"In
Jesus’ Name, I cast you out spirit of adultery!”
"Unforgiving
spirit, out! … In Jesus’ name!”
"Spirit of
gluttony, get out in Jesus’ name!”
I believe you are not foreign anymore with casting out the “evil spirits,” especially those of you who often attend deliverance services. I must emphasize here that I am not against deliverance ministry. In times past, I myself attended deliverance services, even actively joined the services as a worker. And I also believe in casting out devil in Jesus’ Name. When needed, I myself do it in my daily Christian life.
However,
often we receive imbalanced teachings in our Christian walk. Some of us always
attend services on demonology, or are only interested in spiritual warfare
prayers, or only want to attend a service if the speaker tells jokes, etc. We
know which type we are. An imbalanced interest to a certain topic of the counsel
of God or even to a particular man of God will make us unhealthy spiritually.
You are a spirit
man, and your spiritual food is the Word of God [all of them and not only a part
of it]. If you continuously feed on (only) the same part of God’s Word and
ignore the other truth, you are going to be spiritually under-nourished. Isn’t
that what happens to your physical body if you keep the same diet, for instance
only eat rice-tofu-soya bean for a whole year?
I invite you who
have mastered demonology or deliverance to join me in digging the Word of
God to find out where we stand in the Kingdom of God:
Delivered from the
power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of the Son of God
(Colossians1: 13).
Free indeed
(Galatians 5:1; John 8:36).
Born of God (John
1:13).
Old things have
past away (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Given authority [exousia]
to become a child of God (John 1:12).
A chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own people (1 Peter
2:9-10).
Overcome the world
(1 John 5:4).
Untouched by the
wicked (1 John 5:18).
Authorized to
trample on the enemies (Luke 10:19).
Devil must flee
when we resist him (James 4:7).
Seated at the
right hand of the Father with Jesus, far above principalities of the world
(Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 1:20-21).
Blessed with all
spiritual blessings (Ephesians 1:3).
Joint heir with
Jesus (Romans 8:17).
WOW! We only dig a
small part of the Word of God and my spirit is already burning. Colossians 1:13
and the other scriptures above indeed make me free. After meditating on it, I
can see that not a single evil power can make me depressed, leave alone
defeated.
Jesus has stripped
the devil off his power and restored the power back to us (Colossians 2:15). The
devil has been programmed by the Lord, whether he wants it or not, to flee from
us when we resist him. Therefore, when a believer is depressed by the devil it
means that he gives the devil a foothold [i.e. permission] to have dominion over
him.
The
Word of God clearly states that those who are born of God [the born-again
believers] overcome the world. If the world is under the power of the evil (1
John 5:19), then it means that we overcome the evil.
The
Word of God also states that all things have been put by the Father under
Jesus’ feet and Jesus has been given to His [God’s] people as Head and His
[God’s] people His [Jesus’] Body – that means all things have been put
under our feet (Ephesians 1:22-23).
The devil and his
cohorts do not have dominion over us anymore. Then why there are still
Christians who live depressed and defeated lives?
Romans 12:2 says
that we have to renew our mind so that we do not be conformed to the world. If
we still have a thought that exalt itself against the knowledge of God we must
bring cast it down and bring it into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2
Corinthians 10:5). When that kind of thoughts, i.e. evil, adulterous, to
excessively eat, unforgiving, intimidating of your past sins, come our way we
must cast it down in the name of Jesus. We also must bring it into captivity by
confessing the Word of God to declare who we are in Christ.
When there is a
defiant behavior, Christians tend to say that an evil spirit has control over
that person. It is undeniable that someone who is demon-possessed will behave
abnormally. However, more often a believer behave abnormally because they do not
want to crucify their flesh and they choose to satisfy their fleshly desire of
the world (Ephesians 4:22; 1 John 2:16).
Most of the
so-called demon-controlled behavior are in fact the works of the flesh:
adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred,
contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions,
heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like (Galatians
5:19-21).
Do you see that?
According to Galatians 5, we sin because we want to satisfy our fleshly desires.
An evil spirit then can put a yoke of bondage upon us (Galatians 5:1) to enslave
us to those things. To free us from the yoke of bondage we must rebuke the devil
in the name of Jesus and then turn ourselves from the wicked ways, i.e. live
according to our flesh, and start to live according to the spirit (Galatians
5:16-26).
Blaming the devil
for our own fault is the quickest and easiest way. By doing so, we are off the
hook to take responsibility to renew our mind and put on the new man (Ephesians
4:24). Without realizing it, by saying that that we are controlled, or tempted,
by an evil spirit that we sin, we exalt the devil. We are saying that Colossians
1:13 is not true because we “feel” that we are still controlled by the
devil.
Based on the
scriptures that we go through earlier, we sin because we want to sin. We sin
because we let our mind dominated by the devil and we do not do anything as God
tells us to do to our mind (2 Corinthians 10:5; Philippians 4:8; Colossians
3:1-2). In other words, we sin because we (still) like sin.
“How do I break
up from the person I live with?”
“I know that my
body is the temple of God and I’m trying to stop smoking but I can’t. How do
you do it?”
“It is so hard
for me to change my habit to cuss.”
According to the
Word of God, it is easy. “Therefore put to death your members which are on the
earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which
is idolatry, because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of
disobedience… But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath,
malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another,
since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the
new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who
created him (Colossians 3:5-10).
As a born again
man we must know this and train ourselves to live according to the spirit
(Hebrew 5:14; Romans 12:2; Ephesians 4:23-24; Galatians 5:16). Anytime [it can
happen from time to time] the fleshly thoughts come, we must cast it down and
bring it into captivity to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5).
We are more than
conquerors! No more evil power that can touch us because we are seated together
with Jesus at the right hand of our Father God, far above all principality and
power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age
but also in that which is to come (Ephesians 1:2-21; Ephesians 2:6). Awesome!
Our place with Jesus is F-A-A-A-R-R-R above the ruler of this world. Besides, we
also function under the law of the Kingdom of God and not under the law of sin
and death (Romans 8:1-2).
Glory! Glory!
Praise the Lord! Everything has been completed by our Lord Jesus and our job now
is to take all our inheritance and appropriate it in our lives. We believe in
our hearts, we confess with our mouth, and we are saved, or healed, or
protected, or delivered, etc. (Romans 10:9-10).
“Oh, Sister
Maggy, you just simplify the whole matter. Don’t you think we should wage war
against our flesh and crucify it every day?”
Well…! That’s
the truth. Of course we must wage war against our flesh and crucify it, not
every day, but all the time – any time it comes across our mind. We must wage
war against our thoughts that indulge our old man and we must crucify our flesh
with faith confession.
If those thoughts
come in 10 minutes, then we must cast it down and bring it into captivity every
10 minutes. If it comes around in 30 minutes, then it means every 30 minutes we
must confess our faith to cast it down. It goes on and on. Do you see that? Not
only once a day in a 2-3 hour prayer, but in every step of our lives.
Am I simplifying
things? No. Jesus did. Look again Colossians 3:5-10. We “have put off the
old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in
knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.”
If only you can see this truth, then this truth will set you free. And each time any thought comes by to urge you to act like you used to, there will be a holy anger rise up within you. When this holy anger arises, then you will take your spirit sword – the Word of God. HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH!