Sleeping With the Enemy, pt. 2
Since you became a Christian have you been devlievered? God wants His people to be not only saved, but also delivered and set free by the power of the Holy Spirit. Every Christian needs to be set free from something. All Christians need to go through deliverance.
What is deliverance? Deliverance is the removal of spiritual oppression through prayer, reading the Bible, casting out of demons and/or counseling. To be delivered is to be set free from bondage. The deliverance ministry movement began in Acts of the Apostles, when the Church was first birthed but the teaching has only become widespread since the 1960s.
The scriptural basis for deliverance comes from Ephesians 6:10-20 and Luke 4:18. There are four important elements of deliverance, which are: inner healing, tearing down strongholds, removing legal rights through renunciation, and casting out demons. There are different types of exorcisms which remove demons from people, houses and property, and animals.
After salvation, all Christians need to be delivered from their past. This includes habits, addictions, mannerisms and lifestyles that are not in accordance with the Holy scriptures. Christians need to be delivered from everything that does not produce the godly and fruitful life God intends for us to have. Jesus’ blood paid the price for our salvation, but deliverance comes only through prayer and fasting because demons do not want to leave, so they must be cast out. Jesus told His disciples, "This kind goes out but by prayer and fasting." (Mat. 17:21) Deliverance is for everybody, but each individual must desire to be delivered.
Why is that many Christians have not been delivered after being saved? It is because of the absence of the word. Too many Christians neglect the word of God and prayer. Countless christians are lazy and do not like to pray and fast. They occasionally read the word, but they don’t let the word sink in. The word is the powerful seed of God and it will produce spirit and life. Most christians are not willing to do what the Bible says to be delivered so they learn to adapt to their demons.
Demons are comfortable in their old house and will not be evicted easily. You must develop an attitude of “NOT IN MY HOUSE!” When a demon knows that you mean business, and you begin to exercise your spiritual authority through prayer and fasting along with the word of God, (which is spiritual warfare), no demon can stay in this environment. You must fight for your deliverance. You must declare war against the enemy that is invading your life, home, marriage, ministry, job, family, body, finances, etc. Satan will only leave when he has to. Deliverance involves spiritual warfare.
Spiritual warfare is to aggressively fight against the enemy using the Word of God. This should be done offensively. We have to do this, not God. This is how we pull down strongholds and those things (wicked imaginations) that exalt itself against the knowledge of God. We pull them down with the word of God. Wordless Christians are weak Christians. They are always crying and begging and pulling on their pastor to fight against demons for them. The pastor can get the devil off of you, but why did you wait to get to the pastor? Too many Christians are being defeated because they are not fighting back with the WORD; they are simply allowing the enemy to attack, beat and defeat them. Satan is unmerciful, relentless and often. The Word of God is the Believer's greatest weapon and we must use it to walk in victory. That's what Jesus did. Tell the devil NO DEAL! See Matt. 4- Jesus fought the devil and won. The devil had to leave Jesus because of the WORD! He will flee from you too, if you have an use your arsenal of the Word of God.
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