FROM THE PASTOR’S HEART
OP-ED BY DR. ROBERT KENNEDY
Allow me to pick up on the theme I noted in a line of a song I quoted in my last reflection. The song focuses on how to use the word of God to break the curse(s). The essence of that line is that we need to pray every day to break those curses affecting us, our families, friends, communities, and nation(s). Yes, curses are everywhere, and they seem very persistent.
I have told it somewhere how in my boyhood days, on the way home from school, some children often ridiculed an older woman in our little country community who used to sing a song with words like the following, if I can remember them correctly:
We want more prayers,
We want more prayers,
We want more prayers every day.
Satan gone a conference to meet us by the way,
We want more prayers every day.”
The woman did not use perfect grammar, as we would say, but her perception of the evil and curses in the world should be clear to anyone who is truly honest, if not even discerning. Do I need to speak of the banes of addictions, depressions, oppressions, aggressions, and deceptions, affecting the multitudes of persons in our families and communities, etc.?
Maybe you have felt like being under a curse. I am not just speaking of generational curses but of curses that come into our daily lives. Do I need to say that Satan is working overtime daily to corrupt us and our families – children, grandchildren – with power, pride, and jealousy, and if we cannot eliminate the curses, we will be crushed?
If you are tempted to say that you do not believe in curses and are too busy to pray them away, I need to say that you are most likely so duped that you do not admit to the possibilities and realities of life in this cursed world. Right now, your life might be going great, and you do not feel any need for a prayer battle, but I can guarantee you that if not you, someone around you needs you to help pray some curse(s) away.
I was reading a piece on the need for praying the curses away and noted the following thought, “Maybe in the olden days, when every task directly affected your family’s survival – of course, they prayed because if the crop died, they’d starve. If someone got sick, there was no medicine to help. Life was dangerous and fragile, and people weren’t distracted by social media and cell phones. But today? Who could be expected to keep their mind on God at all times? Surely God wouldn’t expect that of us because He knows more than anyone how flawed we are and how short our attention spans are.” The one who said this was being sarcastic about the thinking of some who see themselves as so contemporary that they do not have time to pray.
But the understanding is that we need to pray if we sense the probability and possibility of curses in our lives and the land.As the apostle Paul reminds us, “Pray without ceasing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
We need to pray constantly. Pray persistently. Pray perseveringly. Intercede. Supplicate. Petition. Engage in prayer warfare. Ask for what we need in the name of Jesus Christ, believing we will receive it; it will be done for us. (cf. John 14:13, 14).
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Mathew 7:7-8, cf. Luke 11:9-10).
Here are seven suggestions that I offer for praying prayers to remove curses.
- Call upon the name of the Lord with seriousness and sincerity. This is the authority that Christ has given to us.
- Pray in obedience to God. Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
- Pray for protection. When you are under the divine hand, and the blood of Jesus – no weapon formed against you will be able to succeed.
- Pray for greater faith to believe what the Lord has promised to remove the curse.
- Pray for specific things to be removed.
- Pray to God in secret; he has promised to reward you openly.
- Pray with a group when you need to.
C.S. Lewis wrote, “It’s no use to ask God with earnestness for A when our whole mind is in reality filled with the desire for B. We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.” (Letters to Malcolm, pg. 35). That is what we need to make sure that we want to get rid of any curse, that is “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1).
