Fervent: A Woman's Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer

by Priscilla Shirer

Prayer is the portal that brings the power of heaven down to earth. It is kryptonite to the enemy and to all his ploys against you.

We pray because our own solutions don’t work and because prayer deploys, activates, and fortifies us against the attacks of the enemy.

Satan would like to convince you that your lack of passion is an indication that God was either never there at all or has gotten disgusted with you and left.

I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart. (Jer. 24:7)

there is something you can’t see working underneath the surface, controlling and manipulating what you can.

Eph. 6:12,

Praise: Thank Him for reigning in power and supplying you with the weapons of victory. Repentance: Admit where you’ve been angry and distracted, fighting all the wrong people. Asking: Ask for courage, for discernment, for patience, for diligence, for laser-like focus. Yes: Because the Lord is with you, and He will fight the real enemy through you.

fervent prayer keeps your true identity in focus. Reminds us of who we really are and taps into the power we really have in Christ.

In prayer we set off like trailblazers, carving fresh neural pathways within our brains, transforming the way we think of ourselves, receiving and believing our true identity—the

That’s what the enemy wants. He wants you living in a state of defeat.

Surrendering to an army of insecurities and misdiagnosis instead of courageously thriving in the sophisticated security of your identity in Christ.

You may not be able to control all the discord and unwise choices that occur in the various corners of your house or among the people you share a family with. But you can make sure the only place you engage in combat is in the heavenlies, in prayer, in secret.

Praise: Thank Him for completely forgiving you, cleansing you, changing you. Repentance: See the foolishness of anything that perpetuates old sin patterns, and by His Spirit walk away. Asking: Ask for freedom, for release, for the ability to deflect lies and embrace truth.

Yes: Because you, by His resurrection power, can now walk in a new way of life.

Despite how inviting it seems, despite how natural it feels, despite how much simpler the rest of your day would seem to go if you just gave in and went along with it, temptations are never innocuous. The consequences are never minimal. The waves of your choice will ripple outward into your heart, mind, soul, and body, possibly even to future generations.

Impurity weakens your praying—which in turn weakens your power.

We must choose righteous, right-side-up living, while committing to pray fervently and consistently that we’ll recognize the ploys of the enemy the moment they come into view.

God calls you to purity because He wants your heart protected and at rest, inhospitable to the devil and his intentions. God wants you full of power and confidence and spiritual vitality.

Strategize your obedience as diligently as the enemy is strategizing those temptations.

For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1).

Even the activities He gives you to steward are not given to see how many balls you can juggle, but instead so you can participate with Him in staking a kingdom claim on the patches of ground where you live.

these endeavors and hobbies and accumulated possessions of yours are meant to bring joy, to enhance relationships, to develop your gifts, to swell you with His blessing and contentment. They’re not supposed to be nothing but pressure.

Unforgiveness is a strategic “design,” craftily implemented by your enemy to “outwit” you, to cripple your effectiveness in prayer and your power to stand against him victoriously. Which is why, if I were your enemy, I would do everything possible to keep you from forgiving anyone and everyone who’s done you any wrong.

fervent prayer is the bucket that can dip down into the reserves of God’s strength and pull up all the resolve you need for releasing other people from what they owe you.