The past few months have kept me pretty busy, but one of the things the Lord has been highlighting to me is what I refer to as transformation ministry—what most people call inner healing and deliverance.  I have been doing a good bit of work of late both with myself and family members in this area, and am seeing the fruit at work.  It is incredibly empowering, as it reveals to me more and more about the level of power and authority we have been given in Christ Jesus.  One of the things I have made frequent use of during this process is the power of renunciation.

According to Dictionary.com, the word renounce means to give up or put aside voluntarily, often by formal declaration, or to disown.  Any time we renounce something during a prayer session, we are making a clear statement about what is part of us and our lives, and what we have no involvement with.  There is something about renunciation that creates a dividing line separating us from what the enemy wants to do in our lives.  As we disavow things of darkness, whether overt or covert, it breaks the access the enemy has on our lives.  2 Corinthians 6:14-17 puts it this way:

“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?  What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?  What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

“I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”

This means it is no longer a “we”, but an ‘I” and “them”.  As we renounce things, and our involvement with them, we are literally making ourselves holy and set apart unto God in that area of our lives.  As we do this, even as the above verses suggest, it makes room for God to enter that part of our lives in a new way.

In a previous blog article, I discussed The Mechanism of A Vow, which touches on similar subjects, but renouncing things works based on spiritual rules.  The things we choose to engage create openness for spiritual entities to engage us in return—what I call the Law of Focus, seen clearly in James 4:8a, “Come near to God and he will come near to you.”  When we renounce things, we give it anti-focus, pushing it away from us in the spirit.

Almost anything can be renounced, and it is a fairly helpful and commonly used tool in my inner healing and deliverance toolkit.  Some examples include:  negative emotions, erroneous beliefs, books, activities, movies, video games, organizations, vows, and more.  Certainly not every book, movie, video game, or organization is bad, but some of them are.  Sometimes, it’s not even that the thing itself is bad, but how we have internalized it due to our belief system is unhealthy.  A good analogy of what this does is that these things can open doors in the spirit, and the enemy wants to use them to bring darkness into our lives.  When we renounce them we close those doors and remove the enemy’s access to those areas of our lives.

Practically speaking, let’s say that someone has been playing and enjoying a video game that the Lord has been showing you is unhealthy.  Don’t misunderstand–I’m not saying all video games are bad.  I have written a book called The Gamer’s Guide to the Kingdom of God specifically using MMORPG games as a backdrop for understanding how the supernatural realms of God function.  I’m not anti-video-game.  However, not all video games are wholesome either.  If the Lord is showing you that it is time to put that game down due to its spiritual influence, you might pray the following prayer or similar:

“In the name of Jesus I renounce [name the video game] and all of my involvement in it.  I apply the blood of Jesus to that area of my mind and soul, and ask that you wash it clean with the water of Life.  In its place, I ask for you to fill me with the Holy Spirit.”

This is a super simple prayer that can be used for many different things.   It is one example, but renunciation prayer needs to cover three imperative parts in a specific order:

1.  Breaking agreement with the old (ie. renouncing)
2. Removing the negative
3. Replacing it with positive

As we progress on our individual inner healing journeys, I highly encourage everyone to not just memorize specific prayers, but to understand the principles behind them, such as those shared here.  The above prayer is simple and can be used and remastered for most situations, but when we understand the three parts of a renunciation prayer, even if we forget my example prayer, we can simply make up our own on the spot.  Regardless of whether we use a script or devise our own wording, the underlying principles are very effective.  Renunciation is powerful, and is a simple way to wreak havoc on the enemy’s involvement in our lives, setting us free to enjoy all that God has for us.