, then he expects us to exercise those gifts as his primary source of healing and freedom and not just keep calling on him to do what he has equipped his church to do.

Sometimes we act like a policeman who has graduated from the academy and has been given authority and power to go make arrests and bring criminals to justice, but every time he sees a crime in progress, he calls the chief of police to come and do something. The chief will say, “ You have authority and power. You make the arrest. That is your job. If you can’t, then resign from the force.” If we keep calling on God to do what he has anointed and appointed us to do, then much will go undone. A heavy and healthy emphasis on the Holy Spirit in the church that stays consistent with biblical guidelines is the answer.

Before you push back, think about what an emphasis the first century church placed on the Holy Spirit beginning with Jesus himself. Jesus declared that the Holy Spirit would live in us, counsel us, teach us, lead us into all truth, reveal the heart and mind of God to us, heal us, free us, shape us, and give us power for ministry…to do what he had been doing. He didn’t tell the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit shaped their character or delivered sound doctrine so they could be effective witnesses. He commanded them to wait for power, which immediately manifested in tongues, revelation, and boldness. Can “supernatural” spiritual gifts be abused? Sure. They were widely abused in Corinth. Paul, however, did not tell them to quit exercising the gifts but to exercise them with love and a sense of order. When the church was looking for qualified leaders, they did not search for seminary graduates or successful businessmen, but looked for those who were full of the Spirit…which also manifested in miraculous works. The church was ordered to be filled with the Spirit at all times and to pray in the Spirit at all times. They were to earnestly desire spiritual gifts and to bear the fruit of the Spirit in their lives. When Ananias and Sapphira were disciplined unto death in Acts 5, it was because they had lied to the Holy Spirit. That suggests the prominence the Holy Spirit held in the church.

We could go on, but it would be heard to emphasize the Spirit more than the early church did or the New Testament does. I believe there is more danger in under-emphasizing the Spirit rather than over-emphasizing him. The truth is that the church needs much more of the Spirit rather than less if we are to fulfill our mandate of discipling nations and bringing heaven to earth.

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. 2 Corinthians 10:4-7

This passage is familiar to most of us. However, I find that the most familiar passages are the ones that we begin to take for granted and stop looking more deeply into the passage because we feel like we know it so well. The truth is that the Holy Spirit offers multiple layers of meaning so that each time we go back and mine the passage for more, we discover that there are still nuggets and veins of gold each time we dig a little deeper. I thought I would take another look at this familiar passage to see what else the Lord might highlight.

To begin with, Paul is writing to a church that has an elitist and disobedient faction within it. They have created division and hurt in the church through their own spiritual arrogance and tolerance for sin. They have brought worldly attitudes, values, philosophy, and rationalizations into the church and Paul is confronting them. In fact, he is threatening to make a personal appearance to deal with them if they do not repent soon.

Paul begins by saying that we, meaning the spiritually mature, do not fight with the weapons of the world but we have, at our disposal, weapons that are empowered by God. Those who want to oppose God are always in the position of bringing a knife to a gunfight. They will always be out-matched. The problem is that when we are attacked with the weapons of the world, we too often respond with the same weapons. When anger comes against us, we respond with anger. When we are criticized, we criticize in return. When we are slandered we get busy defaming our attackers. When someone pulls a power play at work, we try to respond with a greater manipulation of power.

When we fight as the world fights, we come into agreement with Satan. When we agree, we empower him instead of overpowering him. That is why Paul clearly told us, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom.12:21).   To be overcome by evil simply means that we have surrendered to the impulses of the flesh and have responded as the devil would respond, rather than as Christ would respond. We overcome evil in our own hearts first by doing good and then overcome evil in the world by the good we do to others. Our first step toward defeat is giving in to evil thoughts. Evil thoughts are simply ways of thinking that agree with Satan’s perspective rather than the mind of Christ.

An essential truth of spiritual warfare is that Satan gains access to us in the arena of our thought life. As Joyce Meyers put it, the battlefield is the mind. Paul’s statement to the church at Corinth was that these divine weapons would, first and foremost, tear down or demolish strongholds. The word that is translated as stronghold can also mean fortress. I think immediately of the fortresses in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. A fortress or stronghold is a strong place of protection where armies reside except when they go out to raid or do battle, then they once again withdraw to their stronghold. Sometimes, it is even a hidden place that the opposition cannot find such as David found with his men when evading King Saul.

Paul’s point is that wherever our thinking is not aligned with Christ, we give the enemy a place in our thought life to hide and to fight against us at opportune moments. A stronghold is not a random thought but is a pattern of thought that opposes the truth of God. It may be a pattern of thought that opposes the truth about Jesus but for believers, more often, it is a pattern of thought that opposes God’s truth about who we are in Christ, about forgiveness, about godly principles for living, or about God’s immense love for us and our security in him. Those thought patterns have been with us so long that we often are not even aware of how pervasive they are and how they color our thinking. When we minister deliverance to people, these belief patterns that have not been identified and repented of give the enemy a place to hide and the right to remain there.

When the moment comes, these thought patterns that are reinforced and amplified by the devil rise up as arguments against the truth of God’s word. Jesus declared that we would know the truth and the truth would set us free. God’s word is truth. When we insist on his word as the standard of truth rather than the wisdom of the world or our own past experiences, we are wielding a powerful and divine weapon.

However, when we say, “Yes, but…” to God’s word, we are inadvertently revealing our agreement with Satan and a stronghold inevitably exists. When we begin by saying “but…” we are almost always beginning to offer an argument as to why God’s word is not true in our case. We are the exception. To do so, aligns us with Satan rather than Jesus and automatically gives him authority in our life. It is important to identify these strongholds, renounce them, and repent of them. Then it is important to declare the word of God over any situation or feeling as the standard of truth upon which we will act and upon which we will stand.

The goal is to make every thought captive to Jesus Christ. The word for captive here is the word for prisoner of war. It is a military term that means not only to defeat an enemy who may run off and then engage us in battle again but to defeat and imprison that enemy so that he can no longer attack us. We do so by imposing the will and truth of God on patterns of thought that are in opposition to the word of God. Confessing the word of God over and over in opposition to patterns of thought I have identified in myself is a powerful strategy. We must only say about ourselves what God says about us. We must only say about a circumstance, what God says about that circumstance. We must not subject ourselves to sources of unbelief such as unbelieving friends or family members who constantly undermine our own faith. We must not subject ourselves to movies or songs that undermine our faith in God’s truth (the Da Vinci Code, etc.). We must not allow anger and unforgiveness to give Satan a place in our hearts. We must not allow lust to have its way with our thoughts.

When thought patterns and rationalizations that oppose God’s truth and standards become apparent, we must deal with them quickly and take them captive. The word arguments comes from the Greek word logismos. We immediately see the root of logic or human reason there. Human reason and worldly wisdom always rise up against God’s truth. All the foolishness about same-sex marriage and identifying as male or female based on your feelings is worldly wisdom that has already crept into the church because it sounds scientific, tolerant and non-judgmental. But it “sets itself up against the knowledge of God.” If you read the early chapters of 1 Corinthians you will see how the church had been impressed with worldly knowledge, eloquence, and education and had begun to give those things greater standing than the word of God. Paul declares that those strongholds must be torn down and taken captive.

Interestingly, strongholds in the days of Paul were actually fortifications within the walls of a city. If the walls were breached, then the army retreated to the stronghold or citadel which was an inner fortress that could be defended by fewer soldiers. Once the stronghold was taken, the battle was over. Too often we stop short in the battle. We push back against the devil, get a little relief as he retreats from his outer defenses, and then stop our pursuit. We fail to persist in getting God’s truth in our hearts or going deeper to find other thought strongholds that are still out of alignment with the Father. We breach the wall but don’t stay after it until the stronghold is demolished. We often speak about “removing another layer of the onion” in spiritual warfare. This reality of strongholds behind walls may reflect that truth.

The word pretensions alludes to high places or towers on a wall. These are places of pride and arrogance that do not want to surrender to God or to acknowledge being wrong or the need to repent. When these attitudes are not rooted out as well, the enemy comes back and we wonder why. These high places seem to allude to the Tower of Babel in Hebrew thought. That was a project based on man’s pride, his arrogance, and his desire to be independent from God. In essence it was the first expression humanism.

In spiritual warfare we have to identify and uproot the lies of the enemy and keep taking and retaking ground in our thought life. We have to identify pockets of pride and places within our hearts that we do not want to submit to Jesus. That is the process of renewing our minds. It is a joint effort between us and the Holy Spirit that, in most cases, will take a lifetime.

Our thought life is the primary place where spiritual warfare occurs. We must be active in the battle rather than passive. We need to find the hiding places and tear down strongholds without mercy. We need friends to point out those strongholds because they will often recognize them before we do. The Holy Spirit will reveal those strongholds if we sincerely ask and will provide the power to dismantle them. Paul tells us that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Freedom is God’s will for each of us and he is ready for us to go to war with Jesus at our side.

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.

(2 Cor.10:4-5)

This is a key passage for those who engage in spiritual warfare and whether we know it or not, we are all engaged in battles with the spiritual realm. Paul’s declaration to the church at Corinth reveals that the primary battle fought against the enemy is waged first in the arena of our thought life. The battle is waged against thoughts and beliefs that are contrary to God’s truth. The fact that these thoughts are not just the rumblings of our own intellect or imaginations is suggested by the need for divine weapons to take them captive. A key thought is that these lies and misbeliefs can exist as strongholds.

Strongholds are fortifications in which the enemy hides and finds sanctuary. In this context, the implication is that the enemy (demonic forces) hides and finds sanctuary in our thought life when our thoughts are not aligned with God. There is a principle that we empower whatever we agree with. When we agree with the enemy in our thoughts and perspectives we give him a place in our lives and empower him. Our misaligned thoughts invite the enemy and once he has found a place with us, he works to reinforce the lies we already believe. Those lies become strongholds that eventually enslave us.

Mental strongholds or systems of false beliefs function in two ways. First of all, Satan labors to destroy our identity. His goal is to convince us that we are defective, insignificant, and unlovable. He fills us with insecurity and fear and convinces us that even God can’t love us. Without a sense of God’s love we feel orphaned and on our own. Our sense of defectiveness and insignificance drives us to medicate our fears and emptiness with whatever the world offers. Our drugs-of-choice (alcohol, sedatives, gambling, porn, food, recreation, etc.) become perpetual God-substitutes in our life.

The second function of strongholds for the enemy is to draw us out and away from the will of God. Scripture declares that God is our strength and our shield. He is our strong tower. But if we wander out of his will and stay there, we become vulnerable to the enemy. We become vulnerable in our thinking. Satan first draws us away from the person of God through our misbelief that he can’t or won’t love us and care for us. Then he draws us away from his will. Once we are living outside of God’s will, in part or in whole, the destructive consequences of our actions also begin to take their toll. Paul warned us that if we sow to the flesh we reap destruction (Gal.6:8). We also continue to empower the enemy as we agree with him. That is how people, including Christians, become demonized. The demonic establishes a hiding place in our thought life and in our imaginations that begins to take control of part of our thought life. That part begins to influence all of our emotions and decision-making. Over time, he will gradually take more control over our thoughts until he controls great sections of our lives.

We cannot afford to think or speak in ways that are misaligned with the Father. His word, his perspectives, and his promises are truth. Jesus said that you will know the truth and truth will set you free. It will also keep you from being enslaved in the first place. Most Christians pay attention to their behaviors but not to their thought life. And yet, Paul instructs us to take every thought captive to Jesus. Whenever you assert God’s truth and continually find something within you pushing back strongly against that truth while giving you fifty reasons why it isn’t true for you, a stronghold is indicated. The truth of God along with the divine weapons of prayer, authority, and deliverance are in order. When you have broken that stronghold, then keep every thought aligned with the Father’s by making quick course corrections as you find yourself wandering from his truth. Paul tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom.12:2). A renewed mind is one that is fully aligned with God’s truth.

As our mind comes into alignment with the Spirit of God who longs to lead us into all truth, we are transformed. When we are transformed, the enemy can find no place in us. Watch your thoughts today and be blessed in Him.

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Cor.2:14

This blog is essentially dedicated to expressions of power in the life of the church and the preaching of the gospel. When we think of “power evangelism” we think of men and women coming to Christ after a dramatic healing, prophetic word, or deliverance. Those are certainly legitimate expressions of power and usually accompanied the preaching of the gospel throughout the New Testament. But there is also another kind of power that needs to be displayed in the day to day grind of bringing someone we know and love to the cross when he or she seems to be almost inoculated against belief.

In Paul’s statement above, he clearly states that a man without the Spirit cannot understand the things that come from the Spirit. He doesn’t say that the man without the Spirit is stubborn or chooses not to understand; he says that man cannot understand. In his second letter to the church at Corinth, Paul adds to that thought. “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor.4:3-4). So Paul tells us that without the operation of the Spirit a man cannot even understand spiritual things because the devil has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe.

Before a man or woman can truly come to the Lord, he or she must experience a paradigm shift in their view of the world, of themselves, or of God. That shift in thinking is called repentance. Dutch Sheets makes an interesting observation about this shift in a person’s worldview. “The perspective of unbelievers is distorted. People run from the pursuit of a God who is desiring to save them from destruction. Those of us who know him realize we love God because he first loved us. When sinners, however, hear of a loving God who wants only their best and died to provide it, they often see instead only the promise of loss and a lack of fulfillment” (Intercessory Prayer, p.171).

For some, the shift in perspective about God comes through a dramatic moment of healing, near death experiences, or some other encounter with Jesus that, like Saul on the way to Damascus,   jars the individual into a different view of Jesus. But what about all the rest? Two things need to happen. First of all, the veil or their distorted view of God needs to be removed and a revelation of Jesus needs to penetrate the heart of the unbeliever. When we talk people into a salvation prayer there is often no revelation and, therefore, no real change of mind – no genuine repentance – so their walk with the Lord is short-lived.

Power evangelism needs to be exercised in many cases through powerful prayers specifically targeting the strongholds (false beliefs and distorted views including pride, self-sufficiency, fear, distrust, unworthiness, etc.) of those we are trying to reach. Arguments, pressure, guilt, fear, and even logical presentations of the gospel will rarely bring about a lifting of the veil and the revelation needed for true repentance. The answer is found in God’s divine weapons spoken of in 2 Corinthians 10. These weapons have divine power to bring down strongholds, silence the enemy, and direct the power of the Spirit to release revelation and faith.

There are times when our prayers need to look like spiritual warfare in which we command and bind the enemy in a person’s life, call on angels to keep the enemy at bay, declare God’s word over that person, ask the Spirit to hover over that individual to release revelation and birth faith, and ask Jesus to orchestrate encounters that will bring about a change of mind and heart. That is where the work and the wrestling need to be done rather than in the natural realm where we tend to use pressure and persuasion. There is tremendous power in prayer and battles for souls are fought and won in that realm because our struggle is not against flesh and blood. That kind of prayer is also power evangelism.

Before sharing our faith, we usually need to till the soil of a person’s heart so that the word might take root. That tilling will be done through powerful and persistent prayers that bring the resources of heaven to bear on that person and his or her heart. Often we have prayed for God to save someone but have not truly entered into the battle ourselves with our persistent and specific prayers. Remember, God will do more things with us than for us. Join in and see what God does for those you are trying to reach.