The 4-second prayer that defeats Satan

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Why is it that we expect less, not more, from God? Why are we not living a miraculous faith? Why do we receive less from God instead of the abundant “more” that he actually wants to give us? Listen to this important episode. Satan is doing everything he can to disempower the Church, because we are a huge threat to him. Satan doesn’t want us to fully grasp the truth about what we can receive from God, because with it we can change the world. So here’s a 4-second prayer to defeat Satan. It works immediately!

The following WordByte can be downloaded as a printable PDF for personal use. Use the request form at the bottom of this page.

For a fuller message, listen to the podcast version:

You can download the full podcast transcript from our Media Center >>

Expect more from Jesus!

There is much, much more that Jesus did than what we read about in the Bible — more miracles, more proof that he loves us, more teachings that help us understand what God wants to do in us and through us. And Jesus knew this would be so. This is why he told us that the Holy Spirit will teach us everything we need to know (see John 14:26).

The problem is: We expect less, not more, so we receive less instead of the abundant “more” that God wants to give us.

And why do we expect less? Because Satan and his cohorts are doing everything they can to disempower the Church. Why? Because we are a huge threat to them. If the Body of Christ on Earth today (you, me, and all who have faith in Christ) were to come fully alive in the Holy Spirit and be who we really, truly, are — little Christs banded together and covering the whole earth, doing what Jesus did — it is Satan and all evil-doers who would be disempowered. In Christ, it is guaranteed that we will defeat Satan.

This is the plan of God. Jesus made that very clear in John 14:12 and many other times.

This is exciting to hear. We want to defeat Satan. We want to be a Spirit-filled Church. We want to be God’s instruments of divine power. We see how it happened on a daily basis in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, and we wish it could be like that today. So then, where is the disconnect? Why is there so much evil in the world today even though we are a Church of people who can rightfully say, “Greater he who is in me than he who is in the world”?

“Every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus as Lord is not from God but is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. You, however, are from God and have overcome them, because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:3-4)

With Jesus in us, we should be able to do everything that Jesus did. Everything and more!

“Truly, truly I tell you: Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)

And then he said, “The Father will give you the Spirit of Truth to help you and be with you forever. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17)

Wow! With the Holy Spirit in us, nothing can stop us from being God’s instrument of divine power!

Nothing except our disbelief in the truth of this. Nothing but the misconceptions we hold about the reality of this.

A good spiritual exercise to unlearn your misconceptions

We need to clear our minds of all false teachings, all false ideas about the Holy Spirit. A good spiritual exercise is to (Step 1) make a list of every idea that limits the supernatural, and then, one by one, turn them over to the Holy Spirit — the Spirit of Truth — asking for the truth to replace what is false. Next (Step 2), go to Mass and, before receiving Jesus in the Eucharist, ask him to wash away the false ideas with his Sacred Blood.

Step 3 is to disempower Satan. Win the battles of disbelief through the victorious power of Jesus. In a minute, I’m going to show you how easy it is to defeat Satan so that you can be and do all that the Father has in mind for you. It only takes 4 seconds! But first I’d like to share with you some tools on my ministry’s website that can help you with Step 1.

Many of the misconceptions we hold are so familiar to us, so deeply ingrained because they are commonplace, that we don’t even realize we’re believing misconceptions. So we blame God for our unanswered prayers! We’re living in a world that’s surrounding us with false ideas, and Satan is delighted about that, because these ideas have turned the Body of Christ on Earth into an ineffective wimp. Not everywhere, not fully, but enough to please the devil and let him get away with things.

Have you heard the story about Satan and an apprentice demon walking together along a path and discussing ways to trick people into going to hell? As they’re walking along, the apprentice finds a piece of paper on the ground. He picks it up and reads it and is alarmed by what is written on it.

“This contains a piece of the truth!” he says. “We can’t let anybody find it!”

Satan laughs and says, “Put it back where you found it. We want people to find it. It contains a piece of the truth. Not the whole truth. We can lead a lot of people to hell with just a piece of the truth.”

The apprentice replies, “But what about the followers of Christ? Will this lead them to hell?”

“No,” says Satan. “But it will keep them quiet.”

You see, we have heard the full truth. We have the Holy Spirit in us teaching us the full truth. But we don’t live the full truth, because we are believing things that contradict the truth. And when we don’t live it, we can’t preach it. We can’t teach it to others. We can’t prove to disbelievers that God is real and that he truly cares about them.

We believe, for example, that when our prayers don’t produce miracles it’s because God doesn’t want to give us the miracles, or it’s because we’re not “good enough”, or we haven’t said the right words (as if the right choice of words can control God) or because God wants us to suffer or we don’t have a local faith healer to go to and God only does miracles through certain, special people, or whatever. What’s on your list of ideas that limit the supernatural?

To help you take ownership of the full power of Christ in you so that you can become his instrument of divine power, I’ve produced a set of three mini-courses on the Holy Spirit. You can find them at gnm.org/paracletia/. Or you can look for our podcast show on breadboxmedia.com called The Good News Show, and listen to these courses there.

The 4-second prayer that defeats Satan

Okay, let’s say you’ve done the first two steps of the spiritual exercise I’ve been describing. You’ve listed every idea that limits the supernatural and turned them over to the Holy Spirit, asking for the truth to replace what is false. And you’ve taken them to Mass and asked Jesus to wash away the false ideas with his Sacred Blood.

Now you’re ready to disempower Satan. The 4-second prayer you can use to defeat Satan works for everyone who has Jesus in them and who truly wants to follow Christ, imitate Christ, and be the victorious presence of Christ in the world.

First, understand this: Our spiritual mind can influence our emotional mind or be influenced by our emotional mind. For example, if you feel discouraged while waiting for God to do something about a prayer request, if your emotional mind is in control of your beliefs, you could conclude that God doesn’t care as much as you do about the problem. Your spiritual mind doubts. And this false belief has disempowered you.

Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what I did to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.” (Matthew 21:21)

Remember who wants you to be disempowered! And remember that Jesus in you is extremely more powerful than Satan. So here’s the 4-second prayer to defeat Satan (using the above example):

“In the name of Jesus Christ, I renounce discouragement.”

Amen. That’s all there is to it. You have now put your spirit in charge of your emotions and you have chased away any demons who might be tempting you to feel discouraged.

This 4-second prayer is great for any emotion that is working against faith. I use it whenever I feel a negative emotion, a fear or a doubt. It’s amazing how quickly this works. The change is instantaneous! For example, when preparing for this article and the podcast episode that goes with it, halfway through jotting down my notes, I felt like waiting until tomorrow to finish this. I wondered, “Is this the Holy Spirit? Does Jesus want me to hold off until tomorrow because there is something he wants to teach me first?” And then I prayed the 4-second prayer that defeats Satan. I said (out loud of course – speaking it out load is a necessary part of it), “In the name of Jesus Christ, I renounce the lack of interest in continuing.” Immediately, I felt the inspiration of the Holy Spirit again.

If you don’t feel an immediate change, add this: “Come Holy Spirit, teach me the truth. Come Father God, bless me with encouragement” (i.e., name the opposite of whatever disempowering emotion you’re renouncing). “Come Lord Jesus, redeem me from the evil that discouragement has been doing in my life.”

And if that doesn’t give you what you’re asking for, realize that there is a deeper problem that God wants to heal through a therapist or spiritual director or a priest.

Take full ownership of Christ’s power in you to defeat Satan

Another important thing to know about this 4-second prayer is this: Never say, “I renounce MY discouragement” (or whatever negative feeling you’re trying to get rid of). Never take ownership of it by using the word “my”. What you want to do is take ownership of Christ’s divine power in you.

Lastly, I want you to know that God cares about you more than you can imagine. His concern for you is as big as infinite! He would be untrue to his limitless Self if he didn’t want to work miracles in your life. Think about what pain does: It distracts you from God. He wants your undivided attention. Why would he want to allow pain to distract you? Or any other problem?

Yes, pain and other troubles can and should bring us closer to God as they motivate us to turn to him for help. But then what? What happens when we ask for a miracle and we don’t get it? We usually turn away from God – at least to some extent. Exactly what the devil wants. Worse, we look like everyone else in the world. Being a Christian does not seem to be any better than being a pagan. Going to church does not seem to give us any advantages over staying home and doing our own little form of spirituality.

This is the spirit of the anti-christ. This is anti-evangelization. This is being a disempowered Church. Therefore, of course God wants to do everything he promised through the mouth of Jesus and other scriptures.

“Truly, truly I tell you: Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)

Do you believe in Jesus?

Next question: Do you believe that Jesus never lied?

Last question: Do you believe that everything Jesus said applies to you and your own life, your own situation?

If you answered “no” to any of these questions, then go back to Step 1 and identify the idea that has been disempowering your faith. Then, to defeat Satan, do Step 2 and take it to Mass, asking Jesus to wash it away with his Sacred Blood. Then do Step 3 and renounce it.

In case you want to print out these steps and the prayers I included in this WordBytes article, use the form below to download a copy.

Now let’s pray together for the Holy Spirit to fill you with the truth more than ever before:

Come Holy Spirit, fill me.
Come Holy Spirit, renew me.
Come Holy Spirit, you have my permission to change me.
Come Holy Spirit and replace every false idea I have with the truth.
Amen!