Questions & Answers - Page 2
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QUESTION: How can I begin to break the curse of poverty off my family’s finances? Kenae

ANSWER: Kenae, poverty is almost always tied to generational bondage thinking, wrong patterns of thinking, deception, and denial. These are all found in the unsurrendered soul. These are not curses, although these patterns of thinking do lead to speaking word curses over your own provision and entering into wrong agreements with others who have spoken word curses over your provision. The best way to turn this around is to begin praying the following short prayer (a longer one can be found my book Producing the Promise) every day until you feel a change in your thinking and emotional reactions about and to your finances. The Keys of the Kingdom (binding and loosing) can help you to think more clearly and rightly in all areas of your life as well.

Father God, according to your Word in Matthew 16:19, I now choose to bind myself to your will and purposes for my life. I bind my mind to the mind of Christ that I might begin to think more like He thinks, and I bind my raggedy emotions to the healing balance of the Holy Spirit. I bind myself to the truth that you will always provide for me, unless I block your provision by the wrong thoughts in my unsurrendered soul. I now choose to loose, smash, crush, and destroy all generational patterns of thinking I have accepted and continued to perpetuate in my own mind. I loose all wrong patterns of thinking about finances and your provision that I have held onto and reinforced by rehearsing them over and over—mentally and verbally. I loose deception from my mind, will, and emotions. I choose to seek the truth about your love and provision and faithfulness in your Word so that I can reprogram my deceptive thinking about money. I loose all denial that I have held onto that has kept me from seeing my own faults in my financial situation. Thank you, Lord, for the Keys of the Kingdom that will help me begin to think as I should. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

QUESTION: Dear Liberty, my name is Carrie. I am the woman who shared with you on your last trip to the East Coast, telling you that I had been faithfully praying the "binding and loosing' prayers for over 8 weeks and that four relationship reconciliations had happened over a period of 6 weeks. I also shared with you that I had attended a home study on Shattering Your Strongholds. I had stopped going when the group went on to the next book Breaking the Power because I began to experience tremendous pain, and I didn't know what to do about it.

I am so thankful to you for praying for me. This journey has been so overwhelming to me, and I haven't known how to receive help. I know that this pain that I have been experiencing has been with me all my life. I know that this pain is at the core of who I am. But I'm afraid, and I honestly don't know what to do. Or let me rephrase that-I don't know how to do what I need to do.

One of the reconciliations that occurred was with a former pastor and his wife. There were some problems in my church, some outside interference from other people, and many other things. Much later, I shared my heart with this pastor and his wife and let them know how deeply I had been hurt. The pastor would not apologize to me, and I think I felt betrayed again.

In the fall of 2004, I begin to pray the binding and the loosing prayers. I read chapter 6 of Shattering Your Stronghold and I begin to really see that forgiveness is a pardon. I begin to see that forgiveness does not require the other person to apologize, and I began to walk in forgiveness. Well, the Lord heard all my prayers and my husband and I were reconciled to my pastor and to his wife.

In the midst of this great blessing, I began to experience great pain. When the reconciliation began, I was able to start going to church on a regular basis, but this enormous pain began to surface, and I didn't know what to do. I knew that it was pain that was hidden underneath my anger and my unforgiveness, and it wasn't the fault of the pastors. I knew it had been there all along.

I know that I've hit a "wall" in my life. Life is very frightening to me. I am an honest person, and I know that I desire to take responsibility for my fear, my sin, and for my pain. I am truly at a loss on how to deal with this pain. My husband has prayed for me twice since the conference where you were. I have not been praying the binding and loosing prayers, because I became afraid that I wouldn't be able to function and be able to properly get through my day.

I have finally worked up enough courage to email you! I love the books that you have written. I love how honest and how authentic you are, and I so appreciate that you are willing to share your life with other people. I love the victory that has been established in your life, Liberty. It has been such a joy and such a privilege to read your books, and then to be able to go to two of your conferences. I am so thankful to have met you, and I could see that you truly saw my pain and you cared. You understood about the pain underneath all the unforgiveness and all the anger. I saw that you desired for me to walk in freedom. Thank you, Carrie

ANSWER: Carrie, you have answered your own question as to why you are not moving forward. You are not doing anything to remove your soul's obstructions to God's healing work in your life. Your soul is an escape artist, and it has clearly found its way around facing any truth you've heard. It has continued to deceive you about what God wants to do for you. You need to be praying the binding and loosing prayers (any of them in any of your books---just rephrase them to make them personal for you) with intensity, with faith in a loving God who wants you whole and well, and with focus on every word you say in prayer. You especially need to be praying the page 30 prayer in Breaking the Power every day to dismantle the fears of the individual parts of your soul.

These prayers work, sometimes they are the only thing that works with a stubborn, fearful soul which has tried to bury it pain. Your soul's fear is running at super RED ALERT in your life. You must remember that God has not given you a spirit (your human spirit) that knows how to fear. So it is clear that the fear lies in your soul--in your mind, will, and emotions. These prayers will dismantle those red alerts and they will dismantle the walls and strongholds your soul has built to try to contain your pain.

Your biggest problem is that you do not trust God, you are afraid of Him. I have come through some very bad things myself, being angry at God sometimes and fearing what He might do to me. I have found that only these prayers finally helped me open up toxic areas in my soul so that God could heal me-and I am incredibly grateful and appreciate for His love and His healing. Try just praying and binding your will to the will of God and loosing all fear of what God will do if you expose everything in your soul to Him. Pray that several times a day and see what happens. I'll be praying for you. Liberty Savard

REPLY FROM CARRIE: Dear Liberty (Rev. Savard), Thank you for responding to my email. I wholeheartedly agree with everything that you have written. I will begin to pray the binding and loosing prays, again, and I will concentrate on page 30 of Breaking the Power. My soul is in control; and I know I have some very toxic areas. I also know I do have a tremendous amount of fear. As I read your email, I can clearly see that I am afraid of God, and I do not trust Him with everything in my life. Thank you-I so appreciate your timely and quick response. Thank you for being so personal, and so willing to share your heart, your wisdom, and your life with others. I am truly grateful. Sincerely, Carrie

QUESTION: Dear Liberty, people in our Church say that demons “attach” themselves to ornaments, etc. As you have taught us, demons indwell living bodies. Please give me Scriptures to prove that their ideas are wrong, as they said that we will have “attacks” from demons because we have a hobby making ornaments from plaster of Paris and painting thm. In our house we have a fairy and some stars we made. When some people came into our home recently for a Home Cell meeting, they went on and on about us “being cursed” and that we should get rid of these ornaments immediately. I need Scriptures to back up my answers. Please reply as soon as possible as they are coming back on Wednesday evening. God Bless you. Sandy

ANSWER: Sandy, Thank you for your question for Liberty Savard Ministries. Rev. Savard is out of the office and has asked me, one of the LSM Associate teachers, to reply to your message. Concerning the subject of the demonic, what Liberty actually teaches is that strongholds in our unsurrendered souls create doors of access through which the enemy can harrass and torment us. Many Christians have erroneously attempted “spiritual warfare” against the enemy, when all along their focus should have been on pulling down their strongholds so that they might close their open doors of access to the enemy.

There is no scriptual evidence of demons “attaching” themselves to ornaments, etc. as you have mentioned. What the scripture DOES teach, however, is a separation from the soulish influence of relationships, objects of worship, and activities associated with ungodly lifestyles or occult practices. In the Old Testament, this was a constant source of struggle for Israel, as the most effective campaign of evil launched against them by the enemy was to intermingle them with the godless practices of the heathen nations and thus attempt to destroy the bloodline of Christ. The forbidding of certain foods, types of clothing, jewelry, and markings of the flesh all had to do with the heathen worship practices directly associated with them.

In the New Testament, a prime example of a physical “separating” out from old religion and godlessness was in the city of Ephesus. Once saved, the believers there took all their books of witchcraft and burned them in a huge fire (Acts 19). Apart from the destruction of and separation from such objects directly related to demonism and godlessness, the believers in the New Testament daily faced additional tensions much like you are experiencing. The primary example of this was meat sold in the marketplace. Most meat was put up for sale in those days after having been used in heathen sacrificial ceremonies. Some believers had a real hard time with eating meat that they knew had been used in this manner. Some went further and tried to impose this problem on others who had no problem with eating meat that had been used in the above manner.

In Acts 15, newly saved Gentile believers were wondering if they had to become Jews now that they were Christians. The Apostles' counsel was no, but that they should remove themselves from their own former heathen practices concerning blood and heathen sacrifices. But in 1 Corinthians 8, Paul speaks to those who have no such background of being free, remaining conscious of those who are “weak” and would be offended by eating sacrificial meat. His counsel is basically this: "It’s ok for you, but don’t cause a weaker brother to stumble in doing so.”

Now, Sandy, let’s go to your situation. Unless you were involved in witchcraft or an ungodly lifestyle which made use of your plaster of Paris ornaments, those ornaments have no spiritual significance to you. This is something you must search out in your heart before God. But you are having in your home some brothers (and/or sisters) who are offended by them. Their offense could be for a very legitimate reason because of their former lifestyles; or, it could be coming from their own strongholds and mindsets or ignorance of the Scriptures.

Either way, if you want to be able to get past that stuff and into productive ministry in your home, you may have to put those things out of view. Or, if the Holy Spirit leads, you may need to adapt the attitude of Paul who determined never to eat meat again if that’s what it took to minister to people. You’ll find out soon enough if the objection is really about the ornamental items if those same people find other reasons to try to control you or your household.

When you feel you must determine the carnal origins of every practice from Christmas trees, or of the employee in a foreign nation who places heathen curses over computer parts, or of a satanist working in a cereal factory, you will wind up chasing demonic shadows in circles and you will never accomplish anything productive for the kingdom of God. That’s why we need to pray with the Keys of the Kingdom prayer principles (found in Matthew 16:19) as is so well laid out in Liberty’s book Shattering Your Strongholds. These prayer principles allow us to slash through the deception and remnants of old patterns of thinking in our own souls as well as recognize truth and the source of the input we are receiving from others. Now, that’s a mouthful, isn't it?

I would recommend that you put this tension to rest once and for all without getting into debate so that your Home Cell group can become productive spiritually and not bogged down in distractions. Let me leave you with this Scripture from Proverbs 26:2: “Like a flitting sparrow, like a flying swallow, so a curse without cause shall not alight.” The only way a curse can affect you is if you have a corresponding stronghold in your own soul or you are in direct violation of the Word of God, either of which creates open doors of access to the enemy. May God bless you!

Rev. Karen Failor LSM Associate Teacher

QUESTION ABOUT SMOKING: How can I best help others understand how to use these binding and loosing prayers to quit smoking?

ANSWER: Smoking is a psychological (soulish) issue as well as a physiological issue. The soul's psychological need and decision to subdue its own inner distress with a chemical substance (distress of all three of the parts of the soul--the mind, will, and emotions) is the result of a wrong mind-body agreement. A two-fold cord is not easily broken, neither is a two-fold bondage. The soul keeps involving the body in the act or behavior of getting the chemical (nicotine) because it bring a type of temporary relief to the soul's distress. This false sense of relief is further complicated and compounded by the physiological addiction of the body.

One of the best thing to go after with the binding and loosing prayers is to loose the wrong mind-body agreement that the soul needs to involve the body in it's self-destructive, self-protective behaviors. The soul's distress comes from three inner basic sources (unmet needs, unhealed hurts, and unresolved issues). The wrong choices and decisions that the soul makes because of its pain, fear, and distress from these sources creates open doors that the enemy can then also use to negatively influence the person's mind, will, and emotions. The hidden areas of painful self-protection in the soul must be opened up and uncovered so that God can heal them. While you can pray to loose addictive behavior patterns from your soul in addition to the rest of the basic binding and loosing prayers, if you are a smoker, the residue of the nicotine is still in your body. This is what you need to ask Jesus to cleanse your body of, the residue of the nicotine--after prayers have been prayed to break the soul's wrong mind-body agreements. The order of these prayers is important. If the wrong mind-body agreement is not broken up, then it would not be of any good effect for Jesus to cleanse the body of the nicotine residue. The wrong mind-body agreement would keep driving the person to continue seeking the effects of nicotine intake.

The soul's desire to self-destructively medicate its own pain is the source of the problem, the addictive involvement of the body a symptom. You need to pray to loose the wrong thinking and wrong mind-body agreements to expose the source of the destructive, self-medicating behaviors for any long-term resolution of the
problem.

THANKS TO LIBERTY FROM NORA: I want to thank you for your books, I started reading them when my mother died, then the week after that I was handed divorce papers. Two months after that, my sister died. The binding and loosing praying has caused me to recognize and survive such change, whether I liked it or not. The only one standing there with me was God, the only way to get through it was for me to open up to God and get a filter change in my soul. Things are better, but I do need a better job. After my personal 9-1-1, I have hope that there is a future for me, and hopefully my soul will cooperate with God more. I'm finding it takes time, but I'm determined to have a good heart, the thing only God sees. So thank you so much. I had been praying urgently for some time for a good mate, but your prayers have helped me give that to God and His timing and plans. By the way, I am now ministering to almost 500 homeless people. Nora

ANSWER FROM LIBERTY: Thank you, Nora, for such a heartfelt testimony and the appreciation you expressed for the message in my books. I am very sorry for your loss, and I pray that God will continue to heal you and encourage you with His love each day. I do not know whether or not you have received any of our teaching newsletters (we have a new one going out next week), so let me give you my testimony of the last two years. If you would like to receive our newsletter, just send your mailing address back right away. When I looked over the incredible length of this e-mail I have just written, I realized that I have been in part writing one of the messages I will take on the road with me in less than two weeks.

In January of 2003, I began to realize that my 82 and 83 year old parents (185 miles away in Redding CA where two of my grown children lived near them) were not doing anywhere near as well as they conveyed on the phone to me several times a week. I drove up to their home (I had not been there for about a month and then for only two days at Christmas 2002) and really started questioning them and checking out the condition of their bills, food, house cleanliness, etc. I found that my father was much sicker than my mom was admitting, as was she. She was both physically going down hill as well as in being in the early stages of dementia which she had been hiding very well in person and on the phone. By March of 2003, both of them were in the hospital and then in a skilled nursing home. My father died on May 12th. I began driving every week to Redding spending 2-3 days visiting with my mom and taking her out, spending 2-3 days back in Sacramento in my office taking care of my ministry, and then spending Sunday trying to recoup and start over. I was often too exhausted to even go to church.

In October of 2003, I had a violent, scary pancreatitis attack (turned out to be life-threatening) while staying alone at my mom's house up in Redding. I was rushed to a Redding hospital by ambulance and then flown back to my HMO hospital in Sacramento the following day. I had to have my gall bladder removed and began recuperating for the next three weeks. I was planning on going back up to Redding to see my Mom the day after Thanksgiving (we had been talking on the phone from her room in the skilled nursing home) when her nurse called me at 7:20 a.m. the morning after Thanksgiving as I was packing to head up to Redding. She told me that my mom had just died.

The only thing I had to hang on to while feeling overcome with feelings of guilt and despair at my losses and my not being with my mother when she died, was that I could pray the binding and loosing prayers. When I prayed them, I knew I was forcing my wounded, angry, grieving soul to Jesus which helped me to loose the painful, guilty thoughts, and the haunting questions that my soul (and I'm sure the enemy) kept flooding me with. That would allow me to go on for awhile, and then the grief would overwhelm me and I would pray the prayers again and get relief for awhile. Grief is an "attitude" of the soul, for lack of a better word, and it is in your soul that you must loose all of the negative guilt feelings and the feelings of such hard loss to let your grief run its course in a right timing. Otherwise those wrong feelings perpetuate and feed unnatural grief that goes on and on.

As I kept traveling and speaking (including overseas) earlier this year, I began to have increasing hip trouble caused by degenerative arthritis (it had been bothering me for about three years, but I would pray and just keep going). I had to have a complete hip replacement on 9/2 (just six weeks ago). Then three weeks ago I was back in the hospital for a week with severe hip muscle spasms and seizures in that same hip. I fell into great discouragement again, I had not really been reading the Word because I was so drugged and doped up most of the time. I would pray the binding and loosing prayers whenever I thought about it and that always helped for awhile. I had a temporary remedy for my discouragement with the prayers, but I was not reinforcing them and building myself back up with the Word to completely banish discouraging thoughts from day to day as I was laying in the hospital in pain. Fortunately, I had many, many friend, ministers, and ministry partners who were praying for me at this time.

I had so many things that were undone from the plans I had for this year, and I had an almost three-week speaking tour beginning October 27th I actually felt I would probably never walk right again. In desperation, I finally pushed my soul's distractions aside, as well as the drugs in my body, and picked up my Bible, The Message, and opened it up to these words. I basically said most of the above to set up what God did for me through the praying of the binding and loosing prayers and His grace and His Word:

2 Corinthians 4:16, "So (I'm) not giving up. How could (I)! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on (me), on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace" (The Message).

I read that over and over and over and was so strengthened by it. After praying more binding and loosing prayers that day, I turned again to my Bible and these words jumped off the page at me:

2 Corinthians 8:10-12, "So here's what I think: The best thing you can do right now is to finish what you started last year and not let those good intentions grow stale. Your heart's been in the right place all along. You've got what it takes to finish it up, so go to it. Once the commitment is clear, you do what you can, not what you can't. The heart regulates the hands" (The Message).

With His grace unfolding in me every day, of course I would walk right again, and of course my life and ministry would go on. His Word wasn't even pushing me to get everything done immediately, it said "do what you can--not what you can't." What a relief that was to me, and I picked out ONE large unfinished task and started working on it (by the way, it is finished and I'm taking on another unfinished task at this time). Even though I have taken this verse a little out of context because this was Paul talking about taking up an offering for the churches, I was blessed and strengthened by it! I will sometimes do that with a single verse if it does not violence to the intent of the passage--especially when that certain verse of the Word sustains, excites, and strengthens me at a difficult time. Second Corinthians 8:10-12 gave me such hope that I could begin to finish up all the things I had not been able to do this year. The last sentence of verse 12, "The heart regulates the hands," is so tremendously true. The heart (in the original Greek) means the soul which is our minds, our wills, and our emotions. We must know how to pray and loose all despair and discouraged thinking from our souls so that we then relocate our motivation from Jesus and our trust and confidence in God to set our hands to what we need to do.

Regardless of how legalistic some Christians can be in telling you that you should never forget that you can do all thing through Jesus Christ who strengthens you (so well as many other Scriptures speaking of the victory we have in Him), we are all human and we can get discouraged and overwhelmed at times. That doesn't mean we've lost our love for our Lord or that we don't believe, we've just been overcome by our unsurrendered souls' perception of what life is doing to us. The binding and loosing prayers help us to get rid of all the "garbage" thinking our souls are running at that time that are causing us to be overwhelmed. Then our spiritual perception of what a great God we have working for us snaps back into place!

I am leaving in 13 days, walking slowly and somewhat painfully with a cane, but armed with the truth of my ministry's message and the power of God's Word to fulfill speaking engagements in three churches (3 to 6 meetings per church), a National Christian Counselor's of America conference, and three television appearances (mostly on the East Coast). I will do it through these prayers which will keep my soul from overwhelming me as I stay fixed in His Word. These prayers also keep the devil's nasty thoughts and insinuations "that God has failed you or is through with you" from finding anywhere to land in my soul or yours, either.

Without this message of binding my will to His will and loosing all doubt and discouragement out of my soul (plus so much more), these past two years could have put me down and out of the ministry. I am fully aware of that. I don't understand why the two years have been so hard, but I have certainly learned important lessons from them. Your soul can rear up and come after your faith when you are in grief, loss, and great pain and fear, becoming so powerful and pervasive and convincing that it can even keep you from picking up the Word of God to dispel its lies--even though you have caused much of it to already surrender through the power of your binding and loosing prayers and you are already well on your way to fulfilling your destiny purposes. This is because a powerful soul/mind/body agreement takes place when there is pain and fear and loss. It is almost impossible to break this agreement in the natural. We must know that we can always and indeed must use the Keys of the Kingdom to disarm the power of such a soul/mind/body agreement so that we can see His truth and His love and keep going forward to fulfill His purposes for our lives. Those purposes always include encouraging others, setting examples for others, and setting captives free.

I wish you such encouragement and strength in what you are doing with the homeless! That is truly wonderful. Let me include a powerful little story that I received by e-mail today:

A social worker told her colleagues about a young boy in an urban ghetto who appeared to be little more than a bit of twisted human flesh. He had been struck by a car several months before and had not received proper medical attention. Although not part of her caseload, the social worker took the boy to an orthopedist who performed surgery on his legs. Two years later the boy walked into her office without crutches. His recovery was complete. The two embraced. "If I accomplish nothing else in my life," said the social worker to herself, "I have made a real difference with at least this one!"

She paused, then said to her colleagues, "This was all several years ago now. Where do you think that boy is today?" Some suggested that he might be a school teacher, others a physician or a social worker. With deep emotion, the woman responded, "No, he's in the penitentiary for one of the foulest crimes a human can commit. I was instrumental in teaching him how to walk again, but there was no one to teach him where to walk."

Even if this story is not actually factual, it certainly could be and it brings home a great truth. We must point people to God's love and truth, and to His son Jesus, no matter what else we do for them and their problems. One of the best ways to do this is to help them cut loose the wrong patterns of thinking that their souls recycle on them clouding their ability to see God's truth. If we don't help them find His truth in some way or manner, they will never be healed and receive wholeness of life even if we nearly kill ourselves helping them and we give them all we have! Only through Him can broken bodies, broken dreams, broken homes, and broken hearts ever receive wholeness of life.

Go and be about your Father's business with all of His love and strength abiding in you, Nora, I wish you well.
Liberty Savard

QUESTION: Dear Rev. Savard, I just found your book, The Unsurrendered Soul, while searching in a Christian book store to try to find out what is wrong with me. After a very abusive marriage, I left my country and brought my four kids to USA nearly 20 years ago. I was always waiting for that special man in my life, but have gotten into fornication several times. I wanted to die when I did this, and suicidal thoughts were always with me. Twice more I got married again for the wrong reasons. Both marriages, and more relationships, were disasters. Then I started praying to God, asking Him to change me, to give me a new heart, to please heal me. I want to hear His voice and do His will, not mine.

Then I found your book, drinking in each word and praying the prayers. I wish I could be healed, and free in my soul and spirit, but it is a battle every day. I do not want to feel sorry for myself any more, I do not want to make wrong choices any more, I do not want to fail God any more. I am a 54 year-old woman who has always wanted to be in love and be married to a good man. I feel ashamed, guilty, but I have repented and asked God for forgiveness.
Please help me. Maria Q.

KAREN'S ANSWER: Maria, Rev. Savard is out of the office and has asked me to respond to your question. God has never withdrawn His love for you. People do that, but God doesn't. His Word promises us that when we confess (admit and agree to) our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). You have His Word on that! You have not ruined His plans for your life, but you have side lined them for far too long. It is time for you to get back on the right track with Him.

How can you be free from all the hurt and pain and abuse and rejection and condemnation of your past? By cooperating with His marvelous work of redemption in all the areas of your mind, your will, and your emotions - your soul. How do you cooperate with God instead of withdrawing behind your walls (strongholds) and layers of self-protection covering your shame? Begin to pray in agreement with His will for your life, praying with the spiritual tools called the Keys of the Kingdom in Matthew 16:19. Using the Keys of the Kingdom in prayer will help you to tear down the stronghold thinking in your soul, while letting God in to pour in His mercy and grace and healing into your deepest need and pain. He wants to heal you, but He wants you to voluntarily create room for Him to work in every painful spot in your soul. You do this with these binding and loosing prayers.

You say you have Liberty's book, The Unsurrendered Soul. The "how to" of praying with the Keys of the Kingdom is explained in Chapter 5, "Fine Tuned Prayer" (particularly pages 115-118) and Chapter 10, "Agree with God and Just Do It!" It is more thoroughly and basically explained in the first of Liberty's books, Shattering Your Strongholds. I recommend that you begin reading Shattering Your Strongholds at your earliest opportunity to learn more about the practical applications of praying binding and loosing prayers. Listen to this statement from Chapter 5 of The Unsurrendered Soul, page 96: "Our heavenly Father is always focused on who we are becoming, not what we've been or where we are now." Maria, this is God's message to YOU today! God bless you. We are praying for you.
Karen Failor, LSM Associate Teacher II

QUESTION: Dear Rev. Liberty, I am from Singapore. I am married with 2 sons. My elder son is 11. He was baptised on May 9 this year, and reads his Bible every day and is aware of his relationship with God. God has permitted him to see visions from time to time. But he is doing things which I know are not pleasing to God. He has lied, shoplifted, uses appalling language, has a terrible attitude towards his studies, is attracted to comic books about gargoyles and demons, and is rude to his father and me.

We are a Christian family, and my husband and I pray for our children all the time. We teach both of our boys Bible truths all the time. Education is very important in Singapore. Unlike in America, the system here is very unforgiving. We therefore do not want him to fail in any way. It is so disheartening to see a child with so much good in him turning out this way. I would appreciate any comments, assistance and even teachings on how to pray for my son.
Kim

KAREN'S ANSWER: Dear Kim, Rev. Savard has asked me (one of the LSM Associate Teachers) to respond to your question. What you are seeing in your son is the opposition of his own unsurrendered soul to the will, plans and purposes of God for his life. The Bible teaches us in 1 Corinthians 2:9-14 that God's truth and righteousness and holiness and plans for our lives have already been communicated to our spirits by His Spirit. Your son's spirit is in agreement with this truth and these revelations of the Spirit of God; however, for his unsurrendered soul, it is quite another story.

So what can you do for your son? First, bind your own mind to the mind of Christ to ensure that you have His perspective; bind your will to the will of God and bind yourself to the truth. Loose strongholds protecting wrong patterns of thinking in your soul. Loose wrong attitudes, unforgiveness, and even soul ties with your son that feed on your own natural desire to change him. Pray the Training Wheel Prayer on page 139 of Shattering Your Strongholds to learn the process of incorporating the use of the keys in your prayers.

Now you are ready to pray for your son. Pray the principles from the Training Wheel Prayer on Page 171 of SYS. This is a prayer for others that uses the keys of binding and loosing. Bind him to the mind of Christ, the will of God, the complete work of the Cross in his life; and loose the strongholds in his soul. These strongholds are made up of of self-rationalization, self-justification, and denial and resistance that are causing him to oppose himself in Christ. Also loose all effects and influences of wrong agreements that he has entered into. Also loose the influence and manipulation of the enemy from his soul. Remember to keep your prayers focused on God's will being done in your son's life, and don't let your prayers slide into praying for your son to become more like you want him to be. Trust God to work out the details. Kim, we will be praying for you, also.
Karen Failor, LSM Associate Teacher II

QUESTION: Please help me understand this circumstance. I'm a pastor in a small troubled ministry. It has really gone through the fire of trials and troubles in the last 5 yrs. I have no doubt in my mind that God wants to use this ministry. I feel like I am being spiritually blackmailed by my son and daughter-in-law in my church. Saturday night, I had a dream. My son's face (he is 6'2" and 200 lbs) was very lean. I understood that was the condition of his spirit. My daughter-in-law (in the dream) was having a false pregnancy. She looked very big but I was given to understand that it was just a pregnancy belly that she had put on to give that impression. What should I do?

ANSWER: Dear Pastor, Rev. Savard has asked me (one of the LSM Associate Teachers) to respond to your question. I believe what you are describing as having plagued you ministry - and now your family - is rooted in soul power. This soul power has been manifesting itself in control, manipulation, wrong agreements, unforgiveness, spiritual blackmail, power struggles, and division. Soul power will always fight against true unity in the Holy Spirit. Please refer to the books Breaking the Power and Producing the Promise to learn more about soul ties and soul power.

Be willing to honestly go before the Lord and allow Him to test and prove the foundations of your ministry, your family relationships, and even the dreams and revelations you have described. The tools to do so are the Keys of the Kingdom that Jesus gave us in Matthew 16:19. As you bind and loose in prayer--seeking only God's will and purposes in your ministry and in all of your lives--all that He has ordained will be refined and purified. All that is not of God will be separated out. Are you ready?

Begin by binding your mind to the mind of Christ, your will to the will of God, and your emotions to the healing balance of the Holy Spirit. Bind yourself to the truth and the work of the Cross in your life and the lives of your family members. Loose all strongholds of your unsurrendered soul that protect wrong patterns of thinking, wrong attitudes and perspectives, unforgiveness, and wrong judgements and beliefs. Loose the effects and influences of wrong words spoken to you, about you, or by you; loose the effects and influences of generational bondage thinking; loose, lacerate and sever any soul ties produced by wrong agreements with anyone in your church or in your family. Loose the effects and influences of wrong prayers and wrong relationships and alliances with anyone in your church or in your family. Loose all assignments of the enemy against yourself and your family.

Please refer to the Training Wheel Prayer for Breaking Soul Power on page 30 of Breaking the Power. Daily pray the principles of this prayer for yourself, for your family, and for your ministry. Pastor, when you pray using these keys, you are giving God the go-ahead to step in with the light of His truth, mercy, love, grace and forgiveness to unwind the suffocating grave clothes off all involved. You, your loved ones, and your ministry will be free in His truth! We will continue to pray for you.
Karen Failor, LSM Associate Teacher II

QUESTION: I'm a victim of incest, have you got any good advice to help me?
Sandra

ANSWER: Dear Sandra, Rev. Liberty has asked me (one of the LSM Associate Teachers) to respond to your question. First of all, is the incest still happening? If so, you must physically remove yourself from the situation where it is occurring. If you not in a position to do this by yourself, immediately speak to a pastor, a spiritual leader, or a counselor to find out how to get help to do this. Now what about your broken heart, your ragged emotions, your pain, and your fears? This is exactly why Jesus came--to put the pieces of your heart back together, to set you on your feet to walk and live again, to set you free and make you healed and whole and complete. But Jesus will not force Himself upon you like people sometimes do. He will only come in where He is invited, and He will not rob and steal and violate you in any way.

The pain and fear and confusion and anger that naturally comes as a result of terrible things done to us cause our souls to set up what are called "strongholds." These strongholds are like walled castles that contain all kinds of self-protective devices, patterns of thinking and coping mechanisms that were the only resources we may have had when terrible things happened to us. We build these strongholds in our souls (in our minds, wills and emotions) to keep further pain from being inflicted on us and keep us from feeling vulnerable and open to further attack. But the problem with strongholds is that they actually keep our pain IN and they keep God's healing and restoration OUT. We are left crippled in our ability to trust, to forgive, to love, to come out from behind the walls. We remain victims of the very pain that we are trying to protect ourselves from. And so the strongholds we build to protect ourselves actually become self-made prisons.

In Matthew 16:19, Jesus gave us the Keys of the Kingdom - binding and loosing - to help us to say YES to what God wants to do in our lives and NO to our own self-willed ways of thinking. When we pray using these keys, we are inviting Jesus to heal, restore and redirect our lives. In the books Shattering Your Strongholds and Breaking the Power, there are Training Wheels Prayers to help you learn how to pray with these keys. These will be good for you to study and to pray daily as you work with God to become healed and free! Please pray with me know this prayer adapted from Liberty's book Freedom Here and Now, and then continue praying it daily:

"In the name of Jesus Christ, I bind my body, soul and spirit to the will and purposes of God. I bind myself to the truth of God. His Word says that I can trust Him in everything, so I bind myself to that truth. I bind myself to an awareness of the power of the blood of Jesus working in my life every day. I bind my mind to the mind of Christ. I need to hear you say you love me, Jesus. I need to hear that you're thinking of me right now. Lord, I want to be free of all the bondage and baggage I've been carrying. I want to be free. I want to set free all of those I have never forgiven, but instead have locked into 'prison cells' in my soul I repent of having these wrong attitudes and thoughts, and I ask you to forgive me for having them. I choose to forgive and release all those that have wronged me.

"In the name of Jesus, I loose the power and the effects of any harsh or hard words spoken about me, to me, or by me. I loose any stronghold thinking connected with these wrong words. I loose any and all soul ties that have been formed between me and others through wrong agreements. Please pour out your mercy and grace upon me, Father God, for I need it so much. I am going to use these keys of prayer that Jesus gave to me to make room to receive all that you have for me. Amen."

Sandra, Jesus wants to set you free! He wants to heal your pain, to soothe your emotions, to stop the nightmares, to bring you into the joy of knowing how much He loves and wants you to experience and enjoy His plans and purposes for your life. Please let us know how you are doing. We are praying for you.
Karen Failor, LSM Associate Teacher II

QUESTION: Dear Liberty, would you please join me in prayer for my husband. He is a pathological liar, is involved in the occult, and is a womanizer. He is in very strong denial and refuses to discuss any problems and just storms out of the room when I try to talk to him. Liberty, he had moved us every two years until I decided that we were not going to move anymore. I have information that he does not know that I have that could pull him down completely. But I only want things to be right between us. I am a Catholic/Christian and have recently come to the conclusion that the reason he treats me as if I were 'poison' is because we are walking on two different 'paths'. I am 'fighting' to stay strong in the Lord, but sometimes it is hard to hold on. I organize Religious Conferences and do a lot of God-related work. I have given God permission to use me as He sees fit, so I guess that all of this is 'purification'. Please pray with me, for that my family would one day soon all become 'workers in God's Kingdom'. By the way, the book Shattering Your Strongholds--is a God-send! Susan

KAREN'S ANSWER: Susan, Rev. Liberty Savard is out of the office and has asked me (one of the LSM Associate Teachers) to respond to your question. This complicated and messy picture of your husband that you have described is that of his unsurrendered soul. These soul issues of his--anger, fear, pain, generational bondages, drive for illicit relationships and the behaviors they have produced (abuse, workaholism, occult practices, adultery, enraged arguing)---are NOT too big for God to deal with. And the Keys of the Kingdom that Jesus has given us will begin the process of readying him to receive God's grace and mercy and healing.

But God in His wisdom has started with YOU! He has given YOU the knowledge and the tools--the Keys of the Kingdom---to effectively pray for yourself, your husband, and your children. Begin with the prayer for yourself on page 131 of Shattering Your Strongholds. As you bind your mind to the mind of Christ, you will be able to receive His perspective on how to pray for yourself first, and then others. Pay particular attention to loosing the power and effects of word curses spoken to you or by you. You say that you have information that could pull him down. Susan, that is your own unsurrendered soul speaking out of hurt and desire for revenge. You will not effectively pray for your husband until you make the choice not to pull him down, but rather to pull all STRONGHOLDS down. Let the Lord search your heart for unforgiveness and unresolved anger, which always gives the devil a foothold in our lives (See Ephesians 4:26-27 in the Amplfied Bible).

Loose the effects and influences of generational bondages and any soul ties (especially with your husband), and wrong agreements you may have entered into. There is much, much more about generational bondages and soul ties in Breaking the Power. I would recommend you read that book in order to learn more about the sources of strongholds in our souls and how to dismantle them. As for the "two different paths" you speak of, is your husband a Christian? That's certainly something to pray about! Look at the prayer on page 171 of SYS, and pray this prayer from your heart daily for your husband and your children. Susan, God wants for YOU to begin putting a stop to the rage, the fear, the rejection, the pain, and the enemy's assaults against you, your husband, and your family--all through effective prayers that seek His will for each one of you. He will answer you speedily when you choose to use the Keys Jesus has given you. We are praying with you!
Karen Failor, LSM Associate Teacher II

QUESTION: Liberty, I had been standing for a marriage of 19 years for the last 6 years. My husband recently remarried, but as I understand it, according to the word of God, the covenant of marriage is not completely broken until I remarry. He was the one who was in adultery, lust of the flesh, and sexual immorality. As long as he lives, if I don't remarry, is his marriage a non-convenant marriage?
BillyJo

KAREN'S ANSWER: BillyJo, Rev. Liberty is out of the office and has asked me (one of the LSM Associate Teachers) to respond to your question. Your marriage covenant is already broken. Adultery is scriptural grounds for divorce, and you are no longer bound to that marriage. The Scriptures do not teach that once one of the partners divorces and remarries, it is right to divorce the new partner and come back together again. What you need to consider carefully before the Lord here is your desire to still hold onto and control your ex-husband, together with your soul's refusal to recognize his new marriage.

Bind your mind to the mind of Christ, in order to steady and stabilize your thoughts and emotions. Bind your will to the will of God. Loose all of the strongholds justifying, protecting, denying, and rationalizing wrong attitudes of bitterness and unforgiveness, and other wrong patterns of thought. Bind yourself to the truth of the Word. I urge you to also loose all soul ties to your ex-husband, which may be encouraging your desire to control what he is now doing. Much more is written about soul ties and soul power in Liberty's second book, Breaking the Power. Please refer specifically to the Training Wheel prayer for Breaking Soul Ties on Page 171 of BTP.

Your life is not over, but it has taken a turn that you must walk out with God. God still has plans for you and a destiny to be filled. He wants you to be free to walk with Him in cooperation with His destiny purposes for your life. The Keys of the Kingdom will give you the tools to do so! We will continue praying for you.
Karen Failor, LSM Associate Teacher II

Question: I have read two of your books, but I have not yet fully understood how to use the binding and loosing prayers in the following areas of my life and my church. I am a pastor and this impacts other lives as well. We are a small church struggling to survive. I believe that God wants us to continue and therefore I need to pray effective prayers. Please, help me understand how to pray in the following specific areas:

1. Church financial needs--we are barely making it.

Answer: Bind every staff member and every member of the congregation to the will of God and to the mind of Christ. Loose wrong patterns of thinking about money and about God's provision from everyone who has anything to do with finances or offerings in your church.

2. Personal financial need--I am in debt because I made some wrong choices.

Answer: Bind your soul to the will of God and your mind to the mind of Christ. Loose wrong patterns of thinking about money and about making choices. Repent for your wrong choices and then ask God for His wisdom and a plan to learn how to make right choices.

3. Personal weight issues--primarily sugar and chocolate indulgences.

Answer: Bind your soul to the will of God and loose wrong thinking about eating that your soul keeps instigating to try to take the edge off its distress, anxiety, and pain. Loose all self-defense mechanisms that you soul is using and loose all self-medicating behaviors that your soul is trying to keep in place with the eating of the sugar and chocolate. All food turns into chemicals in your body and your soul is abusing chemical substances for its own pleasure and relief without any realization or concern about what it is doing to your body.

4. Personal physical healing--doctors cannot find a cause for joint and nerve pain that I am suffering. I was miraculously healed of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in September 2001. Since that time my physical body has been screaming with joint, muscle and nerve pain. I take several different medications but I would love to live in health and wholeness without prescription medication.

Answer: Bind every cell in your body to God's will for your life and loose any foreign, alien substance, virus, infection, or mutated cells that may be in your body. Also loose any wrong mind/body agreements that your soul has set in place to coerce your body into fulfilling the soul's need for the relief it could get from the ingesting certain substances or from the body acting out certain wrong behaviors. Ask God to give you wisdom and a strategy for learning how to cooperate with God's healing grace and mercy.

I've listened to everything I could about the Word of Faith preaching and messages for years. It seems that all of the confession, listening to tapes, reading and pleading has done nothing but frustrate me. Your books have given me a glimmer of hope for the first time in 20 years.

Thank you for the encouraging words, Pastor, I prayed for you today. Liberty

Question: Liberty, I have read all three of the binding and loosing books and believe I understand the principles you have taught. My problem is that I have so many things to pray for I feel overwhelmed. I am a single mother of three with minimal support, I have to work, care for my children and our home. At present I am the only Christian in my family and I am struggling with feelings of depression, overeating, and temptation to find validation and affection elsewhere. How do I fit all that into the prayers in your books? I pray the training wheel prayers, the breaking soul power prayer, the food addiction prayer, the financial assurance prayer, the breaking soul ties prayer,etc. etc. My estranged husband (an adamant atheist) is also battling Parkinson's disease at this time and gives no spiritual or emotional support to any of us. Is it possible to condense your wonderful prayers to cover all my needs which include those of my children and my unsaved family members? Catina


Answer: Catina: Bless you, you are carrying a lot that Jesus really does want to carry you through. First of all, you say you understand all of the principles in my three books. I don't even fully understand all of them yet, Catina, and I've been working with them for a long, long time. The reason I say that is that I still keep uncovering tiny little pockets of subtle resistance and hidden pain in my soul that I had absolutely no idea were still there. Sure, most of my strongholds have fallen and most of my biggest needs and hurts and questions have been surrendered to the Lord. Praise God! It couldn't help but be so as I have used these prayer principles over so many years. Always be willing to remain open and teachable in your soul.

PLEASE don't get in bondage to the prayers. They are not going to work better is your are stressing over getting enough of these prayers prayed properly enough for long enough periods of time. Don't worry about praying them too often, but don't worry about not praying them a regimented amount of time each day. Your unsurrendered soul loves religiosity, regimentation, and rigid schedules. You can pray small parts of all the prayers, pray the prayers corporately for more than one person at a time, change the pronouns in the prayers (I, me, she, he, they) from personal to second party or third party, or in other words pray with whatever part of the prayers as they feel appropriate. The only underlying factor involved in this is that your motives for praying must be to bring about the surrender of your soul and the souls of others. That is not an option that is open to changing or manipulating. 

You are trying to clean house in your soul and make room for the blessings and revelation of God to come in and fill the space created. These spiritual blessings and revelation come from God through your born-again spirit into your unsurrendered soul to begin its healing and journey to wholeness. When your soul is still filled with stronghold thinking, fear, doubt, anger, frustration, hopelessness, and walls of self-defense, your born-again spirit cannot get the divine messages and spiritually empowered words of Christ himself through to your embattled and wounded soul. That is where your healing needs to take place--in your soul! 

These prayers are nothing but keys to helping you cause your soul and the souls of all of you pray for to let go of the stuff that are "killing" them to make room for what will heal them. Remember--these Keys of the Kingdom principles are just keys. What do you want these keys to unlock for you? Your honest and completely sincerest answer to that question needs to start with your wanting to surrender everything in your entire life--past, present, future--to the will of God. Then you must be willing to let Him work out all the details without input and "guidance" suggestions from you. It is worth it, I promise you. 
Liberty Savard

Question: Dear Liberty, After reading your two books, I have been practicing binding/loosing practices. Last year my husband suddenly divorced me after 27 years of marriage. Earlier this year, I started reading your books and practicing the precepts. A couple of months later he came back saying he loved me and wanted to work things out. We have been dating for a few months now and things are seemingly are going okay. If God's will for us is a lot more than we think or hope for, why can't my husband make the commitment to remarry now? I had little hope and saw no evidence of restoration until I started praying binding/loosing prayers, but this roller coaster ride is getting me so tired. Am I doing something wrong? Francesca

Answer: Francesca, no, you probably are not doing anything wrong except for possibly getting your motives a little mixed up as to why you are praying these prayers. These things can take some time, so let me make a few suggestions. Be sure that you are praying the prayers so that you can get yourself lined up with God's will for your life--period. And don't get too hung up on trying to declare and determine what God's will is and how it should play out. Just accept that His will is the best and that He will work it out in your life when you are praying to cooperate with Him for His purposes.

Don't be praying the binding and loosing prayers with just the single-minded focus that your husband will change and come back. When you do that, you stand a very good chance to get massively disappointed. 

Purpose to pray the binding and loosing prayers so that you will be able to integrate your daily life (words, actions, thoughts) into God's plans and let Him work on and through you. Leave the timing and the details to God of your husband's life getting into alignment with God's will. That will reduce the pressure on you to make sure that God is on track with your answer, and it will help release the natural discouragement you may feel because God's timing, your husband's timing, and your timing are not seeming to fit together. Continue to pray the binding and loosing prayers for your husband, but don't focus on the details of whether or not he is responding to your time schedule. God is the only one who knows what is going on beneath the surface. 

There is a possibility that your intense desire to be remarried is not working in your favor with your husband at this time. The binding and loosing prayers will help you to allow God to refocus your thoughts and emotions so that your most intense desire is that His will would be accomplished in your life, not what you think His will is or should be. You do not know every aspect and jot and tittle of God's will for your and your husband, regardless of what you have been told about God wants. 

This refocusing of your most intense desires from your husband towards new godly possibilities and godly purposes in your future may get your husband's attention and stop his taking advantage of the fact that he believes you will always be there waiting for him--even when he quits letting his unsurrendered soul lead him around by the "nose." He may get more than a little concerned when he realizes that he is no longer the all-in-all of your life, he no longer consumes your every thought, and that you are turning your passion to pursuing God's will now. You can let him know that you certainly hope he will, too, but that is up to him. You are going to pursue God regardless of how the details shake out. 

This does not mean that you are ceasing to love him, or that you are ceasing to care about your marriage. And I'm certainly not implying that this means a new mate or boyfriend for you! This means that you are just getting your priorities right so God can work in both your lives as He wills. 

Pray the breaking soul ties prayer in Breaking the Power to make sure that you do not have unhealthy emotional ties with your husband that are influencing, even manipulating your daily life. Breaking soul ties with him does not mean you are abandoning your feelings for him, rather you are removing your soul's intense links (soul ties) that keep you directly connected to your husband's soul so that God is not at the center of your relationship. Breaking these unhealthy soul ties will put God back in between your two souls and refocus your feelings. 

When you do this, the "breaking" apart of the tie may really unsettle your husband and cause him to attempt to reestablish those soul ties with you again. That is why praying the breaking soul ties prayer is a good prayer to keep them broken. Soul ties are established when two people look to each other to meet all of their needs--even it is an unhealthy mutual meeting of needs, heal all of their hurts, and provide everything they need. There are always mutual benefits perceived in such agreements, which are wrong agreements as no human being can accomplish all that. Such soul ties do, however, allow emotional and even mental influence and manipulation to be exercised (consciously or subconsciously) on each other person's soul. I hope this makes sense, and I'll pray for you that you will be strong and secure in center of God's will. His will is always right and good and best. Liberty 

Question: Liberty, I have read many of the Q&A on your site. I have also read a great deal of your book: unsurrendered soul. I am at a loss. I wrote b-4 about having no sense of God whatsoever & the feeling of being turned away from by God. I have been praying for around 1-1/2 years for God to help me to heal (emotionally & physically) with no success. I had a hysterectomy this past Dec. & am nat. HRT. I have been in such moods (depression & anger) and am unsure of whether it is that I am just plain nasty person or if it a medical problem. I'm not this type of person. I don't understand how praying certain words rather than others makes a difference if the Holy Spirit translates our heart to God. Some things (the way I understand it) that you
write is that a person has to do everything b-4 God will even give them the time of day. How is this so? I know I can't do it by myself... (heal nor trust) I ask for God's help...God's comfort... love & healing & I feel more desperately alone now than I did 1-1/2 years ago. Brienne

Answer: You have seriously misinterpreted my writings, but I know your unsurrendered soul encouraged that. I did not say that you have to do everything before God will give you the time of day. I say that your unsurrendered soul (unrenewed mind, unsurrendered will, and unhealed emotions) has records on everything that has ever been said to you, done to you, or taken from you. And it wants revenge on anyone involved in any part of that!

Your unsurrendered soul blocks God's healings, it continues to recycle wrong patterns of thinking that serve its desire for revenge, and it continues to try to protect itself from God's power which it rightfully perceives will alter its strongholds of defense and diminish its control of your life. Add to that the fact that you may be experiencing some chemical imbalances in your body, and it is not wonder you are feeling so miserable.

You are the only one who can reverse the defense systems that your soul built to keep God out of its "business." God does everything else once He has access to your soul's innermost parts where the unhealed hurts and unmet needs and unanswered questions are. He doesn't ask you to do anything by yourself but to tear down your self-constructed walls and let Him in. He will not smash through your defense systems--that would be a violation of your mind, will, and emotions. He wants you to surrender to Him and to His abundant love and blessings--that's all it is--plain and simple. He won't force them upon you. The binding and loosing prayers are very effective in helping you to make your soul surrender. I urge you to keep praying them, especially the page 30 prayer in Breaking the Power. You need to break down your soul's control systems. I will pray with you. Liberty

Question: Please pray for me I have slipped back into to the grip of drinking. I have slipped back into to the grip of drinking. YOU prayed before for me (I e-mailed you) and I stopped drinking. I need help this time for good. Evelyn

Answer: Evelyn, we will pray for you. Have you read Breaking the Power? It is filled with good information on what wrong behaviors we resort to when we cannot deal with the painful things our soul cannot keep buried. If it cannot bury pain, it tries to chemically numb it. That is what you are doing. Please either read Breaking the Power or get my newest book, The Unsurrendered Soul. But, reading these books is not enough. My prayers are not enough. You need to take some action towards cooperating with your healing. Begin to apply the message of these books to your own life which is initiated by praying the prayers in the books. The prayers begin to uncover your soul's self-defense mechanisms to expose its wounds so God can heal them. God will NOT tear down your walls and self-protective devices to get to them, He wants you to tear your defenses down and invite Him to come into those places and begin healing you. He won't force His healing through your walls. You wash your body every day, you brush your teeth every day, and you feed yourself every day. Please know that you need to give your soul the same kind of care every day until you are healed--you need to "scrub" out old self-defense mechanisms (by loosing them), you need to "brush" out old self-protective devices (by loosing them), and you need to feed your soul on the Word of God (by daily reading of it). The prayers are a daily need to start that process. Liberty Savard

Question: What if God told you to marry a certain man and you did? However, you learn after you are married that the man is on drugs. You have only been married for four years. You stated at the divorce hearing that you wanted full reconciliation of your marriage and you did not agree with the divorce. You still believe that God told you to marry this man. Maybe you can help me understand. Lynette

Answer: Lynette, many women and men who have strong unmet needs and unhealed hurts believe they hear God telling them to marry a certain person. They do and then they find they are unequally yoked with a non-believer or someone who was not anywhere near submitted to God and ready to be married to a believer. What these people heard was not the voice of God, it was the needs and pain of their unsurrendered souls speaking the them. Many people get very angry when I tell them this, and they say that they know the voice of God when they hear it. 

When your soul is filled with neediness and pain and fear and loneliness, it is extremely deceptive in seeking what it thinks will meet its needs and ease its hurt. When your soul is filled with mental pain and wounded emotions, it will always try to discern what it believes it is hearing through your mind and your emotions. The gift of the discernment of spirits (God's Spirit, Satan's spirit, or a human soul speaking) does not operate when the soul is unsurrendered, filled with strongholds, and reacting out of its pain and need. You cannot discern spiritual things with your natural abilities.

Please go to my website and read the questions and answers by Liberty (not the Small Group ones) and the Difficult Issues Articles. I think they will give you some insight and some understanding of how to pray more effectively. As you begin to apply the principles of binding your will to God's will and binding your mind to the mind of Christ while loosing the effects and influences of wrong agreements and wrong beliefs and wrong mind sets in your unsurrendered soul, you will be able to hear God telling you what He wants you to do now. He loves you and has an answer for you, but you are going to need to surrender to it and obey Him. It may not be the answer you want. Trust Him to get it through to you if you are praying and binding your mind to Christ's and your will to God's, while loosing all of your soul's wrong beliefs, wrong patterns of thinking, and wrong mindsets. Rght now the main thing, if not the only thing, is that you should be focusing upon making room within your soul to receive an understanding of God's true will for you. We will pray with you. Liberty Savard

Question: I am a Christian living in a marriage with a unbeliever who wants complete control over the relationship. As of late, my spouse has been totally pulling away from all areas of marriage when I do not agree to his way. Throughout our 28-year marriage I have attempted with God's help to have peace in the home even though there is emotional abuse. This is because I understand that God hates divorce. But now that I have begun to stand up to my husband, he has completely left the marriage. He still lives in the home but communication with him is very difficult. I do not want to make any more mistakes with the Lord. Could you advise me in Christian counsel. Thank you, Jennifer

Answer: Jennifer, I can only advise you how to pray. I do not know if you are familiar or not with my message. Please go to my website and read the Questions and Answers by Liberty and the Difficult Issues Articles. They are not all about marriage, of course, but they are all about praying with binding and loosing keys to surrender your will to God and to help someone else surrender their will to God. You cannot change your husband, but you can change yourself. If he is going to be willing to do anything to work to save your marriage or to consider turning to God, the power of a seeing your changed life will be a tremendous factor in influencing him to make a right choice to do so. There is nothing wrong with you standing up to him as long as your motivation is pure when you do it. You have to learn have to loose some things out of your soul to check if that is so. You can bind your will to God's will to help you hold steady as you work in the areas of your own soul's confusion and reactions. Do not be pulled into arguing with him, because if he can argue with you or focus on negative reactions and feelings towards you, he can block out God's voice speaking to him. God bless, we will pray with you. Rev. Liberty Savard

Question: My mom raised me strict holiness. I don't know if you know anything about it or not but the way I understand your teaching, we get "sanctified" a little by little as we loose the carnal things from our lives. My mom tells me that she wishes that I desired to be sanctified. She says, "Then there will be no more carnal fight in you." What do you think? It confuses me because she is so legalistic and judgmental. If she sees me with a ring on, she says, "Oh, you’re grieving God, you will go to hell, You need to be sanctified." I don't want to live in that bondage and I don't want to hurt her. I know I do hurt her. I feel like I live a double life. Maybe you can help me. Thank you and God bless. Kay 

Answer: Kay, I do not know a lot about the doctrine and belief system that you are talking about, but I was loved by a very strict Seventh-Day Adventist grandmother. I was quite rebellious toward the legalism that I felt went with her "religion." Yet I know she was the only person in my entire family praying for me to get saved. She and I resolved our future Christian "differences" that came from my getting "born again" in an Assembly of God church several years before she went home to be with the Lord. She finally admitted that she knew I really loved God and she was proud of me. We determined that we could agree on God's love and we could agree on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I promised her that if the Holy Spirit ever told me to become a Seventh-Day Adventist, I would—with all my heart! She agreed that this was good enough for her.

Pray the binding and loosing prayers for your mom and pray them for yourself. Your mother does not understand God's grace or the fact that you will only change your unsurrendered soul from the inside out, not beginning on the outside where it is visible. Love her, follow God for yourself, and ask God to give you an understanding of how to celebrate the things the two of you can agree upon. If you have not read any of my books, I would suggest that you go to our website and at least read the Testimonies, the Questions and Answers (not the small group ones), the Difficult Issues Articles, and the prayer and book excerpts. I think they will give you some encouragement and some new ideas about effective praying for God's will to be done. Liberty

Question: I first started to pray the binding and loosing prayers two months ago, but OH, MAN!. Everything seem to be going wrong! I felt as though I was losing my mind, and I was totally confused. I started to pray the prayers again last week because I know I need this breakthrough so badly, but here it is again! The confusion, the struggle, the crazy thinking. What is going on? I feel a struggle within me that I really don't understand. Can you advise me? James

Answer: James, this is quite normal. You have riled up your soul which has been running deceptions and power trips on you. These binding and loosing prayers rattle that control that the soul has held. Your soul will try confusion, doubt, anxiety and even bad dreams. Actually, you need to realize that you have been getting inroads and some victory, or you wouldn't have had such a backlash. Don't give up, press in harder. 

You need to be praying the prayers every day, and especially pray a mini version of them every time you feel yourself getting stressed. Bind your mind to the mind of Christ, in particular and loose all wrong patterns of thinking that are surfacing. You are familiar with the prayers from the website, but you don't say which books you have read. Both Shattering Your Strongholds and Breaking the Power describe this in great detail. You should go back and read them again if you have more symptoms like this. I will pray with you. 
Liberty Savard

Question: My daughter is a back-slidden Christian, and she is engaged to an unbeliever. When I am praying your prayers for them, I stumble on God's will. Is it ever in God's will for a Christian to marry a non-Christian? Is it all right to pray that the relationship would be totally broken in spite of the pain it would cause my daughter? How should we respond to her at this time? Should we help her plan her wedding at the same time as praying their relationship would fail? I was praying for God's will, but then a friend told me that I should be praying for God to end this relationship. I'm struggling to know what to pray now. Annie

Annie: The best thing you can do is to pray and bind each one of their wills to the will of God. Bind each one of their minds to the mind of Christ. Loose wrong agreements and the effects and influences of the wrong agreements out of the souls of your daughter and the man. Also loose wrong mind sets and wrong thought patterns from their souls. Ask God to heal them and then reaffirm that you do not know what is best, but that you know that He does. Affirm that you want His will done: not your daughter's, not the man's, and no yours. Turn this over to God and let Him work out the details. 

Pray this way, telling God that you are not going to pray for the relationship to fail, rather you are going to entrust Him with the outcome. Pray and ask Him to show you how to support your daughter, while still remaining true to your beliefs. You might also want to read the Questions and Answers, the Difficult Issues Articles, and the Testimonies on our web page. They will encourage and enlighten you, I believe. 

I received a special story in an e-mail today. The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on an uninhabited island. He prayed fervently for God to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions. But then one day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky. The worst had happened; everything was lost. He was stunned with grief and anger.

"God, how could you do this to me!" he cried. He was deeply hurt and turned his back on God as he lay down in the open to try to sleep. Early the next day, however, he was awakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching the island. It had come to rescue him. "How did you know I was here?" asked the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they replied. 

It is easy to get discouraged when things are going bad. But we shouldn't lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of pain and suffering. Remember, next time your little hut is burning to the ground, it just may be a smoke signal that summons the grace of God.

I'll be praying with you. Liberty Savard

Click here to go to Difficult Issues for NEW Q&A regarding prayer for those with addiction to pornography.

Question: I have fallen into a relationship with another woman, my best friend who is married. It began about nine months ago. We've gone to each other for "unmet" needs instead of God. We're both church going Christians. I don't know what to do. I feel hopeless and scared. What do I do? I know God forgives, but I feel like I can't keep going to Him over and over, especially if I can't seem to stop what I'm doing. I can't go to anyone. I'm lost, confused and bound. Tell me something of hope...please.

Answer: You need to get a very good understanding of the power of your unsurrendered soul and its drives that are focused on subduing the unmet needs in your soul. You don't say if you have read any of my books or not. I would strongly recommend that you immediately read Breaking the Power. I especially want you to begin to pray the Breaking Soul Power Prayer on page 30. I have enclosed the Breaking Soul Ties prayer and fact sheet here for you to begin to pray, for you must break the soul ties you have with this other woman. I rarely do this, as this is a copyrighted prayer from my books. But I want to help you. If you seriously want to stop this behavior, then get this book and read it ASAP. Pray as many of the prayers in the book as you can every day. Especially pray the prayer on page 30, mentioned above, EVERY DAY. You say you want help to stop this relationship, and I'm giving you some very powerful steps to take. You must determine if you really want to change and turn away from what you are doing. Or, if you just don't want to be exposed or if you just want to stop feeling guilty. As often as you need to, each day pray and bind your will to the will of God, bind your mind to the mind of Christ, and ask for mercy and grace to strengthen you and empower you to do the right thing. 

You need to share this e-mail with the other woman and tell her to pray the same thing. Then, you need to stop talking to each other, stop comforting each other, even stop praying with each other. You both need to loose the effects and influences of the wrong agreements you have entered into. Let me know what happens if you are willing to begin to daily do these things. The key words here are begin to do daily. I am interested in helping you help yourself. I'm also interested in helping the other woman. Please tell her she can confidentially contact me as well. I will not judge either one of you, I only want to help you. 

Breaking free from the soul ties and the wrong behaviors is going to require you to learn some things about why you have fallen into this kind of behavior, and then to proactively begin to cooperate with the godly counsel I am giving you. I also recommend that you go to our website and read the Questions and Answers, as well as the Difficult Issues Articles. They will give you added insight and encouragement. I'm praying for you. Rev. Liberty Savard

Question: By reading your three books—Shattering Your Strongholds, Breaking the Power, and Producing the Promise—I now realize how to effectively pray. By binding myself to God’s will and loosing from myself what my soul wants so desperately to hang onto. My husband left me, he says I am not his match. He is interested in another women but has not been seeing her due to the divorce laws of our state. I now realize that my prayers of getting married to him were soulish. He has said Satan forced him into marrying me, and that if he had been in his right mind he wouldn't have done it. We have had two different prophets, that we did not know, speak to us about our marriage and calling together. My husband actually thought I had told them everything about us, as they were so right on the dot. I have never doubted that we would eventually be together. Doesn't God intend for all marriages to stay together? Or does He want us divorced because of the soulish prayers before marriage? My husband has an addiction to poronography which is what I believe ultimately split us up. Is it my soul or spirit that truely believes God is going to bring us back together to glorify His Name? I have never wavered from believing that, at least until reading your books. Last night I had a dream that I had extremely intimate relations with another man. I'm in shock over it. I honestly can't recall ever having a dream like that, let alone thinking about being with another man in that way. I understand that you are bombarded with questions perhaps you could refer to something I've missed in your books that would help resolve this for me. Thank you so much, JKI

Answer to JKI: I believe you have some unresolved issues and unmet needs acting up, causing you to have dreams and doubts and even fears. I am intrigued by your question as to whether or not it is your soul or your spirit believing that God is going to bring you back together to glorify His name. And your recognition of the possibility of: "Doesn't God intend for all marriages to stay together, or does He want us divorced because of the soulish prayers before marriage?" is most unusual. Very few women are willing to even consider that God may have never been in their marriage—clinging tenaciously to their beliefs that God will do what they want if they are just determined enough and bombard Him with enough prayer. I cannot tell you the answer to these questions as I am not closely acquainted with your circumstances, but I can tell you something else that might help. 

Whether or not God wants to bring you back together, whether or not God approved your marriage in the first place, neither of these questions are the issue here. The issue is what does God want? You should be focusing on binding your husband's will to the will of God, regardless of the plans God has for his life. You should be focusing on binding your will to the will of God—asking Him to show you what His plans are for your life. Loose soul ties between the two of you, and loose the effects and influences of all wrong agreements you entered into on your own, as well as together. I think it would be a good thing for you to loose all patterns of thinking, mind sets, and wrong beliefs that brought you into the wrong agreements, as well as loosing all soul ties you have formed with your husband and others who may have agreed with you. 

None of this is a statement of your giving up, or your wanting a divorce. It is a positive action on your part of telling God you are taking your hands off because you do not know what He wants to do or how He wants to move in your life and your husband's life. You must want His will alone, clinging to the promise that God wants what is best for both of you. Keep affirming this to yourself and to God, that you are going to keep hands off and get on with your life until you receive direction from Him as to what He wants done. By getting on with your life, I do not recommend that you begin to date or look for another relationship, just that if you have always wanted to take a class at Bible School, do it. If you have always wanted to write a book, start it. If you have always wanted to volunteer for some good cause, go for it. Just get involved in something good. I would definitely keep pressing into praying these prayers and then trusting God to respond to the fact that you are agreeing on earth with His will as it is established in heaven. He is the only one who knows how to bring good and blessing out of the pain and hurt of this situation. God bless, Rev. Liberty Savard 

Question: Regarding the forgiveness issue in your first Shattering Your Strongholds book I was wondering what your viewpoint is on the following. In the Matthew and Mark verses, Jesus told people that God would forgive them only if they forgave others. And if they did not forgive others, he would not forgive them. We all agree that it says that point blank. Timeframe is the key to these verses. 

Jesus was talking to them before he died on the cross. There was no grace yet in place from his sacrifice because he had not gone to the cross. The people he was talking to were still under the law and they were required to make sacrifices by animal as they always had. When they would make the animal sacrifice, it would be for forgiveness of sins. I believe Jesus was telling them, don’t ask for this animal blood to cover your sins, if you have not forgiven others.

As you probably know, as part of their culture, people from that time were not kind and loving to one another and did not treat each other as God would want them to. Many of Jesus teachings to them were in an effort to instruct them in how God would have them to live, such as the Sermon on the Mount. Many of them had never heard love preached before. It was a new concept to them, as was forgiveness.

The Ephesians verses were after the atonement of Jesus blood sacrifice on the cross. I note that in these verses it does not say any place that God will not forgive us as the Matthew and Mark verses do. These verses say, “as God has forgiven you.” These two sets of verses do not say the same thing and I am surprised that you lumped them together as saying the same thing. One says “God will not forgive you” and the others say “as God has forgiven you.” What do you think?

Answer: You have presented an interesting thought below. Actually, I have never heard anyone suggest that before. However, I don't think Jesus was talking to them only as still being under the Law. I think we could try to put too many things He said into that category, not just forgiveness, if we would subscribe to your suggested theory. 

Would you say that He was only talking to those people as still being under the Law, and that they didn't have to do this anymore after He died, when He said:

Matt 5:23-24 "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift." 

Matt 5:27-29 "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 

Matt 5:39-42 "I tell you