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Keeping Focus


So often we can lose our focus. The problems and powers of this world rob us of peace and take up our precious time. I am going to be honest, I am weary of knowing my enemy. I think Deliverance in the Church has an important place and is Biblical, but it can get to point that you are exasperated. "Knowing your enemy," wither it be person or demonic power can become exhausting. Suddenly you find yourself spending all your time studying how spirit can get someone or how some serious soldiers of fanaticism must be stopped. What happens is information overload and sense that something is not quite right.

The Bible says, "we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus," (Romans 8:31-39)and that "greater is He who is in us, than he who is in the world." (1 John 4:4). And yet despite these two verses and plethora of other scripture, many servants of the Lord find themselves in performance caught up in some system of chasing spirits away or committee trying to stop a rival religion from taking root in their community (not that such causes are wrong, but being overinvested is a problem). Our Lord Jesus Christ had the best answer for people who are your enemies, He said "love your enemy  and pray for those who persecute you," (Matthew 5:44). For for the devils Scripture says, "Submit therefore to God, resist the devil and he shall flee." (James 4:7). Notice that submit to God, that is surrender and trust in the Lord comes before resisting the devil.

Some deliverance ministers, methods, and mindsets have it backwards. The people spend all their time resisting the devil, when had they submitted to God first, the devil would have fled sooner rather than later. The problem with the resisting first ideology is that God disappears from the focus and Satan becomes the focus of resistance. We must be careful when doing battle in spiritual realm and the world realm to not loose focus; The Lord Jesus must be where we look, place our trust, and spend our time. It is fine to rebuke a demon and  caste out devils in Jesus' name, but what should follow is freedom and a closer walk with Christ, not obsession with demons under every bush.

It is my opinion that our spiritual enemies: that is Satan, fallen angels, thrones, powers, and demons want attention. They either want positive attention which is possession, oppression, and manifestations like a male voice speaking through a woman or they want negative attention which some deliverance ministers encourage that has believers trying to memorize the names of demons, looking for the devil everywhere, and hypersensitive about every feeling they get and calling it demonic (when in some cases it is, but in others it is natural.)

As Christians we need to keep our focus on our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Anything short of him, even if it something good like setting people free of demonic strongholds as Jesus mentions in Mark 3 can become a focus short of the Lord. Deliverance is a good thing, but when you become demon hunter, rather than a disciple of Jesus, something is wrong. Imbalance is always the culprit, if we keep things in their proper place, like there is a time to caste out demons and discern evil influences; and a time to be at peace and enjoy the presence of the Most High God!  

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