“Fervent” book summary

Have you seen the movie, “War Room”?   Well, the book, “Fervent” was inspired by that film, and written by Priscilla Shirer (the main actress from the movie.)

This book was recommended to me over and over again by friends and family members, before I finally hopped on Amazon and ordered it.  Ladies, when I say this is a MUST read, I really mean it!  If you don’t want to purchase it, check it out from the library, or find a friend you can borrow it from.  It will transform your prayer life!

There is no way I can transfer all of the inspiring stories and great ideas she has to enrich your prayer life, in one blog post. So let me just hit some of the high points, and share some personal testimony about how it helped me…

Change your perspective.

We are in a battle. As Christians, Satan is at war with us. We don’t get to choose whether or not we’re in this battle, we only get to choose if we will fight back, and take back the areas where our Enemy has created strongholds in our lives.  We either learn to battle with the weapon of prayer, or we are apathetic, and let Satan control our fears, our insecurities, and our relationships.

This book is a battle plan, using something that Satan will do everything to distract you from…prayer. Sometimes we get bogged down with “Pray for this. Pray for that. Pray for so and so.” and we don’t have a real strategy for actually fervently praying for those people and those things that need God’s power.  At least, that’s how I was. I prayed a lot, but it was randomly as things came to mind. Some days I would feel bad because I would realize, “Wow, it’s been days since I prayed for that person or situation that needs fervent, before the throne of God, no distraction prayer.”

Write it down.

You’ve heard this one before. I know you have. “Write down your prayers”,  “make a prayer list”, “use 3 x 5 cards”,….  But do you do it? Do you write out your prayer plan?  If not, you’re probably a hit and miss prayer warrior. Writing down your prayers keeps you specific and strategic in how you’re praying.  It gives structure to your prayer life.

I’ve made prayer lists before, but what was new to me here, was praying scripture. I actually began writing out prayers for my children that included praying scripture over them.  This is powerful!  Satan doesn’t like this at all.  I had to fight for the time to do this! Whenever I picked up a pen to begin this part of my devotions (I’m not making this up) something would happen to pull me away.  I had to be SUPER intentional about taking care of the distraction, and then coming back to my task, or I never would have gotten my prayers written.  If you start strategically praying, get ready for the Enemy to fight back and try to keep you from doing what will take your prayers to a new level.  In the book, the author offers lots of scriptures to use in prayer at the end of each chapter.

Recognize who the Enemy really is.

Has anyone ever been rude to you, spoken unkindly, made you feel bad? Have you ever seen that person later, and even though you have talked to God about it, and forgiven that person, it still comes to mind?  You feel a twinge of hurt, or the incident you had with them replays in your mind?  You might wonder why that happens after you think you’ve moved past it. You might think, “I’ve already forgiven them. Or have I?”  Well, you may need to revisit it and make sure you have forgiven them completely….oooooor, Satan could be using his strategy of getting the attention off himself, and onto our fellow Christian or friend.  He wants more than anything to put divisions between people, to make sure we are focused on the faults in each other, to compare ourselves with those around us, and to never realize it’s really him. We have a common Enemy. It’s not each other, it’s Satan. When you feel yourself reliving a part of your life that makes you feel badly toward someone you know, that is not from God.

If you can recognize that “…we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Eph. 6:12) You’ll start to notice when the Enemy is using something trivial, some little hurt in your life (sometimes from years past, ladies!!) to twist your thinking about another person.  If Satan can keep us focused on each other, we won’t be bothering him, and we won’t be as effective for the cause of Christ.  He has a strategy, but do you?

Identify Satan’s attacks.

Once you operate from a viewpoint that recognizes the spiritual battle going on around you, you will start to be able to identify Satan’s attacks.  Any sense of negative thinking, struggle to get along with fellow Christians, discouragement, lack of confidence, or confusion in our thoughts, is not from God, it is from the flesh and the Devil. “God is not the author of confusion.” (1 Cor. 14:33) , “In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence…” (Prov. 14:26)

Especially when we are doing something to further the cause of Christ, our thoughts can be confused. My husband and I were doing something that was a leap of faith for us. We knew conclusively that God wanted us to do this thing, but as we began working on it together, we were just frankly not getting along well.  I wasn’t even sure why I was irritated with him, I just felt annoyed. He was being short with me, and I was snapping back. Then he stopped us both in our tracks by saying, “Satan is fighting this.”  And sure enough, as soon as we were able to identify that our Enemy was at work, trying so hard to make us quit the project, it made us unify and fight back. I feel like unity as Christians, as a couple, as a family, is what Satan fights the most.  We are most dangerous to him, and most effective for Christ, when we work together.  Satan is going to work overtime to keep us fighting with each other instead of fighting off him.  Watch for thoughts and actions that are not from God and you can be sure it’s Satan going to work against you and your family.

Work in God’s strength.

We are no match for Satan and his tricks. But God…. God gives us the strength to defeat, God gives us guidance in His word, God is all we need to fight Satan, and our weapon is prayer. Prayer unlocks God’s power in our life.  God is everywhere at once, and always right there for us to call out to. We often overlook this amazing truth, and try to “do better” on our own, and “think positive thoughts”, and forgive over and over again, instead of claiming Christ, recognizing Satan, and praying out the problem.

Check out Satan’s most common strategies.

Each chapter of the book covers details about one of Satan’s favorite strategies that he uses against us as women.

Strategy 1: Your Passion

Remember back when you had all that passion to serve God? Maybe it was before you had kids, or before you were married.  It was like you couldn’t get enough of God.  You sought Him, you prayed, you soaked up His Word. For me this was right before I got married.  I was on fire. All I wanted to do was step into my God-given talents and use them for Him.  But after I got married, I let devotions slide (I’m embarrassed to admit this) and soon I found myself exhausted, and felt like God was far away from me. When I prayed, He didn’t feel close at all. It made me sad, but instead of reclaiming this truth of “Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you,” I thought maybe it was just a phase I was going through, or maybe now that I was married and had to keep house, make 3 meals a day, etc it just really couldn’t be the same as that time when I was single and I had more time to just focus on God.  I wish I could say this stretch of time lasted only a month or two, but it was much longer. I was piggybacking on my husband’s spiritual strength, while letting my own prayer and devotional life be just habitual, and not fervent and close and special.  This chapter shares how to get back the passion you lost. Satan loves to keep us from pursuing Christ. Reclaim this area!

Strategy 2: Your Focus

This goes back to recognizing the true Enemy. It’s not our husband, our friend, our sister-in-law, our mom, a church member…it’s Satan. When we blame our problems on people in our lives, we take all the pressure off our Enemy, and zero-in on the people we are supposed to be serving Christ with, and lifting up.  How can we lift up and encourage the people that we blame for problems. We open ourselves to unforgiveness and bitterness when we blame the people in our lives, instead of recognizing the spiritual battle.  It’s honestly so much easier to blame the person that said the unkind thing to you. It’s easier to pray for them to change, and sometimes we even expect them to come back and apologize, and they don’t!  Then we’re left with the hurting, anxious thoughts whenever we see them, instead of filling ourselves with Christ and facing the actual Enemy through the power of prayer.

If we embrace forgiveness, love, and acceptance of people with all their faults…If we build up instead of tear down, we will find ourselves positioned in opposition to Satan instead of in opposition to our fellow Christians, and our family.

Strategy 3: Your Identity

Satan likes to devalue our strengths and magnify our insecurities. He likes to keep us from our calling. He likes us to think we aren’t enough, can’t carry out the vision, aren’t the right person for the job, and forget that we are God’s children. We are God’s children!! “…with God all things are possible.” (Matt. 19:26)  All things! Of course Satan is going to fight this! He doesn’t want all things to be possible to the Christian.  He doesn’t want us to think about having confidence in God, and stepping into our identity as a child of our heavenly Father. What damage we can do to the Enemies work when we value ourselves through the light of God’s grace in our lives. We are children of the most powerful, the greatest, the Almighty God! Let that sink in deep.

Our identity in Christ is important, and powerful.  If Satan can devalue our God-given gifts and talents and make us feel inadequate, he can stop us from doing AMAZING things for the kingdom of God. Don’t allow it. God is bigger…and He’s YOUR father.

Strategy 4: Your Family

If Satan can’t remove your passion, and can’t distract you, and can’t destroy your identity, guess what he goes after? That’s right, your family. Our families are a light to the world. People around you know you are a Christian.  So if your marriage and your family are falling apart, they will say, “See, they are no different than the rest of the world,” and validity of our God will be put into question. This is not to say that we have to be a perfect family and have a perfect testimony. No, we won’t ever be perfect. But we can love each other, forgive each other, and turn the everyday messes and craziness into something that glorifies God.
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Here’s a quote from this chapter, “According to Scripture, the number-one purpose of marriage–more than even the unique, time-honored partnership it creates between a man and woman, more than even the conceiving and raising of children, more than any Prince Charming fairy tale in any little girl’s head–is how it represents the mystery of the gospel in active, living form.”

We women love our families passionately. We want the best for our kids. We want a great, vibrant marriage. We need to cover our families in prayer. We have to call on a Power greater than our own. We have to pray Satan right out of our homes. So much is at stake here!  (This chapter covers more family relationships as well, including in-laws and other extended family. I can’t put it all here, so if you feel led, I encourage you to order this book today and get ready to repair your broken or hurting relationships.)

Strategy 5: Your Past

Are you constantly reminded of that time you failed?  That time YOU were the one that hurt someone else instead of the other way around?  Do you think about that thing that slipped out that never should have been said? or the little story you shared about someone that you shouldn’t have? or what about even bigger failures?  Things you haven’t even told anyone about. Satan wants to remind you as often as possible that your shortcomings and moments of weakness prove you are unfit for serving Christ.  Whether your failure was 10 years ago, or yesterday, Satan keeps track of these and brings them to your mind. When you’ve moved on, when you’ve apologized, when you’ve claimed God’s forgiveness and acceptance–this doesn’t stop the Enemy from using your own life failures to haunt you and keep you from trying again.

God can forgive even our biggest, messiest failures and use us again.  Think of the stories in the Bible!  It’s almost always the unlikely people who God uses to do the biggest things!   His strength is made perfect in weakness. (2 Cor. 12:9)  Our mistakes can either make us depressed and feel inadequate, or help us reach for God’s grace and forgiveness, and be a testimony to God’s transforming power.  If you’re feeling paralyzed by your past, realize that this is not from God, it is from the Enemy.

Strategy 6: Your Fears

I admit that this was a big one for me! Fear was holding me back from so much.  I have to fight this one daily.  Fear of loss, fear of trying and failing, fear of offending people, fear of doing the wrong thing, fear of getting outside of my “safety zone”, fear of opening myself up to people, fear of reaching out, fear of falling short, fear or what people will think, fear of moving forward… Living with fear is a terrible way to live.  Anxiety is something that I struggle with.  I have literally had younger ladies/girls ask me “How are you so confident?” and I want to laugh out loud, because I’m pretty sure I’m the least confident person that ever lived!!  I’m an introvert, with one of my worst fears being that I will be called on to answer a question in a group setting. But you know what, naming the fears as from Satan, and being confident in Christ is a game-changer.

Taking a leap of faith, helping others by opening up myself, even this blog, is a testimony to staring fear in the face and calling it what it is. It’s just fear. Read Isaiah 41:10  where it says in part “Fear thou not, for I am with thee…”  and Psalm 61:2, “…when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”, 1 Peter 5:7 “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”    The Bible is filled with verses to combat fear. Pray these out loud. Satan doesn’t want you praying these verses back to God. He doesn’t want you overcoming your fears. Because for him, this is bad news!  What is fear keeping YOU from doing?

Strategy 7: Your Purity

“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:” (Psalm 66:18)  Our Enemy is familiar with this verse, are you? If we are at odds with God, he will not hear our prayers.  What a perfect way for Satan to get an edge in our life. He can’t take our salvation, but he can work hard to put temptations in front of us that will hinder our relationship with God.

Sin starts with thoughts. We have to think about it before we engage in it. If you are thinking on sinful things, check those thoughts. “…as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7)  Thinking sinful, flesh-indulgent thoughts will lead to flesh-indulgent living. We can stop this before it happens by engaging our thoughts in right things. Put so much good in that there is not room for the evil thoughts to be there.  “…whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Phil. 4:8)

Want to know something about me?  I tried to use SnapChat. Everyone said how SnapChat was the thing to move to, that’s where it’s at, that’s how you reach people they said.  So I tried it.  I am not saying in anyway that you shouldn’t have SnapChat. This might not be a problem for you like it was for me.  Every time I opened the app, a line of articles with headlines that took my mind in all the wrong directions came popping up.  I didn’t have to click the article and read it, just the headline was enough, just the cover photo. This might not be an area that bothers you, but it bothered me. After a few weeks, I deleted the app. Nothing is worth giving the Enemy ground in your life.  What bothers your thoughts might be something entirely different. Beware! Satan studies our weaknesses and attacks when we are most vulnerable. “Be sober, be diligent; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)  He wants his foot in the door, he wants to control your thoughts.  Cut him off, pray for God to show you in what ways you might be letting in wrong thoughts, and wrong actions.

Strategy 8: Your Pressures

In a world where busyness is some kind of “badge of honor”, Satan uses this to keeps us busy, busy, busy keeping up with everyone else. We don’t want to miss anything, we don’t want to say “no” even when we know we should, we can’t seem to slow down.   The Bible says, “Be still: and know that I am God..” (Psalm 46:10)  If we just go, go, go all the time, and never be still and refresh ourselves in Christ, we end up empty with nothing to give others. We end up feeling overwhelmed with the pressures to do more, commit to more, say yes, take the trip, go on the playdate, volunteer.

Our enemy is smart. He understands our culture of do more and be more, and he totally uses this to his own advantage. Are you being intentional with your time?  Are you taking any of your 24 hours a day to “be still” and be refreshed by your heavenly Father?  I needed this chapter.

Strategy 9: Your Hurts

Strategy #9 is all about Satan using the times in our life where we’ve been hurt, to continue hurting us. Unforgiveness, as we know, leads to bitterness. Bitterness keep us in bondage. Bitterness changes our entire outlook on life. And bitterness can spring from something so small it would seem ridiculous to say outloud.  Something as small as a look, someone giving us the “cold shoulder”, someone leaving us out of their group, an unkind word, or gossip about you that gets back to you, or a small but hurtful lie told about you.  God gives us the ability to forgive those wrongs, but Satan wants nothing more than to lock them into our minds, making us think of them every time we see the person who hurt us. Reminding us over and over and over, of exactly how it felt when it happened. It is Satan’s plan to use the everyday happenings and turn them into a nightmare for us. But this is not God’s plan. Recognize the Enemy in this. Use every negative thought that pops into your head to turn around and pray for God’s strength to love that person.  Satan certainly doesn’t want to be giving you prayer reminders! Use his evil tricks to turn the tables and become a better, stronger person.

As a side note, forgiveness is such a hard subject. Sometimes it’s a lot more than an unkind word spoken to us, sometimes we have to forgive things that are MUCH bigger than that. Sometimes people hate us, and let us know. Sometimes we are taken advantage of. Sometimes our children are hurt through the actions of others.  If you want more on the subject of forgiveness, I highly recommend that you check out “Choosing Forgiveness” by Nancy Leigh Demoss. It will help you understand forgiveness, and give you the push you need to forgive offenses both small and big! You can find it {Here.}

Strategy 10: Your Relationships

Finally, our relationships. This deals more with our relationship to people in our church… within the body of Christ. It is not repetitive of the other chapters, but instead, continues to expand on how much we could accomplish for Christ’s kingdom by not shooting each other down, but instead lifting each other up, and uniting against our common enemy, Satan.

Ephesians 4:31-32 says, “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one other, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

Why are there so many divisions between God’s people? Because if we ever all pulled together for the cause of Christ, there would be revival, and our Enemy does not want that!  He spends his time making sure there are wedges between us, irritations that turn into frustrations, unforgiveness that turns to bitterness, constantly reminding us of the differences between us.

So as individuals, when we stop being petty, when we forgive, love, and serve each other…when we see the best in people…and despite our minor differences choose to get along for the sake of unity and furthering Christ’s work, this makes Satan so nervous.  What if we put everything behind us, and worked together?  Does this inspire you like it inspired me?

This was the longest post I’ve ever written!  If something from this post was a help to you, you should really consider purchasing the book and reading it yourself.  There’s more in it, more than I can write here, more than can be said.  I just went to Amazon and this book is just 9.72 right now! {click here}  I paid more than that when I bought my copy, but it was worth every penny.

What is fixing a broken relationship worth to you? What is battling in prayer for your family, for your calling, for the cause of Christ, worth to you?  Can you take a couple minutes a day to read the book?  I think you’ll be glad you did.

Oh! And don’t be surprised if you get the book and forget to read it, or get interrupted the first several times you pick it up.  Satan really doesn’t want you reading a book with this kind of a message.  Be persistant! It’s worth a few dollars, and it’s worth the time to read it.