We’re still trying to get on top of our new fall reality. Bus routes, carpools, uniforms, CCD, fall picture day, sports, school forms, music lessons…and the list goes on. Not to mention how all of these activities put pressure on family budgets. Can we get an Amen?

Getting this fall sea-change right takes a heavy up-front investment in marital communication; without it, stress and discord may be right around the corner. Just in time, in the second week of the month, we turn our focus to Person & Relationships, or Level 2 of your Trinity House. Having received communion—most notably through the Eucharist—in Faith Life, or Level 1, we seek to strengthen this communion in the arena of our marriage and relationships within the family.  

On the subject of strengthening our communion, as we found ourselves running on fumes recently, we were reminded of a remarkable experience we had several years ago. We had been invited to attend an “Unbound” conference hosted by Neal Lozano of Heart of the Father Ministries.

As part of the day-long event, we were invited to pray some prayers of “renunciation.” You likely recall that at the Easter renewal of our baptism, we hear the priest ask this question: “Do you renounce Satan, and all his evil works, and all his empty show?” “I do,” we respond. The priest continues, “Do you renounce sin, so as to live in the freedom of the children of God?” “I do.”

All too often, however, this powerful acknowledgement of our authority to renounce and cast out evil, which we received at baptism, stops there. We don’t carry it into daily life. That’s how it was for us, until this conference.

“Repeat after me,” Neal Lozano said, inviting us to practice renunciation. “In the name of Jesus Christ, I renounce a spirit of unforgiveness,” he said, and everyone repeated it. “In the name of Jesus Christ, I renounce a spirit of anger,” he said, and so on…for several minutes substituting others such as a “spirit of abandonment, a spirit of fatherlessness, a spirit of control, a spirit of resentment, a spirit of mistrust, a spirit of fear…” (Hear is a list of renunciations at the Heart of the Father Ministries site). 

Whether it was the sweet and holy name of Jesus—or the sheer litany of real and present issues in so many of our relationships—the conference participants were soon brought to tears. Phrase after phrase, “empty show after empty show,” we invited the Lord to cast out any trace of the evil one’s meddling in our lives.

And along with the tears, we couldn’t help but experience a newfound freedom. It’s not a stretch to say that we felt “unbound.” We sensed a lightening of areas of our relationship that had seemed so challenging before. By verbalizing these common sins and renouncing the evil one, we invited the Lord to act. That day, we were reminded that we can renounce the designs of the evil one—not just at our baptism or at Easter, but on a very frequent basis.  

“Deliverance” may sound too daunting, but we share this because this ancient prayer and tool belongs to every baptized Christian. To get started, consider the following possibilities:

• In your personal prayer, renounce the evil one’s designs on you and your family. You might pray, “In the name of Jesus, I renounce a spirit of division in my family.”
• In your marriage, renounce the ways that your unity is being threatened. For example, “In the name of Jesus, I renounce a spirit of blame, criticism, and judgment in my marriage.”  
• In your parenting, consider setting the tone by recognizing those spirits that are not of God. For example, “Our family has no fellowship with unforgiveness. In the name of Jesus, let’s renounce our natural tendency to hold on to grudges, and invite God to show us his freedom.”   

God is so good. He is with us in every challenge our families face. Rather than going it alone, let’s call on Him and activate the authority He gave us at our baptism. In His beautiful and holy name, let us renounce the “empty show” that constantly menaces our hearts, our marriages, and families. He is faithful, and invites us to live in the freedom of the children of God…starting today!