Mental disorders
God is the God of all hope who gives us joy and peace. He is not a God of confusion, fear and other mental afflictions. To the exclusion of God, this world prescribes various forms of pain relief and prescription drugs for those suffering from mental conditions. While this can be helpful in the short-run, man-made remedies don’t help us totally overcome our daily internal battles with anxiety, ADHD, OCD, psychosis, schizophrenia, and so forth*. It is with Jesus Christ that we can truly overcome all things and be more than conquerors through Christ as we renew our minds through Christ.
(See Chinese versions: 简体中文 > 思觉失调 | 繁體中文 > 思覺失調)
Romans 15:13 ESV May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
1 Corinthians 14:33 ESV For God is not a God of confusion but of peace…
1 John 5:4 ESV For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.
Romans 12:2 ESV Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
A prayer of victory over our mental disorders
It is recommended that this prayer is said out-loud during a full food fast over at least two meals, where we can be still before God and tune out the demands of our fleshly nature.
“Dear Heavenly Father,
I cry out to You for help! The constant frenzy, fogginess, panic, and darkness in my head is so overwhelming. Somehow, my mind feels like it has been hijacked and I feel trapped inside myself. It seems that nobody understands what I’m suffering inside.
I don’t want to continue like this and know I can turn to You. You have been with me ever since I was in my mother’s womb. You have seen everything that has happened and how I have suffered. You know my thoughts even before I say a word.
Deuteronomy 31:8 ESV It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”
Psalm 139:4 ESV Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
You, oh God, know how to pull me out of this mental condition. I humbly ask that You please give me Your perfect understanding according to Your Word. You are the good and faithful Father who gives only good things to me. I can rely on You.
Psalm 119:169 ESV Let my cry come before you, O Lord; give me understanding according to your word!
Matthew 7:9-11 ESV Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
First, I need to confess that I have sometimes doubted your goodness.
Today, in Jesus’ name, I reject the lie that God doesn’t care about me, that He has cursed me with this mental illness without cause, and that He won’t help me. I declare that God, the Father, has known me even before I was formed in my mother’s womb. He is the One who tenderly formed me and knit my DNA together. I declare that I am a wonderful work of God. I was not conceived in the womb with a mental disorder. It is the things of this world that have corrupted and twisted my thought patterns instead. I declare Romans 12:2 over myself, that I will be transformed as my mind is renewed based on the truth from Jesus that sets me free!
Jeremiah 1:4-5 ESV Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…
Psalm 139:11-15 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
John 8:31-32 ESV So Jesus said… “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
I reject the lie that I am unloved and undeserving. God the Father sent His most precious Son, Jesus Christ, to die for me and free from the bondage of this world, including from the bondage of mental illness. I declare that nothing can ever separate God’s love and His salvation from me – not my fears and worries, and definitely not the powers of hell. This is my truth!
Romans 8:38-39 NLT And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Today, Father, I ask for the mind of Christ and for the wisdom to know how to overcome my mental battles. Relying on human understanding has not helped me overcome. Only God can straighten out the twisted pathways in my brain because He is the One who created me.
1 Corinthians 2:16 NLT … But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.
James 1:5-8 ESV If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
I invite You, God, to show me what parts of my motivations and thoughts are grievous in Your eyes and how I need to renew my spirit and mind. Help me understand what part of my sinful nature that I need to put to death.
Psalm 139:23-24 ESV Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!
Psalm 51:10 ESV Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Romans 8:5-6,12-13 NLT Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.
In the name of Jesus, I forgive my father, mother, relatives, doctors, neighbours, and friends, for all the ungodly and unkind words they have spoken about me, and cancel out the effect of their sins and words of death against me in Jesus’ name. They were unintentional in cursing me. I cut ungodly spiritual ties to anyone who spoke words of doom over me and prescribed anything that has made me put all my faith on medical addictions, instead of in God. I repent for turning to my own ways to save myself in the past. I am not my own saviour. Jesus Christ is my Saviour. I choose to yoke myself only to Jesus, not to people. Father, please show me whom to trust and turn to for godly counsel and help.
Proverbs 18:21 NLT The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.
Matthew 11:29-30 ESV Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Father, where I first experienced anxiety in my mother’s womb, please come and heal that root of fear. You also know of the trauma (please name, if any) I have witnessed that still haunt my childhood/adult memories. Please come and heal me. Remove those roots of anxiety from me and make me new in Jesus’ name.
2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
The thoughts of accusation, condemnation, and suicide in my mind are not from the Holy Spirit. They are from my enemy, the devil, who seeks to kill, steal and destroy the hope I have in Jesus Christ. Today, I choose to remove all of Satan’s footholds in my life. I choose Jesus.
Ephesians 4:26-27 ESV Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.
I confess my family’s sins. We have rejected You in the past by worshipping idols and the dead, turning to superstitions, fortune telling, sorcery, and new age sources of healing that are not from You. Where my name or “fortune” was chosen by anyone who worshipped idols, I confess and ask for God to please remove this stain on my identity in Jesus’ name. I command all spirits that are not from God which have gained a foothold to my life as a result to leave me in Jesus’ name. I choose to serve the living God who purifies me.
Deuteronomy 28:1-7 NLT “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God: Your towns and your fields will be blessed. Your children and your crops will be blessed. The offspring of your herds and flocks will be blessed. Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be blessed. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be blessed. “The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven!
Deuteronomy 28:14-15, 20,28 NLT You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them. “But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you: “The Lord himself will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning me. The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic.
Hebrews 9:14 ESV How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Where I have not remained sober-minded and allowed the devil to gain a foothold in my mind through chanting, hypnotism, new age meditation, drugs, drunkenness, occult games, anime, horror movies, pornography, and the like, I now confess and repent before You, oh God. I am sorry for misusing my body, which is the temple of Your Holy Spirit, for ungodly indulgences and opened myself up to the enemy. I now command all mind-binding spirits, spirits of mental slavery, blindness, panic and confusion to leave me now in Jesus’ name,
1 Peter 1:13 ESV Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 5:8 ESV Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Father in heaven, You created me and gave me life. Where I have ever wished to die, I now confess and repent. Please forgive me, Lord. I choose life, not death.
Ezekiel 18:32 ESV For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.”
I know that the condemning voice inside my head which accuses me day and night is from Satan. Today, I rebuke Satan for your tormenting lies in my head and I command you to be silent in Jesus’ name.
Revelation 12:9-11 ESV And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.
Mark 1:25 ESV But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”
Where the devil has deceived me into submitting to him through any other evil schemes that I have been unaware of, Father, please show me what they were.
Colossians 3:2-5 ESV Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
2 Corinthians 2:11 ESV so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.
Oh Lord, is there anything else I need to confess and any stains I need to remove so that I can be made one with You? I quiet myself to listen to Your Holy Spirit and wait for Your reply.
Jeremiah 17:10 ESV “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”
I humbly ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit – so that I will live with love, power and self-control – no longer with any fear. I praise God for renewing the spirit of my mind. I choose to put on my new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.
2 Timothy 1:7 ESV For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Ephesians 4:22-24 ESV To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
I rejoice that from today onwards, I will be able to focus my mind on meditating on God’s Word and keep my thoughts on Him so that I will be able to prosper and enjoy peace. I repent of and destroy every medical label I have previously attached to my identity and declare that I am a child of God. beloved and precious, not a sick person tied down to the labels people put on me. Teach me, Father, how to test and take every thought that enters my mind according to the truth in the Bible, and not the teachings of this world. The world will fade away but Your Word will last forever.
Philippians 4:4,6-8 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice … do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Joshua 1:8 ESV This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
Isaiah 26:3-4 ESV You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.
Matthew 24:35 ESV Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Thank you, God.
In Jesus’ name, amen!”
Also see testimonies:
* Examples include anxiety disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, dissociative identity disorder, major depressive disorder, mood disorders, obsessive–compulsive disorder, personality disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), psychological stress, psychosis, schizophrenia, and eating disorders.