Thank you for bringing your burden before the Lord and for wanting your neighborhood to be holy and at peace. Your zeal for righteousness is good, but the way this prayer is framed needs correction, because it does not reflect the spirit of Christ.

Scripture calls us to love our neighbors and even our enemies, to pray for their salvation and to pursue peace with all people. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. When we use reviling names for a neighbor and for her children, and ask God to uproot and scatter them, we wound ourselves first. The evil speaker disgraces himself before he harms another, and reviling tears apart the members of Christ and destroys charity. The apostle warns that revilers will not inherit the kingdom of God, placing that sin alongside adultery and other grave evils. We are also warned not to bite and devour one another, and not to delight in a neighbor's ills as if another's calamity were our joy.

Several verses you quoted do not mean what this prayer asks them to mean. James 4:7 says to resist the devil and he will flee from you, it does not tell us to resist our neighbor so that our neighbor will flee. Romans 12:19 says vengeance belongs to the Lord, which calls us to leave judgment to God and not to seek it ourselves. Matthew 18:18 concerns the authority of the church to proclaim forgiveness and call to repentance according to the gospel, not a power to bind people we dislike. John 8:36 promises that if the Son sets you free you will be free indeed, which is freedom from sin through Christ, not freedom from living near difficult people.

If this woman next door is living in sexual sin, God does not call us to celebrate or bless that sin. Sex belongs within the lifelong covenant of marriage between one man and one woman, and salvation comes through Jesus Christ alone. The faithful response is not to ask God to curse or humiliate her and her children, but to ask God to bring her to repentance, to wash her and renew her as He does for all who turn to Christ, and to bring her children to know His love and protection. Children are not weapons of the devil to be scattered. They are souls for whom Christ died, and they need care, prayer, and a witness of holiness lived out in love.

Bitterness, contempt, and a desire to see a family driven out will give the enemy a foothold in our own hearts, not in theirs. God is not a God of fighting, and He delights when we remember no evil and seek reconciliation. The evil of our times comes not from days or streets themselves, but from what people do in them, and we are all members of one another. When one part of a community suffers, the whole suffers, and when we neglect our neighbor's good we injure ourselves.

I encourage you to turn this prayer in a different direction.

Confess before God any bitterness, harsh speech, and desire for harm, and ask for a clean heart. Pray for this woman and her children by name that God would draw them to Jesus, convict them of sin, grant them repentance and new life, and provide for their needs in a way that leads to holiness. Pray for your own household and your neighbors for protection, not as a weapon against others, but as a humble request for wisdom and peace, as Psalm 91 teaches us to trust God as our refuge. Seek peace actively. Do not repeat degrading labels, do not gossip or pass on accusations, and if there is genuine danger or exploitation occurring, involve appropriate lawful help with truth and without hatred. Let your life show the hope of the gospel.

We will pray with you in this way: Lord Jesus, have mercy on all of us sinners. Forgive us where we have spoken with contempt and harbored bitterness. Pour out Your grace on this woman and her children, bring them to know You as Savior, turn them from every sin, and make them new. Guard our neighborhood, give us love for one another, teach us to pursue peace and to keep our tongues from evil, and let Your name be glorified among us. Cover us with Your mercy and lead us all to repentance and life. Amen.
 
Thank you for sharing your heart and your prayer so openly. Your desire for holiness in your home and neighborhood and your desire for God to bring protection and righteousness is understood, and God hears every prayer offered in Jesus name.

There is a real spiritual conflict in this world. Scripture teaches that we are born into a conflict between good and evil, and we feel it within ourselves and see its painful results around us in suffering and struggle that comes from rebellion against God. In that conflict it is right to turn to the Lord for help and protection, and to trust that He will accomplish His purposes. Even when people fail, God does not fail. Yet when we respond to conflict with hatred or bitterness, we are the ones who suffer loss.

That is why Scripture gives such a strong warning to watch over your own heart with diligence, lest any root of bitterness spring up to trouble you and defile many. Bitterness is not something that simply happens to you. It is an attitude you choose in response to difficult circumstances. Two people can go through the same hardship and one becomes better while the other becomes bitter. Bitterness only hurts you. It brings forth bitter fruit in your whole life and tightens and hardens you. The example of Esau is given for this reason. He did not repent at all, but became embittered and full of anger and hatred, and that root of bitterness continued through his descendants. Another example is the man who had followed and admired the work of God but was still found to be in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity, bitter that he was no longer honored. He was told to pray that God would forgive him. God calls us to follow peace with all people and to guard our hearts from that kind of root.

Jesus taught that the first and greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. Upon these two hang all the law and the prophets. Love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. You do not need to learn to love yourself more in order to love your neighbor. You already care for yourself, feeding yourself and clothing yourself and providing a roof over your head. You are called to love your neighbor in that same practical way, seeking his good and showing mercy when he is in need.

When a lawyer asked Jesus who is my neighbor, seeking to justify himself, Jesus answered with the story of the man who was robbed and wounded on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. A priest and a Levite passed by, but a Samaritan showed mercy, bound his wounds and cared for him. Jesus then asked which of the three proved to be a neighbor, and the answer was the one who showed mercy. Go and do likewise, He said. Your neighbor is the person in need whom God has placed near you.

This helps to shape how to pray for the woman and children next door. God does not call you to use Scripture as a formula to root out or curse people you see as enemies, or to speak of children as weapons formed against you. He calls you to love your neighbor as yourself and to pray for their good. It is right to pray that any sexual sin outside of the lifelong covenant of one man and one woman in marriage would be brought into the light, that witchcraft and every work of the flesh which includes sexual immorality, impurity, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, strife and envy would be dismantled, and that those trapped in such things would find true freedom in Christ. Jesus said if the Son sets you free you will be free indeed. That freedom is what she and her children need most, salvation through Jesus alone and a transformed life.

Resisting the devil, as James teaches, begins with submitting yourself to God. Binding and loosing, as Jesus taught in Matthew, is given in the context of the church seeking restoration and forgiveness, not as a way to place a curse on a neighbor or to transfer blame. Vengeance belongs to the Lord, as Romans teaches. Your part is to not return evil for evil, to keep your heart free from bitterness and slander, and to trust God to visit and to judge with perfect justice while you pursue peace.

It is also right to pray Psalm 91 for protection over your household and your neighborhood, and to ask God to guard your heart from any foothold of resentment. But the most powerful prayer you can pray for your neighbors is for their deliverance in the biblical sense, that God would draw the mother to repentance and faith in Jesus, that He would protect and provide for the children, and that He would make you an instrument of His mercy rather than of condemnation. Bad company does corrupt good character, so be wise and guard your home, yet do not dehumanize those next door. They are people made in God's image who need the same grace you need.

May the Lord keep your heart from bitterness, fill you with love for God and for your neighbor, and use your prayers and your kindness to bring His light into that home. Pray that God would save, cleanse and restore, that He would protect the innocent, and that He would give you wisdom to walk in love and holiness right where you live.
 
Thank you for giving us the privilege to pray on your behalf. We are glad that you asked us to stand in agreement with you in prayer concerning the deliverance and protection you have been seeking for yourself and your neighborhood.

We have continued to lift up your request before the Lord, standing with you for His intervention where you have felt plagued and tormented. We have joined you in asking Him to dismantle every work of witchcraft and demonic influence, to root out stubbornness and corruption, to bind any transfer of spirits and remove any foothold or bitterness, and to cover you and all your neighbors under His protection as you stood on Psalm 91:1. We have also stood with you on James 4:7 that as you resist the enemy he must flee, on John 8:36 for freedom from guilt and manipulation, on Matt 18:18 for binding and loosing according to His will, and on Rom 12:19 trusting that vengeance belongs to the Lord and He will repay.

We continue to pray that the Lord would bring His perfect will to pass in your neighborhood, that He would bring peace where there has been anguish, purity where there has been exploitation, and that His presence would guard every home. We also pray that the Lord would bring conviction, correction and deliverance where it is needed, and that all who are involved would come to know the transforming power of Jesus Christ, for we know He desires that none should perish and that all would come to repentance.

We pray now in Jesus Name that the Lord would keep you from evil, that He would let no weapon formed against you prosper, that He would scatter confusion and hateful actions and establish His peace over your neighborhood. We cover these prayers in the precious blood of Jesus, standing on Rev 12:11, and we ask for His wisdom and discernment for you as you continue to seek Him.

If your request was answered, please post a praise report and let us all know how God has moved. If your request does not seem to have been answered, please post it again as a new request and allow us to continue with you in prayer. May God bless you as you continue to seek Him through His Son, Jesus Christ.
 

Latest Activity (auto refresh)

Loading…

Similar Requests

Lord Jesus, I praise you, and thank you. I glorify you. Lord Jesus I ask that you root out of the neighborhood the prostitute next door and her children, standing on Jeremiah 12:14. I ask that you dismantle and bring down the Jezebel spirit operation thru the prostitute next door and her...
Replies
9
Views
54
Lord Jesus, I praise you, and thank you. I glorify you. Lord Jesus I ask that you rebuke the stubby spirit and manipulation that has the prostitute next door living next door to the man she is prostituting herself to, standing on Zechariah 3:2. Lord Jesus root out the prostitute next door and...
Replies
9
Views
47
Lord Jesus, I praise you, and thank you. I glorify you. Lord Jesus I ask that you root out the prostitute next door and the harm she is putting the neighborhood in along with her children, standing on Jeremiah 12:14. Lord Jesus I ask that you rebuke all the way in which the prostitute next door...
Replies
9
Views
55
Your donations for running this web site are greatly appreciated.

Click To Make A Donation

Forum statistics

Threads
2,083,619
Messages
16,684,701
Members
640,714
Latest member
Scriarfianion

Latest Blogs & Articles

Back
Top Bottom