Joyce Meyer and Positive Thinking

During this time, I gained of great deal of revelation through Joyce Meyer’s Podcast messages, which I would listen to walking to and from my home to work. I found that Joyce preached a powerful, challenging yet encouraging message. I felt that Joyce’s teaching really helped to straighten out my thinking and caused me to re-evaluate some of the mindsets that I had held onto for so long.

Joyce would preach about the need to check your beliefs, attitudes and motives. I wondered to myself how I could ever straighten-out my unredeemed soul with loosing and binding, if I did not appreciate what were correct beliefs, attitudes and motives.

Joyce taught about the need to think positive thoughts and to speak the Word of God whenever you found yourself worrying. This kind of teaching emphasised the importance for thinking and speaking correctly, with the understanding that how you think and the words you speak, can greatly influence every aspect of your life. I heartily agreed with this teaching, which mirrored that of many world-renowned Bible teachers, including Kenneth E. Hagin.

The standard teaching on the subject tells believers that when a negative thought comes into their mind, they are to immediately replace it with a positive thought; when a believer begins to worry and says negative things, they are to speak the Word of God and tell themselves who they are in Christ. So if the devil tells you that you can’t do anything right, you respond by saying, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13).

However, with the power of loosing at my disposal – I had the ability to loose negative emotions in an instant.

Life after the Kingdom Keys

I struggled in this manner for about two years later. During that time, I found that my beliefs, attitudes and motives once again underwent yet another level of refinement and adjustment. I began to step back from Kenneth E. Hagin’s faith teaching principles, and concentrated more on God’s personal revelation to me concerning the divine nature through faith in Christ.

I also spent time seeking to understand more about the workings of the unredeemed nature. I must admit, I felt at times that I was going crazy, with the church’s unceasing emphasis on what believer’s can do for God, instead of what Christ has already done for us.

Thankfully, much of what the Lord was revealing to me regarding the divine nature corresponded with the teachings of pastor Joseph Prince: Senior Pastor of New Creation Church in Singapore. Pastor Prince has brought a very powerful and much-needed revelation to the church world regarding God’s grace for the believer in Christ. I had not considered the concept of righteousness being so important, until I listened to Pastor Prince’s teaching. I had been striving to get the divine nature living and working in me. Yet little did I realise that the key to obtaining the divine nature and everything else that the Bible promised – was to simply believe that you have right-standing with God through Jesus Christ and what He has already done for us.

Questioning Motives – Part 2

Sometimes I have found that I have prayed loosing and binding prayers in an almost haphazard fashion, just in the hope that something good will happen. Most of the time this approach does not work, but there are times when I gain immediate relief and I ask myself and God what it was that I said that gave me such an effective result.

I remember one such incident in which I was feeling rather anxious about a variety of things. Then I just said something and I felt peace flow through me. I wondered what it was that I said so that I a learn more about it and use it in the future. All I had said was, “I don’t care anymore.” This is scriptural because it tallies with 2 Peter 5:7.

I find it is useful to really think about what you are loosing and binding, making yourself aware of the ramifications of such prayers. Otherwise, these prayers will simply be ineffective formulas to you. I have read many Christian books which have advocated a certain way of praying or the confession of certain scriptures – all backed-up with remarkable testimonies. This can cause the anxious soul to think, “Hey, it worked for him – it might work for me too!” What I have also tried to do in the past is to try to take the core essence of another person’s testimony and try to create a formula from it, according to my inadequate understanding of the Word, and try to use it to meet my perceived needs. Such formula-driven principles will never work.

Some believers like to just expose themselves to preaching that seems to encourage their own selfish wants, which is why the prosperity movement has been so popular. I think the worst thing about the prosperity movement is that it has reduced material provision down to a formula: give a large offering to the church and God will be obligated to bless you financially. Little do Christians realise that if they just got themselves into right agreement with God, then all their material needs would be provided for them.

Questioning Motives – Part 1

I found through experience that it was good practice to ask myself questions about the way I was thinking and feeling in that moment. I felt that this approach aided me understanding my soul's reactions to a given situation or particular state of being.

These questions should be brief and simple, such as, "Why am I feeling like this?" or "Why did I react like that?" or "Am I really feeling sad because I made that mistake in the past - or is there something more to it than that?" The effect of these questions is that they enable you to steer your thoughts in a particular direction, rather than just randomly flitting about. Also, it permits the Holy Spirit to bring insight into the situation in response to your questions.

Over a period of time as you gain insight into your soul's reactions to triggers, you gain more understanding about yourself, rather than just reading a book about someone else’s experiences and just taking their word for it. As your understanding grows, you can begin to adapt your response to the situation so that you can gain control over your own emotions and patterns of thinking. In this manner, I believe a person should be able to master the flesh.

I recall one particular incident when I started thinking about a nice looking woman and was lusting after her. I asked myself the question, "What is my soul seeking after through these fantasies?" I felt the Lord answer me that I was seeking after approval. That got me thinking and I considered to myself that this approval also involved a sense of belongingness, because I felt isolated and lonely. So I asked the Lord about this and He replied that I was right. So I loosed my soul's want for approval and a sense of belongingness through wanting companionship with an attractive woman. Immediately, the fantasies and the lust stopped.

When you get immediate and effective results in this way, it reinforces your understanding about yourself and supports your new beliefs. You then feel encouraged to pray that way again in the future.

Liberty Savard and The Keys to the Kingdom

Liberty Savard and the Keys to the Kingdom

During my time at Kensington Temple, I saw a book in the church’s bookstore that caught my attention: Shattering Your Strongholds by Liberty Savard. I was struggling with the flesh nature quite a lot during this time, so I just bought it on impulse. It must have been 1992, the year I left Kensington Temple, because that was the year the book was published.

I started reading this book around about the same time that I began studying my own unredeemed nature. Liberty Savard’s books cover this area really well. Up until this point, I had been studying Word of Faith, as taught by Kenneth E. Hagin.

I quickly became a staunch advocate of Liberty’s teaching. I thought her writing style was superb and her understanding of the scriptures was excellent. Something that struck me as rather amazing was the way that Liberty would use the word “the soul”, instead of saying “you” or “I”; like the unredeemed soul was a distinct, separate entity. I liked this because it made the distinction between the spirit, which is the real “you” – and your unredeemed nature. It comes back to that saying that we are a spirit, with a soul, that lives in a body.

Another thing I learned from Liberty Savard that has changed my thinking dramatically is the revelation that the operation of the unredeemed nature, the full spectrum of sin you could say, is: wrong beliefs, desires, motives, behaviours and patterns of thinking. Liberty would also cite the dysfunction of man’s nature as coming from unmet needs, unhealed hurts and unresolved issues.

Liberty debunked the traditional beliefs surrounding spiritual warfare tactics, arguing that although the devil and his cohorts are very real, and the biggest threat to maintaining a godly, Christian lifestyle lies with our own unredeemed nature.

This was along the same lines as what Kenneth E. Hagin taught, in that when a believer gives his life to Jesus, his spirit is saved and born-again (re-created). However, the soul (mind, will and emotions) still need to be brought into submission to God. There are several verses of scripture that seem to support this belief.

Liberty focused on the need to deal with the unredeemed nature through prayers based on a new revelation of Matthew 16:19, as a means of being able to fully surrender the soul to God, so that we can allow the Holy Spirit to move freely in our lives.

The commonly held understanding of Matthew 16:19 are that believers are to bind the work of the devil and loose the Holy Spirit on the earth. However, Liberty discovered that there were no instances of this mentioned in the Bible. Jesus would not bind evil spirits – He would rebuke them instead. Neither were there any instances of Jesus or the disciples, loosing the Holy Spirit or ministering spirits in the Bible.

Another Look at Strongholds in the Bible

2 Corinthians 10:4 tells us that we are to use spiritual weapons in order to pull down strongholds. 2 Corinthians 10:5 then continues by saying that we should cast down arguments, every “high thing” and finally, bring every thought into captivity to Christ. From this text we can conclude that Paul was referring to our beliefs when it comes to pulling down strongholds.
More modern translations, such as The Message, help to bring out the meaning of this text. 2 Corinthians 10:4-6 MSG

The word translated stronghold in verse 4 is the Greek word ochurōma, which according to Thayer’s Greek Definitions, means:
1) a castle, stronghold, fortress, fastness
2) anything on which one relies
2a) of the arguments and reasonings by which a disputant endeavours to fortify his opinion and defend it against his opponent

Therefore, when Paul said to pull down strongholds, he was talking about destroying the arguments and reasonings, the human logic, which people rely on. This logical reasoning creates belief systems that are so strong, they are likened to a stronghold or castle.

A Wrong Focus on Behaviour

The church has been programmed for years to believe that it is obvious, sinful behaviours that rob believers of their blessings: fornication, adultery, excessive drinking, smoking and so on. But in actual fact, it is the seemingly innocent, yet wrong, mindsets and patterns of thinking that we cling onto, which affect our behaviour and keep the grace of God locked-out of our lives. We therefore end-up trying to control the symptoms instead of the cause of the symptoms. In her book, Breaking the Power, Liberty Savard likened this to dealing with the runny nose of a patient who is suffering from double pneumonia. It is these mindsets, or strongholds, that loosing and binding prayers seek to dispense with.

A New Biblical Understanding of Binding

Liberty Savard discovered that the Greek word deo, translated bind in the New Testament, means a whole lot more than binding evil spirits. According to Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionary, this Greek word means:
A primary verb; to bind (in various applications, literally or figuratively): - bind, be in bonds, knit, tie, wind. See also G1163, G1189.

This Greek word is also related to the word deomai, which according to Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionary means:
Middle voice of G1210; to beg (as binding oneself), that is, petition: - beseech, pray (to), make request. Compare G4441.

The word “bind” suggests obligating yourself to someone. This is useful when bringing your soul into submission to God.

A New Biblical Understanding of Loosing

Liberty Savard revealed that the Greek word luo, translated loose in the New Testament, actually means to destroy, as well as meaning to un-tie and set free. According to Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionary, this Greek word means:
A primary verb; to “loosen” (literally or figuratively): - break (up), destroy, dissolve, (un-) loose, melt, put off. Compare G4486.

As Liberty points out – these are the kind of words that can be applied by a prayer warrior. But instead of going to battle with a foe that has already been defeated, Liberty suggested that prayers of loosing should be applied to the destroying of wrong beliefs, desires, motives and patterns of thinking – tearing down the strongholds that keep people bound. An example of this type of prayer would be, “I loose, crush, smash and destroy all negative patterns of thinking from me in Jesus Name.”

My Initial Experiences with Loosing and Binding

I read in one of Kenneth E. Hagin’s books that he would rebuke fear as if it was an evil spirit. I therefore applied my new-found knowledge of loosing and binding prayers to my emotions. I found to my delight that I could loose fear, anger, lust and the like. When I did this, I would experience a sense of lightness and relief from the negative emotions. However, these prayers failed to bring me complete freedom, as their effects in my life only seemed to be temporary.

The Lord revealed a lot to me along these lines which enabled me to attribute this type of prayer to the application of remission of sin. Again, the subject of remission of sin, let alone its practical application through faith, seems to have been neglected in the church.

I had struggled with my flesh nature, just as many other Christians do. Before I cam across the work of Liberty Savard, I tried to apply my faith teaching to the concept of sin. I reasoned that if Jesus had already bore our sicknesses on the cross, as a means of attaining the healing that was already ours in Him - then why couldn't I apply the same principal to freedom from sin? To facilitate this concept, I printed-out the whole of Romans 6 in The Living Bible and recited it to myself each day. I gave-up after a short while because it didn't seem to make any difference.

It took me some time to get started with loosing and binding and to see some results from my efforts. I suppose that the main reason for this was that I needed to understand more about the concept. I also had to learn more about what it was that I really needed to loose and bind.

When I read Liberty’s books, I felt that the typically quick prayers that she would pray just seemed to be like a mantra, something to recite parrot-fashion. I suppose that I just needed to learn more about this subject and to establish my own style of prayer that worked for me.

Liberty would often write that she would loose deception, bind her mind to the mind of Christ and bind herself to the will of God. This method, she would state, would work for her every time. She, and others, would pray this way in a variety of everyday situations in order to bring a state of clarity and peace to the situation.

In using these keys, you signal your intention to the Holy Spirit so that He can neutralize your sinful beliefs, attitudes, desires and motives - bringing peace, clarity, wisdom and love right there and then.

Teething Problems with Loosing and Binding Prayers

I felt that the power of these keys was dependent on faith, which is basically what you know, understand and believe – according to what is true. So I just considered the possibility that I did not have enough spiritual knowledge at that time.

I also found that my initial approach to loosing and binding was also hampered by my insistence on identifying the wrong causes of my problems, how they came about and the specific effects they had on my life.

I had become tangled-up in little details such as semantics and whether I should pray the prayers over and over again in one sitting, whether I should pray the same prayer everyday or just once a week and so on.

I used to get rather confused about what, exactly, I should loose and bind. Liberty Savard just seemed to know precisely what to loose and bind in the prayers she included in her books. She included “training-wheel” prayers that were tuned specifically for a particular purpose, such as overeating and dealing with “soul-ties”.

When I read the “training wheel” prayers in Liberty Savard’s books, I struggled to work out how she knew what to loose and what to bind. It all seemed rather fanciful and creative to me and I wondered how I could come to that place whereby I knew exactly what to loose and bind, in accordance with my own life’s requirements, rather than having to be “spoon-fed” from a book.
I could appreciate that some Christians just go through the motions of reciting pre-written prayers with hardly any understanding of what they mean and what they are meant to achieve; then they wonder why they do not bring about positive changes.

Another problem that arises is that Christians often pray selfish, soulish prayers out of hurting and needy souls. Because of this, many Christians have prayed amiss, resulting in unanswered prayer. This has left Christians seeking after the “secret” that will unlock the power of God in their life: reading the Bible more, memorising scripture, doing good works, behaviour modification, confessing scripture all day long and so on. But just a simple acknowledgement before the Lord regarding something that is truly important to Him, can bring about fast, even instantaneous, results.

Being able to receive from God is not just about confessing scripture promises and declaring that they are true and applicable to your own life. Being able to receive from God also requires that you surrender your will to the will of God as well as letting go of your own preconceived wrong beliefs, attitudes, motives, agendas and desires.

Otherwise, you are likely to ask for the wrong things or perhaps the right things but with the wrong motive and timing. It is these things that form the original sin that leads to disobedience and wrong behavioural patterns. This is why the loosing and binding prayers seem to be so important and why they seem to work so well.

I realised that God did not necessarily require for me to repeat verses of scripture verbatim. I felt that all that God wanted, a lot of the time, was for me to make a simple acknowledgement before Him. I think we have become conditioned to believe that in order to make God do anything on your behalf; you have to pray long-winded, arduous prayers for weeks on end – which is simply not the case. When it comes to prayer: it is all about quality - not quantity.

I found that my initial enthusiasm with loosing and binding began to wane, as I did not see the permanent results that I was seeking after.

Contrasting Faith Teaching with the Kingdom Keys

If I could of, I would have just stuck with the teaching of Kenneth E. Hagin and tried to implement his teaching directly into my life. However, it was not quite that simple, as I had a very well-established flesh nature which, through years of negative thinking, had created highly fortified strongholds in my consciousness.

During this time, most of the Christian books that I had on my bookshelves were written by these three authors, whom I trust a great deal: E.W. Kenyon, Kenneth E. Hagin and Liberty Savard.

I felt during this time that my work seemed to focus upon integrating the teaching of these three great Bible teachers, into my life. You may notice when you compare the works of Hagin and Kenyon, that there is some similarity in that they are Word of Faith teachers.

At first, it may seem that there is some disparity between the teaching of Hagin and Kenyon, with that of Liberty Savard. It seemed to be difficult to see where loosing and binding fitted in with the message of faith. It also seemed that Liberty Savard did not allude towards the message of faith as written in the books of Kenyon and Hagin.

I think what bothered me the most was that the loosing and binding prayers seemed to be an
ongoing process, something that one would do for the rest of your life. Liberty Savard would write that she had been praying these prayers for several years. Whereas, prayers of faith were declarations that you would make, just once, in order to obtain the answer.

The way I saw it was that the teaching of Liberty Savard provided the means whereby the believer who is struggling to implement the message of faith in his life, due to negative thinking and a troublesome and stubborn flesh nature, can use the Keys of the Kingdom to make the message of faith work for them. I believe that the message of loosing and binding is also mirrored, in a sense, in the teaching of Kenneth E. Hagin in the form of repentance and consecration.

Liberty Savard Online

I read on Liberty Savard’s Q&A website that some people had prayed these “training wheel” prayers and had experienced no results. I just felt that the reason for this was because people were praying these prayers with wrong understanding, attitudes and motives – reducing the prayers to a formula. Perhaps they were just praying these prayers to they could be blessed by God, how they want and when they want – something that will not work.

Liberty Savard operates a Q&A section of her ministry website http://www.libertysavard.com/. I can personally vouch for the fact that although she has a busy schedule, she takes the time and effort to answer questions that people might have. I sent her a message on the website and she got back to me quite quickly.

Liberty also distributes a monthly newsletter via her website. She also organises training for people to teach the Kingdom Keys principles.

I am, however, rather dismayed to find that there appear to be no user forums available on the internet; there seem to be no social networking websites that have established a community of people who pray these prayers. I struggle to understand why this is the case, because apparently, over a quarter of a million copies of Shattering Your Strongholds have been sold. Liberty’s books quote the testimonies of people around the world who have experienced significant results through praying these prayers.

Returning To the Kingdom Keys

It wasn’t until about three or four years after reading Liberty’s first book, that I read her second book, Breaking the Power, that my enthusiasm for the kingdom keys was renewed. After just a third of the way through that amazing book, I felt that I gained a profound new understanding of the workings of my unredeemed nature. I was then able to see more clearly that my attitudes and motives had been wrong.

I had refined my understanding of the divine nature and the unredeemed nature. My attitudes and motives had also gained a thorough overhaul. I put this refinement of my way of thinking, down to the understanding I had gained through the teaching of others and through my own studies. During that time, I had hardly prayed at all, not because I didn’t want to, but because I felt that I simply could not do it.

I still wonder to this day if my refined understanding could have been facilitated by simple loosing and binding prayers. But I knew from reading Liberty Savard’s books, that it is not just about giving people a brief introduction to loosing and binding, followed by a series of example prayers. If that was the case, then the three books which formed the Keys to the Kingdom Trilogy - could have been reduced to a single pamphlet!

I knew that the content of Liberty’s books was geared towards correct praying and to correct understanding as well. It is important to expose yourself to good Biblical teaching that will challenge the way you think and to get your attitudes and motives straightened-out.
Up to that point, I had not really tried the loosing and binding prayers, with a great deal of seriousness. But now I felt motivated to pray these prayers again in earnest.

I was once again astonished that my efforts produced immediate results. I did not pray the “training wheel” prayers out of the book, but I quickly got going again with the kingdom key principles of loosing and binding, especially loosing, to dispense with negative emotions and wrong patterns of thinking in order to bring about immediate relief.