Are There Idols in Your Heart – What Hinders Prayer

Hello, brothers, and sisters, and Heartdwellers Family.

I’m sorry there was a break in the series that we are doing concerning covenant prayer. I watched Pastor James’ video about covenant prayer and how idols in our hearts prevent us from being very effective in prayer and receiving answered prayer because we are so attached to what we want. Furthermore, it hinders deliverance because demons reside where we have idols.

Most of us would say, “Well I don’t bow down or worship any graven image or deity. I worship God, I worship Jesus.” But this is also much deeper. This is the idol of the heart. Sometimes we don’t even realize they are idols, but they are there.

So, again, I want to touch on a few things he said that I believe will be a benefit to all of us as we desire to go much deeper with Jesus in prayer ─ and to see what we are praying coming to pass.

Before you get into covenant prayer, or interceding, it is important to recognize what could hinder the effectiveness of your prayers.

1 Peter 3:7

In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered.

So, you see, prayers can be hindered. From the teaching of Pastor James Kawayla, which the Lord has confirmed he wants us to learn from, the most effective prayer against the kingdom of darkness is when a believer prays with authority. When a believer prays with authority it stops the works of darkness and leaves them running.

All believers have been given authority because of Jesus Christ. However, we can lose the effect of our authority when we have unconfessed sins. When we have idols in our hearts, our prayers still take effect, but we lose the greatest impact and influence they can have in any situation. If we can remove the idols in our lives, then we can host His presence. We say to the devil, “Go be cast out!”, but there are idols there. So, the enemy says, No give me my idols…”, and he won’t leave.

Acts 19:13-16

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” 14 Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. 15 But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” 16 And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

So, we have been given authority but like the sons of Sceva, if there are idols in our hearts the demons don’t beat us up, but they won’t leave.

What are your idols? Is it a man or woman of God you have been put on a pedestal? Is a person you love; your spouse, your marriage? it can even be your children.

Church idols ─ another idol is when you are attached to a particular way of doing things or a particular vision in which God must work that way, and no other way. That can become an idol because you can’t see past what you want.

Before you go for any battle or assignment you have to ask God, “Where is the idol?”

Ask yourself this question, “Jesus, what is it that I worship more than you? What is it that I trust more than you? The Lord wants consecration ─ consecration to be set apart and Holy for his use.

“The Lord said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites . . . “Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God. Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the Lord who makes you holy”, (Leviticus 20:7-8)

There is a price for whatever assignment God gives you. When God gives you an assignment you ask, “What is the price for that ─ what is the cost? What level of consecration do you want from me, Lord?”

When the Lord begins consecrating you for a purpose, there are many things other Christians can do, but he won’t allow you to do. It is frustrating at first until you realize, “Oh he is setting me apart”. There may be a conviction He gives you that he doesn’t give another ─ the way you dress, what you can eat and cannot eat, where you can go and cannot go, what you watch and listen to. He is training you to be completely possessed by His Spirit ─ only saying what he says, doing what he does, and going where He goes. What a beautiful grace and gift ─ but we all fight this tooth and nail when it begins to happen and we can even find ourselves, comparing, and jealous of others because they seem to be succeeding by world standards and you are being stripped more and more and more. He is consecrating you. He is making you holy.

In the body of Christ, we ask for nations, cities, and communities. We ask for our family’s lives to change generationally; we ask for revival but are we willing to pay the price for that?

Deliverance depends on your consecration. It’s the anointing that breaks the yoke (Isaiah 10:27), but consecration transforms you. You are not delivered until you are delivered from your own bondage. Your bondage and pain sometimes are your calling. What you’re struggling with? What you’re fighting? What has been stubborn in your life? You are supposed to deliver people from the same thing. What you are delivered from, becomes what you have authority over, because you have been through it.

So, what is it that you have put in the place of God? What has caused you to be angry or bitter?

And as an aside, here, I can think of many things. The first thought that came was, “Myself” … self-love is the worst. Okay back to his teaching….

So, will you say? Yes, to God?

We must resolve to know ourselves and deal with deep wounds that can be landmines.

So that takes me to the next message where I will be sharing my sins, landmines, and deep wounds that the Lord revealed to me, as we were preparing for our covenant prayer, that I need to deal with in prayer ─ and forgiveness, in hopes that you guys, too, would recognize your landmines, deep wounds, triggers and roots, so you can deal with them too.

God bless you, family, until the next message.