I know that I have shared this particular book review before, but I am gearing up to teach through this book again to a group of women. So, I thought it very
timely to share this post with you all, especially for those that missed reading it before. If you are not able to join me and the other ladies on Wednesday nights to study through this book together, I encourage you to get a copy of it for yourself and find a girlfriend that will commit to going through it with you. You will be so blessed!
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1
One of my driving passions for starting Neue Thing was to equip women to know and love God’s Word so that they might walk in the freedom that Christ died to give. Did you catch that? Freedom is meant to be our present reality in Christ, dead to sin and now alive in Him. So why is that more and more it appears that Christians are living in just as much defeat as those who would not claim the name of Christ? Rather than living lives set
free and walking in freedom, we fade in with the statistics of the world, finding ourselves more characterized by the bondage of sin and spiritual strongholds than freedom in Christ. Sisters, this should not be. We have complete access to freedom through God’s Word. We must begin to stand firm upon it and refuse to return to the slavery of sin.
As I’ve shared with you before, I love to read. It is not uncommon for me to be in the middle of several books at a time. You’ll also come to know (if you haven’t already) that I love to recommend the good books that I’ve read. I suppose I project my love of reading onto others, assuming they will be just as enthralled with a certain book as I was. Although, this is not a bad practice, something recently occurred to me in regards to this. It is far too often that I find myself failing to prioritize the reading of God’s Word, and just as often do I hear others say the same. Yet, I am somehow finding all this time to be reading several books at once? Regardless of the fact that a book might be incredibly uplifting and spiritually edifying, it should never replace being fed by God’s Word. Never. And it is upon that point that I’d like to introduce you to Praying God’s Word by
Beth Moore.
Over the past five years, I have read and reread this book. I have led Bible studies through this book. The copy I have is now tattered and worn. The reason I would so highly recommend this book to you is that 85% of its pages are Scripture. The premise of the book is to learn how to infuse God’s Word into your prayers (praying God’s Word) in order to break free from spiritual strongholds. Defined within the book, 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.” That is a stronghold. Does it in any way sound familiar? When I first picked up this book and saw the word “strongholds” on the cover, I immediately thought, “What strongholds do I have?” Not that I was seeking to be pious or religiously prideful, but I just assumed that since I was a confessing Christian, I didn’t have spiritual strongholds. I couldn’t have been more wrong. This book highlights fourteen common strongholds that we face, and it offers the powerful punch of God’s Word to ignite your prayer life as you seek to overcome them and walk in freedom. The strongholds range from unbelief to addiction, depression to unforgiveness, rejection to sexual strongholds, and more. Each chapter begins with a brief commentary on the specific stronghold from Beth, and the remaining majority of the
chapter is scripture prayers. You are literally reading verses from God’s Word and praying through them. At the end of each chapter, you’re given space to journal out your own personalized prayer to the Lord. All I can say is that it’s powerful!
Prior to reading this book, the concept of praying God’s Word was somewhat foreign to me. When I began to practice the discipline of praying Scripture though, the spark that was once my prayer life burst into a roaring flame. There is such power in God’s Word. Ephesians 6 tells us that it is our sword, a weapon to be used in the spiritual battle that we are engaged in. When we speak God’s Word over our situations in our prayers, we are literally breathing faith. Not only was my prayer life strengthened, but my knowledge of Scripture grew as well. I became much more familiar with certain passages and began committing them to memory as I prayed through them over and over again.
Consider this my strong invitation to you to read through Praying God’s Word! It will be a remarkable investment in your prayer life as well as your study of God’s Word. If we are continuing on this journey, seeking to become women who are found on our knees at the feet of Jesus in passionate p
ursuit of Him, we must learn to understand the importance of embracing this discipline.
1. In light of the above definition of a stronghold, is God revealing to you anything in your life that might fit this description? What might your stronghold be?
2. Using Galatians 5:1, journal a scripture prayer to the Lord, claiming the freedom that He’s given you, committing to stand firm upon His truth, and by His grace refusing to return to the bondage of any sin area in your life.
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