All inner healing methods include prayers that remove sin. They vary in length, content, and who should do the praying, whether the person receiving the ministry or the intercessor that is praying for the person. This article summarizes and theologically reflects on a broad range of inner healing prayers to determine which ones are necessary for healing, and which ones are inconsequential.

The result is what we call the Intercessory and Personal Prayers. Every word in these prayers has a purpose, so they should be said verbatim. They have been field tested to be as short as possible, but no shorter, because the more sins removed in a prayer session, the more healing the person will experience. Longer prayers do not bring any additional healing, and in some cases, are even used to avoid dealing with the real issue and are thus sinful (Matt 6:5–7).

⁵“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. ⁶But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. ⁷“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

Categorizing the Sins to Be Removed

The first theological innovation of the intercessory and personal prayers is to distinguish which sins an sins intercessor can remove, or which sins person can remove through their prayers.

Personal issues are sins that the person has to take personal responsibility for. If they sinned, they need to repent (Acts 3:19),

¹⁹Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out

which is to admit their fault and change course. If they followed an idol, they need to renounce it (Ezek 14:6),

⁶“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations.

which is to cancel their agreement to follow the idol and follow Christ instead. If a person sinned against them, they need to forgive their offender (Matt 6:14).

¹⁴For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you

Intercessory issues are all of the remaining other sin issues; they can be removed through your prayers. The person has to forgive the one who cursed them, but you can intercede to break the resulting curse. Similarly, the person has to renounce the idol they followed, but you can cut the resulting unholy attachment to the idol and remove its effects on the person through intercession. Sins committed by the person or against the person may leave deep emotional hurts. That person has to forgive the offender, but you can remove the resulting pain from the person’s heart through intercession.

Dividing sins into intercessory and personal prayers has three advantages. The first one relates to ability. The person may be so entangled in their sins and their effects that they cannot break free and stop sinning. For instance, a deeply wounded person may not be able to forgive their abuser, but it is the very act of forgiving that would heal their emotional wound. Your prayer to draw the pain out of the person’s heart would then give them the emotional room to forgive.

The second advantage relates to speed. Even if the person could pray the pain removal prayer, it is faster and easier for the intercessor to draw the pain out of the person’s heart than for the person to do that while experiencing extreme emotional anguish. Also, it is possible for you to intercede for the person while they pray the personal prayers at the same time. If you are part of a larger prayer team, or if the person is in a crisis situation, then multiple intercessors dealing with the issues that they have authority to deal with while the person deals with the issues only they have authority to deal with may even save the person’s life when time is of the essence.

That leads to the third advantage, which is safety. A person who is enslaved under a lot of sins and curses to harm themselves or others can be disarmed through intercession. Then when they have regained their senses, they can pray the personal prayers to complete their freedom and ensure they don’t regress to that dangerous state again where third party intercession was necessary to stabilize them.

The Prayers that Remove Sin

The intercessory and personal issues are healed through the following prayers. They should be memorized and repeated verbatim.

Either the intercessor or person can pray the intercessory prayers, but not every intercessory prayer has to be prayed for every story; for example, if no curse came up in the story, then the intercessor does not have to break the non-existent curse. The person must pray the personal prayers out loud with you as a witness for the healing to work (Jas 5:16).

¹⁶Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

The easiest way to do this is to read out the personal prayers, and then have the person repeat after you using the first person pronoun. When they get the hang of it, encourage them to pray the prayers out loud without having to repeat after you to speed up the process by a factor of two.

We now move to a theological word by word reflection on the intercessory and personal prayers.

Why We Use “God” Rather “I” in Our Prayers

We put the focus on God in all our prayers, and appeal to His power rather than our own when setting the person free. A common mistake in praying the intercessory prayers is to replace the word “God” with the word “I”. Intercessors play a dangerous game when they assert their authority over a spiritual opponent, e.g. saying “I rebuke you” rather than “The Lord rebuke you” (Jude 9).

⁹But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.”

If the evil spirit does not recognize your authority, possibly because you said it in ignorance or pride, then they may attack you instead (Acts 19:15–16).

¹⁵But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” ¹⁶And 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.

However, if you start your prayers with, “God”, “Lord Jesus”, or any other variant of His titles, then you are appealing to God’s authority rather than your own, an authority that demons must submit to and will thus always work (Mark 3:11

¹¹And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.”

; Jas 2:19).

¹⁹You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!

If God has given you sufficient authority to pray in the first person (Luke 10:17),

¹⁷The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!”

then the intercessory prayers will work for you, but it won’t work for those who don’t have your level of authority, or for demons strong enough to overcome your authority. If you think that can never happen, then you have set yourself up for a fall (Prov 16:18),

¹⁸Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

and we respectfully submit that your prayers that begin with “I” are a contributor to that as per the story of the two archangels (Isa 14:12–14

¹²“How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! ¹³You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; ¹⁴I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’

; Jude 8).

⁸Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.

It is safer, and gives greater honor to God when you pray from His perspective rather than your own (Matt 6:10).

¹⁰Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Similarly, we use the word “please” in our prayers as a sign of respect towards God. We do not command God to heal, but entreat Him to make “your kingdom come and your will be done” (Matt 6:10)

¹⁰Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

by joining Him in His mission to make “disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19)

¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

through the proclamation and demonstration of the gospel, which includes God’s power to heal (Mark 16:17–18).

¹⁷And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; ¹⁸they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Theology of Repenting and Renouncing

The only exception to this rule is when the person repents, renounces, and forgives their sins. The word “I” is necessary for the personal prayers because the person is taking personal responsibility for their sin. To repent of sin is to a) agree that they committed the sin, b) admit that is wrong, and c) commit to turn away from it.

To renounce a sin is to cancel a person’s allegiance to an idol. An idol is anything that takes the place of God in the person’s life. It can be physical (e.g. codependency) or spiritual (e.g. false god), material (e.g. a statue) or immaterial (e.g. a political party). Idolatry differs from other sins in that it binds that person to the idol through an unholy attachment. For example, filthy language (Col 3:8)

⁸But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

is not idolatrous in and of itself, but a person’s commitment to using filthy language, or the underlying motive to using filthy language may be due to an unholy attachment to an idol (e.g. a person you are trying to impress).

Part of breaking that unholy attachment is for the person to renounce the idol and commit to follow only Jesus instead. When in doubt, have the person pray, “I repent and renounce” rather than just, “I repent”. At best, the person will find more freedom from renouncing and repenting rather than just repenting, and at worst, they’ll have added two extra words to their prayer.

Theology of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is both a gift and an act of obedience (Col 3:13).

¹³bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

We forgive because Christ forgave us (Eph 4:32).

³²Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

He not only gave us a example to follow (1 John 2:6),

⁶whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

but also the power to forgive others. Forgiveness is releasing the offender to God’s judgment rather than taking it on as the person’s responsibility. A person commits the serious sin of unforgiveness when they take on God’s responsibility for vengeance (Rom 12:19),

¹⁹Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

even when He will do a much better and fairer job than we can ever do (Rev 20:12).

¹²And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.

If the offender repents, then the penalty of their sin moves from them to Jesus, just like He took on your sins (2 Cor 5:21).

²¹For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

If the person wants Jesus to take the penalty of their sins but administer that same penalty to their offenders, then they are no better than Jonah (Jonah 4:1–2)

¹But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. ²And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

and disqualify themselves from God’s forgiveness (Matt 6:15).

¹⁵but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Forgiveness is about releasing, not judging, especially since the person may not be able to judge rightly as to who is an offender. This has three important implications. The first is the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness is one-way and unconditional (Matt 18:21–22)

²¹Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” ²²Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

while reconciliation is two-way and conditional on both parties agreeing to meet and forgive (Matt 18:15–17).

¹⁵“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. ¹⁶But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. ¹⁷If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

The person sins when they refuse to forgive (one-way) or reconcile (two-way). The other party sins when they refuse to repent or reconcile (Luke 17:3).

³Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him

As much as it depends on the person, they are to live in peace with everyone (Rom 12:18).

¹⁸If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

If the person has forgiven but the other party refuses to reconcile, then the person has to release them to God.

The second implication is the difference between forgiveness and justice. The first is a personal responsibility to release the offender to God for ultimate judgment (Deut 32:35–36);

³⁵Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.’ ³⁶For the LORD will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone and there is none remaining, bond or free.

the second is the governing authority’s responsibility to determine the offender’s guilt and assign the corresponding punishment in this lifetime (1 Pet 2:14).

¹⁴or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.

A person’s peace depends on receiving and giving God’s gift of forgiveness; the orderly function of a government depends on the correct administration of justice. Thus, healing requires the person to receive and give forgiveness as a gift; not pursue vengeance or a legal process that is for society’s benefit rather than their own. That may still be warranted, but it is a separate process with a different set of rules and standards than the process of personal healing.

The third implication is about perception. Whether or not the offender truly committed the sin is beside the point of whether the person has to forgive. The person may be deceived into assigning blame to an offender who was framed for the offense. This does not change whether the person was hurt or needs to release the perceived offender; forgiveness is about releasing the offender to God’s judgment, not making the judgment themselves.

This includes the special case of forgiving God. God cannot sin (Matt 5:48

⁴⁸You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

; 1 John 3:5),

⁵You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.

yet a person can still be offended by God when He does not do something for them, like saving the life of a loved one or protecting them from harm. We recommend the special form of the forgiveness prayer in this case, “God, I forgive you. I let you judge, and not me.” Then we immediately have the person pray, “I repent of judging You. Please save me.” These two prayers cover the case where a person cannot forgive God because they thought it was theologically improper for them to accuse God of sin. Again, forgiveness is about releasing, not judging or accusing another of sin. Forgiveness is for your benefit, not the offender’s. That step comes through reconciliation, the two-way exchange of forgiveness that requires the prerequisite one-way forgiveness processes to have happened first.

Theology of Deliverance

Inner healing prayers almost universally include the repentance and forgiveness of sin, but they often miss praying for the effects of those sins. Sins can have physical, emotional, mental and spiritual effects on the person, and simply removing the sin may not heal those resulting effects. It is not necessary to determine all those effects as God knows them all, so simply adding the line, “God, please save us” is an easy way to immediately improve the effectiveness of your prayer ministry.

Theologically, this one line prayer is a type of deliverance. It is a mistake to believe that deliverance prayers are only for demons as not all problems are caused by demons; they can be caused by other people (Ps 18:43)

⁴³You delivered me from strife with the people; you made me the head of the nations; people whom I had not known served me.

or your own sins (Ps 38:3–4).

³There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin. ⁴For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.

Simply asking God to deliver you leaves it to Him to identify your oppressors and deliver you from the effects of their oppression; this shortens the length of the prayers while maximizing their applicability by respecting the roles in the healing process.

It is the person’s responsibility to repent of sins, while it is God’s responsibility to save them. We cannot remove sin or its effects, let alone even know what they all are. By leaving the responsibility of salvation to God, we are trusting in the totality of Jesus’ finished work on the cross. Salvation not only includes justification from the penalty of sin (Rom 6:23),

²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

but sanctification from the pollution of sin (1 John 1:7),

⁷But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

redemption from the price of sin (Eph 1:7),

⁷In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace

deliverance from the power of sin (Gal 1:4),

⁴who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father

and finally, even glorification in the future from the presence of sin (Rev 21:4).

⁴He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

A full understanding of salvation would take a course in systematic theology, but even a child can pray “God, please save us.”

Theology of Intercession

When someone sins against a person, both the sinner and the person are affected by that sin. The person needs deliverance and restoration, while the sinner needs forgiveness; all three are aspects of God’s salvation (Col 1:13–14).

¹³He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, ¹⁴in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Sometimes, the sinner is not even aware that they sinned, or is a non-Christian; they need salvation too. When the person prays, “God, please save us”, they move the focus from themselves and their pain to the salvation of others for the glory of God. Forgiveness then becomes intercession, a form of spiritual warfare.

Theology of Unholy Attachments

Idolatry is a type of sin that binds the person to the idol. It is composed of a Person, an Unholy Attachment, and an Idol.

The unholy attachment may be made with or without the knowledge or consent of the person. It can be strengthened through rituals (aka: worship) that ratify the person’s and idol’s consent, and it has the effect of making the person act and become more like the idol (Ps 115:8).

⁸Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.

Idols may no longer even be alive; e.g. a son may idolize his dead father, trying to earn his approval even after the father has died. Idolatry can be bidirectional, although the sin grounds of the unholy attachments may differ; for example, a wife may idolize her husband’s approval and try to appease him at the cost of her own health and identity, while the husband may idolize his wife’s beauty and abuse her out of jealousy. A bidirectional, unholy attachment between two people is called a codependency, or an enmeshed relationship.

A codependency made through a sexual act is called a soul tie. It has the effect of making two people one flesh (1 Cor 6:16),

¹⁶Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.”

regardless of whether the relationship is abusive or not. What God has intended as a way of binding two people together in holy matrimony, sinful humans have corrupted into a vehicle for one party to control another. This is why battered women often have difficulty leaving their abusive partners; literally a piece of her identity and soul resides in him, and piece of his identity and soul resides in her.

Soul ties are the most common way to bind two people together, but they are not the only ones. Trauma bonds bind two people together through shared trauma, e.g. Stockholm syndrome. Financial bonds bind two people through shared finances. Fear unwillingly binds the person to the feared object, whether it be a person, or an evil spirit (Rom 8:15

¹⁵For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

; 2 Tim 1:7).

⁷for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

It may be possible for the person to put physical distance between their idol, and with greater effort, some emotional distance with the idol, but it is not possible for humans to put spiritual distance between what God has joined together (Matt 19:6),

⁶So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

at least without great damage to their soul. Furthermore, it is even more difficult to remove the idol’s place in the person’s soul, or take back the piece of their identity and soul from the idol. This process is called defragmentation, and it is a spiritual process than can only be done by God. That is why we ask God to cut the unholy attachment and defragment the person as it is not humanly possible to do.

Not all attachments are unholy. We are commanded to attach ourselves to Jesus and bear much fruit (John 15:4).

⁴Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.

Marriage is another example of a holy attachment (Eph 5:31–32),

³¹“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” ³²This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

and so is the parent-child relationship (Isa 49:15).

¹⁵“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

However, some attachments with another person can be holy, while others are abusive. Or, perhaps both good and evil things are transmitted through a single soul tie. Instead of fruitlessly trying to determine what is holy and what is not, we defer that decision to God and use this form of the unholy attachments prayer instead when there is doubt as to which part of the attachment should be kept: “God, please cut the soul tie between <Person> and <idol> where it is evil, and defragment.” The personal prayer has a similar form: “I repent, renounce, and forgive <offender> where they have sinned. God, please save us.”

Theology of Curse Breaking

Cursing is a type of idolatry, but with some important differences because it is also a type of spiritual attack.

It is composed of a Curser, the one pronouncing the curse, and the Person, the one targeted by the curse. A curse is an unholy attachment to a negative expectation. A negative expectation is an idol that steals the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22–23)

²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

from the person, including faith, hope and love (1 Cor 13:13).

¹³So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

The curser can be anyone who can speaks. This includes parents (Gen 9:24–25),

²⁴When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, ²⁵he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”

children (Prov 20:20)

²⁰If one curses his father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in utter darkness.

and even God (Gen 12:3).

³I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Jesus commanded Christians to bless and never curse (Luke 6:28),

²⁸bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

but unfortunately Christians often sin in this matter (Jas 3:10),

¹⁰From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

including against themselves (Mark 14:71).

⁷¹But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know this man of whom you speak.”

The power of the curse lies in how tightly it binds the person to the negative expectation. If the person does not have grounds for the curse to hold, then it will not have much effect (Prov 26:2).

²Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying, a curse that is causeless does not alight.

On the other hand, the greater the spiritual authority the curser has over the person, the more intentional and ritualized the process of forming the curse, and the stronger the negative expectation in the person, the stronger the curse will be over that person. As a type of spiritual attack, the curser will often curse the person without their knowledge or consent to use the element of surprise; therefore, most curses are revealed through visual or aural diagnostic tools rather than cognitive ones.

Like all forms of idolatry, the person becomes more like the idol due to the unholy attachment (Ps 115:8),

⁸Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.

which in this case, makes the negative expectation a self-fulfilling prophecy. A death curse can be strong enough to kill (Josh 6:26

²⁶Joshua laid an oath on them at that time, saying, “Cursed before the LORD be the man who rises up and rebuilds this city, Jericho. “At the cost of his firstborn shall he lay its foundation, and at the cost of his youngest son shall he set up its gates.”

; 2 Kgs 2:24);

²⁴And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.

that’s why it’s important for you to ask God to break the curse and its effects before leading the person through any personal prayers that might trigger the curse.

Of the many different types of curses, two are worth special mention:

A self-curse is a curse made by the person against themselves. If the person ever admits to doing this, then they have to repent and renounce of that sin, forgive themselves for making the curse, and then your or the person can ask God to break the curse and set them free.

A generational curse is a curse made by the person’s ancestors. It may seem strange that an ancestor can curse their descendants who have not yet even been born, but the concept is biblical (Exod 34:7

⁷keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

; Num 14:18

¹⁸‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’

; 2 Kgs 5:27).

²⁷Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and to your descendants forever.” So he went out from his presence a leper, like snow.

It makes more sense when the person realizes that according to Scripture, their ancestors have authority over them (Heb 7:9–10),

⁹One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, ¹⁰for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.

and that demons can outlive a single generation to torment their descendants based on the legal grounds given by the ancestral curse. Furthermore, generational patterns such as racism can be transmitted from one generation to another through modeling and explicit teaching. Just as DNA passes physical traits down the generations, blessings and curses pass spiritual traits down through the generations.

Breaking generational curses require a modification to the intercessory and personal prayers to take on an intercessory role for ancestors who are no longer alive (Lev 26:40–42).

⁴⁰“But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, ⁴¹so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, ⁴²then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.

You should pray, “God, please remove the generational curse and set <Person> and their children free.” The person should then pray, “On behalf of my ancestors, myself, and my children, I repent, renounce and forgive the generational curse. God, please set us free.”

If the person’s children are single and they still reside in the person’s household, then the person has spiritual authority over their children and the generational curses should be broken over their children with these prayers. Their children may have received the curse and sinned personally from it before the person removed it, so some individual follow up work may have to be done with the children. Adult children who have left their parents’ household to form their own, especially through marriage, have established spiritual authority over their own families (Gen 2:24

²⁴Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

; Eph 5:23–24).

²³For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. ²⁴Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

They would have to exercise that authority to remove the curse over themselves and their families as their parents no longer have that level of spiritual authority over them.

Theology of the Emotional Pain Healing Prayer

Sin hurts the whole person, including the heart. Cognitive healing methods that de-emphasize healing the heart of a person in favor of only correcting their thinking are more aligned with a stoic worldview than a biblical one (Ps 147:3

³He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

; John 14:27).

²⁷Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Healing the heart is not something the person can decide to do; that is an exercise of the will. Neither is it something that can be healed through logic, study, or reasoning; that is an exercise of the mind. Instead, healing the heart is an act of grace, a gift from God.

God provides two main ways of healing the heart. The first is through tears, a gift that is available to everyone, called common grace. The second is through supernatural means available only to those who believe; special grace dramatically shortens the time it takes to heal the heart. When a person is feeling emotional pain, they will often begin to have tears in their eyes. This is not a time for teaching or counseling, but for intercession.

Pray for God to draw the pain out of the the person’s heart, and instruct them to let go of the pain so that God can take it out of them. Their tears should then intensify and the person may become incoherent. Most counseling methods recommend comforting the person at this point to soothe the pain. We recommend instead that you ask God to bring more pain to the front, and then draw it out of the person’s heart until it is completely gone. The goal is not to prematurely soothe the pain or to stop the crying, but to give the person the time and space to grieve, and the let the Lord intervene in the process through your intercession so that it is as short as possible, but no shorter. Then when the pain is completely out of the person’s heart, you can ask God to fill it with His love and comfort and show your love and comfort too.

This emotional healing aspect is missing from most Christian discipleship programs, so the person is more likely to have been taught to correct their thinking rather than their feelings. The emotional pain healing prayer may then be the most impactful tool in your healing toolbox—not because it is difficult to use, but because it is comparatively rare in cognitive healing methods.

Take-aways

Further Reading

The Story Method flowchart shows how you can be freed from the desire to sin through the Intercessory and Personal Prayers. It uses the Memory Unblocker, a specific type of Intercessory and Personal Prayer that overcomes blocked memories. We base our repeatable experience of complete freedom in Christ on the foundational theology of sanctification by grace rather than works. Read How Do I Stop Sinning and Healing Methods Overview for an in-depth discussion of how and why these healing methods work, and how they differ from other methods that rely on willpower to succeed.