I remember being in a service one night in a certain church and a lady stood up and said, "I want you all to pray for my husband, he is getting worse. He won't go to church and I have been praying for him every day for 25 years. He just keeps getting meaner."

The Spirit of God spoke up on the inside of me and said, "She has been holding fast to the problem all these years. If she had prayed in faith, she wouldn't have prayed all those 25 years.

"She would have praised Me and thanked Me that My power was working in his behalf and her husband would have been saved many years ago. But she has bound Me from the situation by the words of her mouth."

Now there is no doubt in my mind that, every time she prayed for her husband, she said, "My husband is getting meaner. He is not getting any better. He won't go to church with me."

The Word teaches you shall have what you say (Mark 11:23). Now you can see the mistake she made.

Jesus said, Whatsoever things we desire, when ye pray, believe ye receive them. She didn't desire for her husband to get meaner. She didn't desire for him to stay at home. Why was she praying that way?

She was deceived by Satan and held in bondage by the words of her own mouth. In fact, she was also holding her husband in bondage.

She had taken him out of God's hands and He couldn't work on her behalf because in prayer she was saying the things she did not desire. She was holding fast to the problem.

Source: Releasing God's Power Through Prayer by Charles Capps.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers