There is much debate among the church about whether or not a Christian can be controlled by a demon. Some say yes and some say no. Those who say no hold to the statement that where there is light, darkness cannot reside. They say that Christians can be oppressed, but not possessed by demons. I was among those who held this belief.
If you have followed my blog, you would know that God has been revealing to me more and more about the supernatural since He healed me of my drug addiction and I started following Jesus two and a half years ago. In the first year of my new life as a believer, I read about, listened to sermons about, and studied signs and wonders almost to the point of obsession. If I’m being honest, I put the fact that God still performs miracles above the gospel in my studies, my thoughts, and my conversations. While I’m still very aware of, and grateful for, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, I have recently had to repent that I put those gifts above my relationship with God and my spiritual growth.
All of that being said, if you read my blogs and have followed my journey as a disciple, you would know that an area of the supernatural that Holy Spirit has used me in frequently (especially early in my race in Nepal and India), has been casting out demons. God gave me a word early in my walk with Him that “He walked me through all of those years of darkness and now I would be walking back into the darkness for Him”. That is a promise He gave me that has definitely come true over the last couple of years. My heart goes out to people who are trapped in bondage they can’t break free of. Nothing brings me greater joy than when God uses me to help them find that freedom. I am realizing more and more how demonic in nature that bondage is and learning ways to help those bonds be broken.
As I stepped into my new role as a squad leader last summer, in a conversation about discipleship, Seth Barns spoke over me that while I was in the field with V Squad I would not just be performing deliverances, I would be teaching the squad to fight for others and imparting the wisdom I have in that area on them. Honestly, at the time I was so excited that Seth knew so much about me that I didn’t really register the implications of what he was saying. The word God gave my co-leader, Taylor and I about V squad before we had even met the squad was “warriors”. We were charged with leading 27 people, many of which have deep hurts and struggles in their past. While on paper their stories seemed sad, God told us that they would overcome their pasts and become warriors. I think that what Seth was saying was that Taylor and I would get the honor of training these warriors to fight using the weapons God has given them.
During our squad leader training the week before launch, among many other topics, we were trained in deliverance. We were told that many people who go on the race have things in their life that give the enemy a foothold. We were told that, contrary to popular belief, Christians can be influenced by unclean spirits and can need deliverance. We were told that Christians can even be controlled by demons. Honestly upon hearing this, in my head I became immediately indignant. That’s not what I had been told before or seen before and of course I was some kinda expert, right? I have a great amount of respect for my friend Hope, the woman giving the talk, so I kept my mouth shut and listened. What she had to say made sense. She said that demons work on legal right. If they are allowed to influence us, they will. That made sense to me, so I humbled myself and I started taking notes. She said that doors can be opened in our lives and we need to identify those doors and shut them. Those doors can be things like unconfessed or hidden sin, generational curses, physical or sexual abuse, word curses, and many other things. I guess I could see that, so I fit this new information into my oppression but not possession box and carried on with my life and my prideful, know it all, way of thinking.
This way of thinking served me well for the first three and a half months of squad leading. During our all squad month we encountered some shamans in Mongolia. Weird stuff happened, people started getting crazy nightmares and other forms of spiritual attacks, and I gave a talk to the squad on spiritual warfare and deliverance. I told them about how unclean spirits can influence Christians, but still holding onto my prideful way of thinking, I also told them not to worry because demons can’t control Christians. Over the next couple of months at least half of the squad, including some of the biggest skeptics, came to me asking for deliverance. We were able to find the root of a lot of things going on in their lives and a lot of freedom was found. Also, keeping with what Seth spoke over me, as I was doing these deliverances, I was also training them to fight for themselves and fight for each other. It has been pretty awesome, truthfully.
Last week my theology on demonology was completely rocked though. We are in Nepal now and, as I have said before, the supernatural is very overt here. I had my world view rocked the last time I was here and it was time for it to be rocked again. This month I’m with all of the guys from the squad doing “guy things” for manistry month. Taylor is with all of the girls doing anti sex trafficking ministry around Kathmandu. At about midnight one night last week, I got a call from Taylor. She sounded pretty frantic and told me that one of our girls had manifested a demon. I was half asleep and confused. At first I didn’t think I heard her right. She described what had happened and it was eerily similar to things I saw last time I was here casting demons out of non believers. My first thought was to march over to where they were staying and get to fighting, but she said that things had calmed down, so I woke I couple of my guys up and we prayed. The next day I met up with Taylor and one of our female team leaders and we spent the day with the girl. We spent a couple of hours praying and worshipping, then we walked through some soul care and deliverance with her. (SOZO)
What I saw that day I will never forget. As we prayed and I commanded the demon to to tell me what right it had to be there and it completely took over again. The girl was no longer responsive, her facial expressions changed, her eyes rolled back in her head and even her voice was different. The demon said its name was Sarah and it was on assignment to destroy this girl’s leadership. It was creepy as hell. This girl is not only a believer, but a really strong believer and a leader on our squad. There was no question in my mind that she is a Christian and there was no denying what I was seeing right in front of my face. I had told her and the rest of the squad, not two months before, that this couldn’t ever happen to them. I was wrong. It was happening. We prayed and fought for hours. I was able to take breaks and tell the demon, Sarah, to step aside and the girl would come back. It was really hard on her. We identified that the open door was past from abuse that related to the kind of abuse the girls in the bars have suffered. She has a powerful testimony and the enemy was trying to stifle her ability to use it for the kingdom. Finally at the end of the day, and with some help from our ministry host, the door was shut.
Of course the squad was scared by this event and we spent the next couple of days processing and praying together. We had all learned something new. People were shaken up and scared, but also had their eyes opened to some things they had only read about in the bible. Over that two day period, I saw this squad not back down in fear, but instead become more unified, more aware, and stronger warriors.
The girl who had the manifestation is doing great now. She is equipped for battle and is still walking into those bars sharing her testimony with girls who need to hear it so bad. The enemy tried to keep this girl from being used by God. He tried to scare our squad to get us to stop fighting. God turned it around though. He turns all things for our good and for His glory. In the process, I got a lesson in humility that I won’t soon forget. As for my previous theology about Christians not being able to be possessed, it has changed. I am told that in the Greek and Hebrew the words possessions and oppression are never even used in the bible. When speaking about casting out demons, the bible just says that a person has a demon. Possession and oppression are both English words that got added in…
It turns out I was wrong.
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