Practical Spiritual Warfare Effectiveness
I have been involved in one form or another with spiritual warfare training and practical healing methodology for believers, for roughly 30 years. Not exactly sure why, but the Lord seems to repeatedly have me on the front lines helping folks understand in a very practical way, what He means in Luke 4:18 by “…set the captive free…” Besides the Word, there has been for many years alot of great teaching out there about healing, spiritual warfare, deliverance and restoration regarding the spiritual realm. Some well regarded teachers and authors are Mark Bubeck, Charles Kraft, Dr. C. Peter Wagner, Frank Hammond, Dr. Rebecca Brown, MD, John Bevere, Frank Peretti, John Eckhardt, Kenneth Hagin, Sr., Derek Prince, Kathryn Kuhlman, John G. Lake, R.A Torrey, Maxwell Whyte, Watchman Nee, Smith Wigglesworth and many others. Even with alot of out of balance stuff out there over the years, there are still healthy, well-balanced ministries who have done a tremendous job helping folks in a safe, healthy way with notable conservative integrity. A couple of these are Elijah House ministries (John & Paula Sandford) and Cleansing Stream (Jack Hayford). They both emphasize that deeper healing genuinely starts by dealing with the roots, often with a respectful and tender focus on forgiveness of self and others.
So, I only want to focus on a small portion of how to be aware of the potential “entrance gates” that most of us at one time or another might have a tendency to fall prey to. Now being a Professional Life Coach I am always most interested in what can give folks answers to overcoming things in life. Some obstacles that we all deal with are simply laziness, selfishness and/or simple unawareness. But others are more strategic in design…of course I mean by the enemy of our soul. There are “principalities and powers” mentioned in the New Testament, who’s sole job is to carry out assignments by the their master, mainly to kill, steal and destroy as much as they can. Now of course a true believer (in Christ Jesus) can not be “possessed” but he/she can certainly “have a demon” as the Greek accurately is interpreted. So one might ask, “well, so how exactly do we gain an attachment to one of these fellows?” Good question.
Gaining Ground
There are six “entrance gates” for spiritual (legal) attachments that the enemy can gain ground with, in/on us. They are as follows:
- Activity in the occult (i.e. seances, ouija boards, necronomicon, palm reading, astro-projection, hypnosis, participation in a coven, satanism, etc.)
- Sins of the fathers past down to the 3rd and 4th generation (also called bloodline curses)
- Soul Ties (intimate connections with another person who has toxic stuff in their life can be crossed over)
- Abuse and/or trauma (anything that caused one to suffer emotional damage, at any age)
- Repeated sins that grow into a “stronghold” (or as some call it…addictions), and eventually give ground to welcoming an attachment of a “strongman” as the Bible calls him
- Someone actually pronouncing a curse on someone who has wrongly been exposed to an unsafe environment
Now several of these would probably do well to have much further explanation. You can Google “spiritual warfare” or “deliverance ministry” to get a list of different ministries or books to learn more detail on any of the preceding list. Also, if you have a well-balanced, Bible-taught, conservative, evangelical pastor, he/she can probably give you several pointers as well. But suffice it to say, each of us would do well to tend to our healing spiritually and emotionally (past and present), and no longer neglect such a high calling. That is to genuinely go for our cleansing, healing, recovery, restoration, and refuse to settle for less no longer, as we choose to “enter His rest”. If any of these topics are of serious interest to you, and you would like to truly be set free in Jesus, to be all He has called you to be, please feel free to give us a call anytime (832) 995-5593. We would be glad to help answer your toughest questions about how to live out your overcoming sonship (as Revelations calls it) in a practical sense.
