When Chest Pain Becomes Paranoid Delusions, Demonic Voices, and Suicide

I recently had a patient who came in to the hospital for chest pain.  But it turned out that his chest pain wasn’t a heart problem—or any problem, really.  It was temporary, and brought on by sheer panic.  Why?  Because the voices in his head were threatening him, making him paranoid, delusional, and suicidal—all of which we only discovered after all of the cardiac tests came back completely negative.  And once we did discover this, we began to monitor him for suicide because in that moment he was at very high risk for self-harm.

The truth is that he really didn’t want to hurt himself.  It’s just that the constant threats from the voices in his head were tormenting and he reasoned that if he killed himself first then they wouldn’t be able to carry out their threats.  His logical reasoning is highly flawed but at least understandable—and to be fair when someone is under that level of torment in their consciousness their ability to use logical reasoning definitely is reduced.

Now, when it comes to mental health there are usually a few basic categories most Christians fall under.  First there are the “it’s just chemicals in the brain misfiring” people, and these believers usually also don’t believe in miracles or divine healing or almost any of the other things that set Christians apart from every other belief system.

The second group are the “it’s just demons” people who ignore all information to the contrary and if someone is hearing voices then the only options is demonic influence.  Now this group at least recognizes that demons are real, and can cause or contribute to mental health problems, but there are some huge limitations they hit, such as further traumatizing already damaged people when the “demons” don’t leave because the fact is that not every mental health problem is a demon.

There is a third, growing category of people who recognize that not all voices in the head are demons or simply the result of chemicals, but the result of a fracturing of the human soul into different pieces and that while sometimes the voices can be demonic, sometimes they are other portions of someone’s soul they are hearing.  These parts cannot be cast out, nor should they be, as they aren’t “another being” any more than one’s left leg is considered separate from the rest of one’s body.  What they need is to be healed (To learn more about this, read “An Introduction To Soul Fragmentation”).

I talked to this man to find out a little more about him and what he was dealing with, as it can be very helpful to get an idea of what someone’s suicide plan is, and asked him if the voices were telling him to hurt himself.  Quite often they are, and the voices create a very high level of internal pressure upon the person carry out whatever they are saying.  In this case they were just threatening him, although the level of internal pressure sounded similarly high as compared to other situations.  He didn’t tell me anything specific they were saying, but he made it clear that he didn’t really want to hurt himself but he was afraid of what they would do to him and he was just wanting to protect himself from them.  If the man were given an official diagnosis (which at some point he was), he would likely be diagnosed with paranoid delusions, auditory hallucinations, and suicidal ideation, or something along those lines.

This man and I spoke briefly about what he was experiencing, but the next thing he said to me I found most interesting, and it was very telling as to what we were dealing with.  He told me that ever since I walked into the room the voices had gotten quieter.  He described it as though they were further away, like they had been pushed off in the distance, and were quieter and harder to hear as a result.  Now, as I explained before there are mental health problems that *aren’t* demons, but in this case it became instantly clear that demons is *exactly* what we were dealing with.

I am certain that someone far more spiritual than I would have commanded them all to leave right then and the man would have been set free instantly and then gone about the rest of his life, but I didn’t do that.  Why?  Because in the medical field there isn’t an official diagnosis of “demonization.” After I cast demons out of a patient and I get asked about the “nursing intervention” I just performed, my Bible-verse-laced explanation of why I dealt with spiritual reality the way I did simply won’t cut it.  What it would actually look like is that I took advantage of a vulnerable person with mental health problems to push my spiritual beliefs on them.  Thus, unless my goal is to get fired and risk losing my license then I’m a bit limited in what I can and cannot reasonably do when I am at work in these kinds of situations.  Which certainly can be a point of frustration for me because let’s be honest—in this instance demons were 100% the primary problem. So, I did the next best thing.

I decided to expose them.  I told the man that those voices are lying to him, that they have no power over him, and that they are incapable of hurting him.  I shared that any time he starts getting upset or anxious about what they are telling him to remind himself that they are lying and that all they can do is talk.  In some situations can demons do more than just talk?  Sure.  But in this case it seemed pretty apparent that all they could do was threaten him enough to try and get *him* to come into agreement with their plans and purposes.  Every time I saw him for the remainder of the day I made sure to tell him that everything was going to be okay and that he was safe.

I’m not sure how it is in other countries, but often in the US we have a stigma about mental health disorders.  Sure, sometimes it can be chemical imbalances in the brain.  Sometimes it is demons.  Sometimes it is demons that are also causing chemical imbalances.  Sometimes its alternate personalities and/or soul fragmentation at work. Sometimes it is all of the above or any combination thereof.  At the end of the day most people with mental health problems want to feel safe, loved, and normal.  They don’t like feeling like the “crazy weirdo” even if they fully realize that’s where they’re at right then.  The internal stimuli and the pressure that it creates adds a whole new level of stress upon someone that is simply invisible to the external world, and that can be very difficult to deal with.

When someone has a broken bone everyone can look at the cast or sling or stabilization boot and see that someone has a problem.  When something in your mind is broken, whether chemically, demonically, or through trauma and fracturing of the soul, we largely write it off as “their problem” and expect people to just “be different” and fix themselves.  Broken bones often require surgery and involved medical care.  But it’s considered socially acceptable and we make all kinds of allowances for it.  Mental health doesn’t get that same consideration, partly because it is really hard to prove that is the problem and partly because “time off work” and “rest and elevation” don’t fix soul-based problems.  The primary solution for problems of the soul is actually you and me—believers who know that Jesus came to bind up the broken hearted, to set captives free, and to bring us into total wholeness.  It isn’t good enough to just have head knowledge if we never use it, and it isn’t helpful to have authority over all powers of darkness if we never bother to exercise it.  But that’s why that’s our job—to set the captives free, to make disciples, to cast out demons, heal the sick, and do all of the other things Jesus commanded us to do.  Because if we don’t do it, who will?

What We Tolerate, We Empower

I posted something on social media the other day about gratitude, and how important it is to be thankful to God for even small things (In this case it was God showing me that a supplement I had started taking contained an item I have a food allergy to, and I didn’t realize it when I started taking it). While some of the conversation the post generated was nice, one comment was unnecessarily-instructional, informing me how I needed to pray to deal with the food allergy—as though it had never occurred to me before that I’m not supposed to have food allergies and that God has planned significantly better for me. I replied in the most positive way possible—thanking the individual for reminding and encouraging me to pursue God’s best for my body and my overall health. My reply got me thinking, however. How often have I tolerated these food allergies? I’ve had them for years so I’m definitely used to them, and have developed eating habits around them. I have certain supplements I take when things get out of hand because over the years I have found they work well for me. But in the midst of my dealing with the problem as it comes and managing my life around it, how much am I tolerating it because I am used to it instead of addressing it on a spirit, soul, and body level to become totally healed and set free from it?

I don’t actually know, which is why this got me thinking even more. I already do inner healing sessions regularly (I currently work with a woman who is highly skilled in what she does and has been a God-send for me—check her services out at Risen Light Works), so I’ll plan to do one or two that really hone in on any emotional issues and beliefs I have that are contributing to it. That will at least help deal with some of the soul-level issues that contribute. I already have supplements worked out that help me, but what am I doing on a spiritual level to deal with it? Certainly I could deal with demons, but I generally do deliverance in conjunction with inner healing, so I already expect to deal with that. But how am I inviting allergies and/or contributing to the issue in a spiritual level? That’s worth looking at.

We have to remember that it’s not always the big things that cause us problems in life. Certainly big-ticket items like abuse in any form, traumatic events and memories, and massive life stressors negatively impact us, but they’re low-hanging fruit in that they’re really obvious and we don’t have to look far to see their effects in our lives. No, it’s the little things that are harder to notice. Song of Solomon 2:15 says, “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.” This verse is a really good reminder that while the big things like trauma, grief, abuse, and other pain can be big destroyers, quite often it’s the little things running around and messing stuff up in our lives. The little things are insidious because they become easy to ignore. A lot of little things can build up and collect over a length of time before anyone starts to pay any notice, but those little things truly do add up. A single termite doesn’t matter, but a bunch of termites will destroy a house.

In order to truly look at this issue, we have to look at the topics of sowing, reaping, and agreement. Sowing and reaping is an extensive subject, such that I have written entire book chapters about it in my book The Power of Impartation. You can also search the term on this website and find multiple other articles I have written about it for free so I won’t discuss it in depth here, but sowing and reaping is definitely a key. Agreements are a separate-yet-related issue. What I agree with I automatically sow into and reap, but how do agreements come into play with health problems?

Agreements have to do with things we come into alignment with. The way we align ourselves and what we align ourselves with causes attractive and repulsive forces in the spirit, and those things directly affect our lives in visible and invisible ways. If I come into mental assent with the presence of food allergies, then I am in unconscious ways deciding that those food allergies are permitted to remain in my body and negatively affect me. If I come into subconscious or unconscious agreement with the presence of allergies in my life, then I will have a hard time getting rid of them. Why? Because I’m the one giving them permission to stay!

So, now I need to identify ways I may be tolerating food allergies in my beliefs and actions. Do I take supplements because I’ve given up and am settling and tolerating them, or do I take them while I am *on the journey* toward wholeness? In honesty it’s probably a bit of both, but that’s where the heart-check comes in. How am I tolerating this in my life? Because what I tolerate, I empower.

That might seem like an unlikely statement—that the simple act of tolerating something bad empowers it—but there is no true neutrality in the Kingdom. There are people and even I believe spirit beings that try to remain neutral, but it’s an impossibility. We are either supporting light or darkness with our actions, but also with our inaction. Inaction has helped many dictators rise to power. Recent lockdowns and shutdowns in the past few years have been able to occur largely because of inaction—that we tolerate evil and wickedness and go along with it just enough to not resist. Passivity and tolerance of evil empowers it because it lets it run free without attempting to stop it. So the question I have to ask myself is “how am I tolerating food allergies?” And what other un-health am I tolerating in my life?

As we identify the things we are tolerating in our lives, unconsciously or subconsciously coming into agreement with, we can them break those agreements, stop tolerating them, and as a result we will even shift things like our physical health!
Often it begins with identification, but once you identify the problem, then you can do something to fix it. I encourage you to take a moment to run a sort of personal inventory on the little problems in your life. What kinds of things have you been tolerating recently? And what do you want to have happen instead?

 

Uprooting the Poisonous Tree—The Process and Value of Inner Healing

One of the big-ticket issues people have with inner healing as a Christian practice is the idea that Jesus never directly talked about inner healing, and the resulting argument is that we therefore shouldn’t need to do it. One of the problems with this idea is that the Bible does actually tell us that Jesus provides for inner healing. in places such as Isaiah 53:4 which says He bore our grief and sorrow, and Jesus himself quoted Isaiah 61 which directly refers to replacing joy for mourning and praise for heaviness/depression. Even if we ignore those plain references to healing emotional issues, Jesus did share farming and planting principles that we can apply directly to emotional issues and how they function within our soul. We are going to look at an example that aligns with what Jesus did teach, and see how the practice of inner healing can help our spiritual growth.

Hebrews 12:1 tells us, ” Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us . . . ” This passage tells us that we need to do two things, and in a specific order. The first is get rid of the things that hold us back, and the second is to run forward on the path that has already been marked out and predetermined for us. What holds us back? Primarily three things: bad mindsets and/or lies we believe, emotional wounds, and demonic influences and attachments. Obviously we change mindsets through mind-renewal (Romans 12:2) and we deal with demons by casting them out. For emotional wounds, however, we have to heal them. And to do that, it helps to understand how emotional wounds work, and how to get rid of them effectively and permanently.

Emotional wounds are a bit like planting a seed in a garden. The garden is the soil of our hearts, or in reality, they occur in the dimension of the soul, but let’s work with the gardening analogy. When we have negative emotions that we do not properly process and remove, whether through unforgiveness, fear, mindsets, demonic influence, or simply a magnitude of emotional pain, those negative emotions get trapped in our hearts and get planted in the garden there, acting like seeds. As we encounter new situations that are similar to those initial seed-events, the seeds get watered and grow. As we indulge our fears and ruminate on those negative things, we feed and water those seeds even more, eventually growing those seeds into poisonous fruit-bearing trees, what are essentially emotional strongholds in our hearts. Now, if we wanted to stop having bad fruit from all of those negative emotions, we could spend all our time cleaning up the garden of our soul and removing all of the bad fruit. And while doing this provides some measure of inner benefit, in the end it is somewhat futile if that is all one does.

Here’s why.

The fruit of an emotional problem is simply the result of ongoing care and maintenance of a poisonous tree. The poisonous tree makes all kinds of room for demons to roost in its branches and the fruit ensures that the problems continue to grow and spread gradually over time. If properly tended, the tree can exist literally forever. In order to actually deal​ with the problem, one has to start moving upstream from the fruit, back to the source of the problem. One might argue that chopping off the branches would stop the tree from growing fruit, but have you ever seen what happens when a tree loses its limbs? In many cases even if cut down, so long as the roots remain intact the tree will extend its roots further and the tree will grow new limbs over time. In other words, cutting down the tree still won’t solve the problem. The only real solution is to uproot it entirely.​

This is where inner healing comes in. Instead of spending a lifetime dealing with the problems downstream of the actual issue, emotional healing is generally designed to uproot the issues at their inception. By doing this, the individual will stop having emotional triggers each time a new event occurs that is similar in some way to the initial one, which means they stop watering and growing that initial plant. Now, what complicates this a little is that each new event is also an opportunity to plant new poison-trees as well, so it usually takes time and energy to properly deal with the emotional roots of problems. These issues rarely appear overnight and are often the result of years of problems and ongoing reinforcement, so it is uncommon for these things to clear up in a single prayer session.

This is where a major objection to inner healing work gets raised—that Jesus completed His work on the cross once for all, and yet inner healing ministers just want to spend years and years rehashing past events that are already supposed to be cut off through the cross. And if people stopped having emotional problems upon salvation, then that argument would hold merit. What we believe is is supposed​ to happen and what actually​ happens are two different things. While certainly a one-time fix is the goal of every inner healing minister, it is simply uncommon, and thus we work with what we have and develop ways to do things faster and better over time, with the one-time-fixes all prayer-goal in mind.

In the meantime, someone seeking to get healing for their emotional problems would do well to remember that if problems weren’t created in a day, then they may not get fixed in a single inner healing session. Furthermore, in the same way that plant roots can get tangled with one another, emotional issues are often tied in with one another. Rejection from a parent may also come with guilt and shame in some way, fear of further rejection, and more. And that guilt and shame can then be linked to multiple different things, and so on. Thus, inner healing is often non-linear, sometimes meandering in ways that appear random at first, but when led by the Holy Spirit produce wonderful results.

At the end of the day, the point of inner healing isn’t to focus on problems. Well, it is, but only just long enough to heal them and provide tools for further self-healing work that the individual can do on their own. In this, it fulfills the first part of Hebrews 12:1, throwing off the hindrances and stumbling blocks that keep someone from moving forward into all God has for them. Ignoring the stumbling blocks slows someone’s forward movement. Removing them speeds it up. While it is possible to get bogged down in constant focus on emotional problems, that is addressed by renewing the mind, another aspect of the inner transformation process, and not one we are focusing on in this article. All in all, Jesus’s teachings as well as His work on the cross are congruent with the practice of inner healing, and those who make use of it, whether through any one of the myriad of modalities, methods, or practices available or on one’s own, he or she will, if applied consistently over time, experience accelerated spiritual growth, greater inner freedom and peace, and likely will find themselves growing deeper in their relationship with God. All in all, quite worth it.

If you are looking for some resources on how to get started, try the following:

 

 

 

 

 

The Truth Sets Us Free

The Bible tells us that the truth will set us free, and I participated in a really great example of that the past two days. As a float pool nurse, I get moved around the hospital regularly, so I have taken to praying each morning for God to assign me to the location I need to be on that day—and He has been faithful to do so each day. While at work those days, I had the opportunity to speak into the lives of some of the other nurses on the floor, and the results were pretty awesome!

Both nurses in question were having relationship problems, although entirely different in nature. With the first, I was able to explain a bit about how the soul functions in three separate parts—the mind, will, and emotions—and how when our emotions are storming out of control we have to make some choices with our will and choose our thoughts in a cold, calculated manner regardless of our feelings, and that as we do that, we can help shift how we feel in a situation. I also began to declare over her that her relationship problem was going to resolve and all will be well. By the end of the day, her countenance had changed—as had her relationship! The keys I had already given her were working!

The second of the two problems was a little more difficult and while I was able to speak some encouragement and hope into the situation, I was glad I got assigned to the same floor the next day. In fact, I almost didn’t, and at literally the last second my assignment got switched (it was so last minute I literally arrived late to the correct floor for the day) to where I had worked the prior day.

Both the nurses were really happy to see me, and we began our shift as usual with the normal daily tasks and care. During a lull in the day I spoke with the second of the two nurses who shared a bit more of how things progressed with her relationship the prior evening after we spoke—and while it confirmed some of what I had been saying the day before, it still wasn’t good. I reminded her that while she felt like things were hopeless, that a promise from God in Jeremiah 29:11 told her that she has a hope and a future, and encouraged her to shift her perspective to expect that they have a future together and that things will improve.

God was already giving out His freedom-releasing truth, but it gets better! A key part of the problem with her relational issue was actually the same as the first nurse the day prior—emotions and beliefs. The guy she was having difficulty with has a lot of unhelpful beliefs that are causing him problems, and causing her pain. I gave her similar advice on how to manage her side of the situation, but then encouraged her to pray for him so he could find a way out of his struggles.

As we discussed this, I pointed out Hebrews 6:12 which ultimately points out that it is through both faith and​ patient that we inherit the promises of God. She wasn’t understanding why things hadn’t changed in just a week or two, and I was able to show her how we have to persevere in our prayer and PUSH—Pray Until Something Happens!

As we continued to talk on the second day, I pointed out that she had already turned from negative direction to positive, and now it was walking out the positive. She just had to remain patient. I reminded her that Galatians 6:9 tells us, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” In the end, we just have to keep persevering. God answers our prayers—just sometimes it is piecemeal and not all at once.

I explained the day prior about emotional healing and how it sometimes happens in chunks and layers, not 100% all at once. I shared my friend Praying Medic’s book Emotional Healing in 3 Easy Steps (which she used that night), and I encouraged her to keep going.

By the time we were done, she felt light. I could feel the lightness. It was freedom because truth had set her free. And it was going to set her man free. And bring freedom to her, to him, and to those around them! Yaay God!!

 

 

Dad, I Want A Truck!

This last weekend was pretty awesome.  I got to see my best friend who flew to Texas to preach at the Alvin Healing Rooms, got absolutely blasted by the power of God and had a pretty radical inner healing and deliverance experience during one of the meetings, and God confirmed a number of things to me that He has been speaking to me recently time and time again throughout the weekend (Special thanks to the Alvin Healing Rooms for hosting the event!).  While there were so many different things God did for me alone this weekend, not to mention the dozens of others present who He also touched, I really want to hone in on something God was speaking to me about—that He is a good dad who wants us as His kids to understand what He is like.

My friend Steve has recently been reminding me that we really need to deal with our father wounds—the pains in our hearts related to our earthly fathers, as well as the incorrect perspectives and the wrong lessons we have learned about what fathers are like.  We all have them—wildly inaccurate views of what being a father is like, and thus have equally inaccurate beliefs about what God, our heavenly Dad, is like.  For instance, my dad wasn’t a bad father as a whole.  He loved me, would tuck us kids in most nights at bed by literally tucking the sheets around us—and we’d then lay still for a while because we didn’t want to get the sheets un-tucked.  My two brothers and I both did that too—because when we got tucked in by him, we felt loved.  On the other hand, my dad had an anger problem.  From knowing his dad, my grandfather, who was a kind of aloof man and hard to connect with emotionally, I would imagine that for my dad his own father relationship was fractured and that presented challenges for him when it came time to be a good father himself.  This isn’t a judgment against my dad either—I believe my dad has done the best he knew how at the time, and when we know better we do better.  God is still working on my dad like He is with you, me, and everyone else.

The reason I tell you all this is that because of the way my earthly dad was, one of the things I learned about fathers is that they’re angry, and that on some level, it is your job as a son to fear your dad.  To be fair, my mom would wait until my dad came home so he could discipline us so the role kind of got pushed on him to a degree as well, but the end result what that I learned on a subconscious level that dad = fear.  Likewise, when it came to dealing with my Heavenly Father, I’ve had the same fear.  I mean, I once experienced a miracle of literal gemstones falling from Heaven and hitting my body (you can read about it in my book Gemstones From Heaven) and while I was trying really hard to enjoy the miracle, I was simultaneously really afraid God was going to drop a big one right on my groin.  That alone should tell you that I have had some really messed up perceptions about what our Heavenly Father is like.  I connected God with fear and pain, so what I expected from Him was, well, not very much.

Jesus, on the other hand, was my Big Brother.  I’ve always felt close to him because he is kind.  He loves me and cares about me and helps me heal my hurts and pains.  And the Holy Spirit and I?  We’re friends.  But the Father?  Well, deep down I’m always watching out for Him because I find it hard to trust Him.  Why?  Because I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop and Him to do something to justify the fear I feel toward “father.”

Well, God has been upgrading my beliefs, and right now He is working on my view of Him as Dad.  My buddy Tyler said something this weekend that God was showing him, and it so ministered to me.  He said that God was challenging him about how when one of his kids wants something, he goes out of his way to get them that thing as soon as he can—and God was like “If that’s what you’re like, what do you think I’m like?”  It reminds me of that verse in Matthew 7:11 that says, “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”  Well, he was like, “Okay Dad, I want a truck!”  Well, he shared that with a few of us over a meal after the evening meeting, and I was like “That’s fantastic!”  And really, it is.  It is such a healthier view of God our Father than I have had for a while.  So, I’m working on calling Him “Dad”.  Why?  Because the term “father” to me is formal and distant.  I don’t call my earthly dad “father” so why would I distance God from me by doing that?

Well, not thirty minutes later, I decided to put this idea into practice.  I had driven from outside of Austin to Alvin, an almost three hour drive, and figured I would find a place to sleep for the night after the meeting.  Well, sitting at this restaurant I decided to pray a quick prayer.  “Dad, I really want a place to stay tonight that I don’t have to pay for.”  No more than three seconds had passed since I told my Heavenly Dad that when Brenda, the woman next to me, asked where I was staying for the night.  I told her I hadn’t found a place yet and she made a nearby hotel recommendation—then following it up with “I haven’t stayed there myself, so I don’t entirely know for sure.”  I told her “Well, I literally just finished praying about a place to stay right before you asked me, so if that place is what you suggest, that’s what I’ll do.”  And truly, when we left I was going to go find that hotel and stay there for the night.

As Heavenly Dad would have it, just a few moments later she asked me “well, do you need to shower in the morning?”  A strange question to some, maybe, but as a nurse I ask lots of weird questions so I’m pretty open about stuff.  I told her no, that I had showered that afternoon right before I drove to Alvin, so I wasn’t necessarily planning on showering the next morning.  She said, “Okay then, as long as you don’t need a shower . . .” and then she offered me a place to stay for the night at a local prayer room she runs that had couches and a bathroom—really all I actually needed for a decent night’s rest.

Well, the meetings were amazing, I got hugely touched by Heaven as I mentioned before, and after the meetings were done and I was driving home, the sky grew dark and it started raining.  It then went from rain to a torrential downpour and I had to slow down because of the sheer quantity of water on the road.  As I drove out of the storm it was early evening and the sun was low in the sky, and I wanted to see a rainbow.  I began looking around for one but couldn’t see very far behind me and continue safely driving.  Well, since God is teaching me this lesson about what He is actually like, I figured I’d give it another try.  I prayed, “Dad, I want to see a rainbow!”  I continued looking for a few moments and then pulled over.  In between the time I prayed and pulled over (because it wasn’t there moments before), a beautiful double-rainbow filled the sky and I could see the whole arch from one side to the other (the pictures don’t do it justice).  I could sense God confirming to me yet again that I need to change my view of Him as my Heavenly Dad and that when the Bible says things like “Ask whatever you wish in my name and it will be done for you (John 15:16b)” and “Ask and it will be given to you (Matthew 7:7a)” that God actually means it.

I am continuing this process of changing my view of what my Heavenly Dad is like.  I’m having to look at why I believe the wrong things I believe about Him, look at how those ideas got there, and then be intentional about choosing to believe something different (as well as get healing from the hurts associated with those inaccurate beliefs).  In this case, I’m also changing my expectations and am starting to expect better from Heavenly Dad than I have prior to now.  It’s a process, but God is committed to transforming my view of Him to see Him for who He truly is!  What am I doing with this knowledge?  Well, the battery in my truck is dead, again, and the engine likes to cut out when you go slowly in reverse.  I’d really like a blue crew cab 250/2500 truck that runs well, so my prayer right now is, “Dad, I want a truck!”

 

 

 

 

 

We Labor With All of His Strength

While talking with a friend the other night and doing some prayer-counseling, we got completely off-topic and began to discuss something I think people often mistake and/or misunderstand—the issue of co-laboring with God to do Kingdom work on the earth. There is this concern that some people have that if we say we are healing the sick or performing miracles than we are taking credit or stealing glory from God, which then bleeds into this false-humility thing where the moment God does something through us we start denying any involvement and weirdly start repeating an “It’s only Jesus, not me” mantra that comes off quite disingenuously. In reality, co-laboring is as it sounds—a partnering together with one another.

The Apostle Paul seemed to be acquainted with this issue to at least a small degree, and I think he did a good job of expressing how this works in Colossians 1:28-29 where he said, “He [Jesus] is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.” Another way it is translated is “I labor with all of His strength.” Partnering with God is all about us stepping out in faith to do the works He commanded us to do, but relying on His power, grace, and strength to complete that work, not our own.

I think we need to get a few facts clear. First, if we do not pray for the sick, the sick do not get healed. Second, if we do pray for the sick and they get healed, it was because we prayed for them. And third, when they get healed it was not because of any power we possess outside of the Spirit of God within us, but was the power of God flowing through us to make that healing occur. Thus, it is accurate when healing or performing miracles to say that both “I healed so and so” and “God healed so and so.” It would be most accurate to say “God healed so and so through me” or “God and I healed so and so,” but a lot of people seem to really struggle with this issue as though it weren’t true that our involvement played a huge part.

Signs, wonders, miracles, healings, and the like rarely happen without us, and they also don’t happen without Him. If we claim it had nothing to do with us then we aren’t being humble because it isn’t true—we are displaying false humility. If we act like we did it all on our own then we are displaying pride. Neither is healthy and both are lies, but in the bid to avoid pride, we tend toward false humility, as though one error is better than the other. Both are equally false.

The Bible has much to say about us growing up to become mature sons and daughters of God who are faithful with all that God has given us and who know how to rightly use the power and authority God has granted us (I cover the subject of power and authority as mature sons in my book Faith To Raise The Dead). When Jesus walked the earth doing ministry, He sent his disciples out in pairs (Matthew 10, Luke 10), giving them both power and authority to perform the works He had commanded them to do. When they came back excited about it, Jesus didn’t even tell them they were wrong—He simply told them there was a higher benefit they should be pleased about over and above performing miracles and casting out demons.

In the same way that Jesus reminded the disciples there is a higher benefit and gave them a mental reset after they performed wonders in His name, I think we need our own mental re-set. God is looking for those who will be faithful to co-labor with Him! God is looking for those who grow into maturity and can rightly discern what God is doing in a situation and co-labor with him in it! God is looking . . . for you!

I believe it is time we stopped living in fear that we are going to upset someone. There is far less risk of us stealing God’s glory (which has always been His anyway, and it’s not like Satan has succeeded in his attempts yet either) than there is of us living small because we are afraid we will either offend God by partnering with Him or offend people with religious mindsets when they see us doing it. We have been given the divine commission to do the good works that, get this, God has already prepared in advance for us to do!! That doesn’t sound like someone who is concerned about glory at all!! Let’s develop right mindsets about how this works so we can continue to labor to an even greater degree with all of God’s mighty power and strength to the glory of Jesus Christ!

 

Don’t Be Led By Fear

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.22″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.25″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.27.4″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]I was chatting briefly with another nurse on the intermediate care unit today and she was telling me how she is retiring soon to take care of her elderly parents, and that while she feels she is doing the right thing, she is really afraid that she might be making wrong decisions at the same time.  She told me about all of the precautions she is taking with her parents related to the current year-long medical scare.  And she asked me a question.

“Do you think I am going overboard?”

I didn’t really have the time to go into the immense corruption, proof of planning prior to the fact to release such a medical scare, the obvious and constant media lies, the immense dangers of the poison shot, and why random face textiles don’t solve any problems for healthy people.

What I was able to share was possibly more important by far, and it was a simple truth we all need to be reminded of sometimes.  What I said was “Whatever decisions you make, don’t be led by fear.”

At the end of the day this woman is demonstrating great love to end her career early and make sure her parents have the best latter-to-end of life they can have.  And yet if she makes ongoing decisions based out of fear she will be miserable doing it.

I explained briefly how she has useful medical knowledge that she can use, but that any time she finds herself getting afraid and making plans from that place, she needs to back up and start making decisions based on what she knows, not based on how she feels.

So many times in life we can get derailed by the enemy by giving into the lies in our own minds that push us into emotional fear-based decision-making instead of walking out life in peace even in bad situations because we realize we don’t have to be reactive to darkness—we can continue to make choices from a centered place and not give room to fear.

My encouragement to you is the same as I gave her.  We all have lots of things going on in life, but this advice will never steer you wrong:

“Whatever decisions you make, don’t be led by fear.
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Ignorant No More: A Realistic View of Spiritual War

There is little I find more disheartening than when talking to people who should be mature believers but who are somehow still very much asleep to the spiritual realities around us. A recent conversation with a friend highlighted this to me. We were talking about some of the issues in the USA right now—the riots, media manipulation, child trafficking, rampant political corruption, and more. I mentioned that I expected some of these issues to worsen through and after the 2020 Presidential election due to many individuals who are pulling out all the stops to keep from being arrested and tried for treason, sedition, and other high crimes. My friend, who doesn’t like to deal with anything negative, said something like “Michael, can’t we pray and fix all of that? That’s such a hopeless view of things.” No, it’s a realistic view of things because, like it or not, we are in a spiritual war.

Anyone who has followed my blog for some time knows that I have pretty high expectations as far as the workings of God in our lives. Whether inner healing and deliverance, raising the dead, immortality, or spectacular miracles such as gemstones and feathers from heaven, oil, manna, and much more, I am constantly pushing forward to access all that God has prepared for us in Christ Jesus. And yet, it would be the height of foolishness and immaturity for me to ignore the spiritual war we are in, all in favor of focusing only on the positives. In fact, while I value Bethel for many of the good things they bring to the Body of Christ, that is one of their major weaknesses. They don’t like to deal with the demonic (nor teach people how to) because they, of their own admission, don’t want to “give glory” to demons by acknowledging their existence. Well, demons would like nothing more than for us to ignore them because they try pretty hard to remain hidden. Failing to train believers to cast out demons isn’t maturity. Ignoring negative-sounding things in favor of positive-sounding ones only goes so far before it causes problematic imbalances.

Let’s be honest. Do I enjoy knowing that human trafficking exists in this nation in part to provide human sacrifices for people who willingly serve Lucifer so that they and demons both can gain power in the earth? No—nothing about that is enjoyable, and it can be disheartening to know that most of the time there is little more I can do about it than pray. Yet, remaining ignorant doesn’t help those people, and it won’t save the next victim either. Ignoring the undeniable fact that we are in a spiritual battle only serves to tie my own hands and reduce my effectiveness in dealing with the enemy.

My buddy Steve reminded me once that in every interaction he has had with angels during any kind of demon encounter that they were always armed with swords. And the reason that angels carry swords is because they know they are in a war and are fighting an enemy. We have been given spiritual weapons to fight this same spiritual war, and yet sometimes we teach and/or are taught to lay those weapons down because we are too negative or focusing on things that aren’t nice to think about. We need to learn how to be awake to the designs of the enemy, fight the battles in front of us, and yet also fix our eyes on the prize. There is a reason that Jesus is the desire of the nations, but even as we pursue Him we need to remember that as Revelation 1:16 shows us, even Jesus has a sword.

This past December 10th I had to put my dog Rowan down. She was the first dog I had ever had as an adult, and while she was a bit anxious at times, she was a sweetheart. Any time I was doing inner healing and deliverance with someone she wanted to be in the room. And the reason we had to put her down? 100% due to witchcraft attacks on our family. In fact, a few weeks prior to that a witch spoke to me and told me they were going after her because they wanted me to suffer. Super thoughtful, right? Ultimately, Rowan started having tonic-clonic seizures that we couldn’t get under control, then post-ictal she started trying to attack us, and since we couldn’t predict when she would have them it became unsafe for her to be around the kids, so we put her down. It absolutely broke my heart, and the rest of the family was just as devastated. And all because we are in a spiritual war that has real enemies and real consequences.

Sure, we can pray for God to fix things, and believe me, from the time the witch threatened me I was praying over my dog and my family—and yet we still lost the battle. It must be nice to be one of those people who can delude themselves into believing that life with Jesus is all roses and bliss, but that’s not reality. The reality is that while in His presence there truly is fullness of joy, we are still in a spiritual war and we don’t win every battle.

For me, that fact simply spurs me on harder to mature and become all that I must become in Christ to be both a sword against our spiritual enemies and a shield in front of my family and friends, but not everyone responds to problems the same way. What would have happened if the prophet Daniel had decided that fasting until an answer came wasn’t worth it, or wasn’t needed because “finished works” theology told him that fasting isn’t needed any more? I rather doubt that Michael the Chief Prince and the angelic messenger in Daniel 10 would have been able to win against the Prince of Persia if Daniel had not dedicated himself to fasting and prayer during that time.

If we choose to remain asleep to the war then we are relegating ourselves to the sidelines and making ourselves of little effect, and more often than not when sidelined we will either be ignored by the enemy because we are so harmless or we will be attacked relentlessly and destroyed. And neither outcome is acceptable.

I’m not saying we need to become hyper-suspicious of everything around us, nor am I saying that we can never have fun. No, it is important that we learn to live from a place of inner rest, enjoying the goodness, love, joy, and peace of God, and yet from that internal position rise up to put a stop to the darkness that encroaches upon this world God has given us responsibility over. Yes, the elections are important. And yes, the corruption in our political sphere, the Covid-lockdowns, the riots, and much more all need to end. But all of those things need to be put in context of a spiritual war that has been waged for thousands of years (and possibly even for millennia).

Earth isn’t the only battlefield. There are spiritual battles that occur all the time in star systems in far off galaxies and in other dimensions. Our prayers actually have ripple effects through the multiverse and across dimensions into other realms and realities that shift the tide in favor of God’s people throughout all of time and eternity. Our prayers are powerful and accomplish far more than we realize, but it is time that we realign our perspective on reality. It is time that we mature enough that we can both remain idealistic about the plans that God has for us to bring us prosperity and goodness and yet also effectively fight and win against the powers of darkness that seek to stop the promises of God from ever coming to pass. I can’t pretend to know what that will look like for each individual, but we need to examine our hearts, be open to the Holy Spirit dealing with our immaturities, intentional ignorance, and our fears, and learn to stand strong against the evil one. For, as Ephesians 6:12-13 reminds us, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.”

 

 

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If I’m Already Saved Then Why Do I Still Have Emotional Problems?

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One of the major weaknesses of the Church as a whole is its lack of focus on emotional health. In fact, the Church often ends up on weirdly unhealthy ends of the spectrum. One example is attributing all mental illness to demons and ignoring other legitimate organic causes. While much mental illness can and does have a demonic component, it is rarely the only cause, and attempting to cast demons out of someone who already has mental health issues without dealing with anything else can cause more trauma all on its own. Another example is when Christians tell a victim of spousal abuse that they cannot divorce and leave their abuser because “adultery” and “God hates divorce.” One end of the spectrum focuses entirely on one spiritual component to the detriment of other causes, while the other focuses on physical circumstances and ignores all other aspects of a given situation. Both are unhealthy, and both need to change. And yet, there is still a third camp that is so ridiculous I’m not quite sure where it lands—the “You’re saved, so everything is all better now” group. And when things actually aren’t better in spite of being told they are, people start to ask sensible questions like, “If I’m Already Saved Then Why Do I Still Have Emotional Problems?”

One of the first wrong answers we tend to tell people is “Maybe you aren’t really saved.” This then leads us to say the “sinner’s prayer” over and over (I still can’t find anything remotely resembling that in Scripture) as though telling God we are sinners regularly will somehow help us live in freedom in Christ (Hint: it doesn’t). When that doesn’t work, we usually tell the person they have someone they haven’t forgiven, and that God can’t forgive us if we don’t forgive other people. Then we soul-search to try to find that one person we haven’t forgiven that is causing such afflictions in our life. Oftentimes we still can’t figure out who that person we are being told must exist is, so we pray a catch-all prayer (again) to forgive anyone and everyone we might possibly have considered the potential of whether or not to have unforgiveness against . . . and yet things still don’t change.

So if it isn’t because we aren’t saved and we have already forgiven everyone, what causes the emotional problems? Didn’t all of that get taken care of in Christ? After all, Isaiah 53:4-5 says, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed (NKJV). If Jesus bore our griefs and sorrows, all of our emotional issues, then we’re good, right?

Wrong.

Sure, it would be nice to think that “because Jesus” that we will never experience any kind of emotional problem. I would absolutely LOVE that. But it doesn’t work that way.

Everyone has emotional junk. And while some of it can and often does get automagically fixed upon salvation, sometimes it takes a bit more work. Not only that, but what about new emotional wounds that happen after one gets saved? I prayed the “sinner’s prayer” when I was three years old (no, I wasn’t too young and yes, I do remember it). I’ve always loved Jesus. And he’s always been kind to me. But if all of my emotional baggage went away at that age, then I’ve still had over thirty years of new “stuff” that I’ve picked up over time. Putting down my dog last December still hits me at times. Getting kicked out of my church about 14 years ago just because I got married and the church couldn’t control me was hard for a number of years. If someone thinks that my wife and I have never had a major argument, then clearly he or she has never been married. And that doesn’t include family system issues from childhood, kids being mean on the playground in elementary school, and much more.

The good news is that while everything doesn’t simply vanish upon salvation, Jesus did pay the price for 100% of our emotional healing. It’s just that it usually takes our active involvement to apply what He did to the brokenness in our hearts. Jesus is the most amazing healer out there. He is gentle, kind, loving, and He has all the power needed to restore even the most shattered of hearts. When we feel like Humpty Dumpty, like nothing will be able to put us back together again, Jesus can. We may have to go through a process. We may need to systematically apply His grace to specific problems through prayer until everything is whole. And that process often isn’t fun, but it is good.

Should we expect that God will heal hearts upon salvation? Yes. And let us continue to pray and believe for that to occur. But if it doesn’t, we aren’t deficient, we haven’t failed to get saved, and we haven’t failed to believe God’s promises. In most cases, the Church has failed to accurately teach us how to apprehend true freedom in Christ. But the good news? We’re learning. We’re better than we used to be. And wholeness is always attainable. In Christ. From Christ. Because of Christ.


 

If you are looking for some resources to help you on your own inner healing journey, I recommend the following:

My coauthored book Broken To Whole

Praying Medic’s book Emotional Healing in Three Easy Steps

Karol Truman’s book Feelings Buried Alive Never Die

Dan Duval’s books Prayers that Shake Heaven and Earth and Advanced Prayers that Shake Heaven and Earth

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Did God Allow Job To Be Attacked By Satan?

There is a common view in the Body of Christ that while God didn’t cause Job’s afflictions directly, He allowed them by not stepping in and stopping the attacks. While the little we see of the heavenly meeting-room scene in Job 1 might suggest that God did exactly that, there is a LOT more to the whole Job situation than meets the eye.

Job 1:1 starts off with “In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.”  This suggests that there was nothing the enemy should be able to do to afflict him. After all, it goes on to explain how he would make daily sacrifices for his family. Super upright for his day, right?

Try again.

Job was incredibly bound by fear, and fear is one of the biggest enemy strongholds there is.  Job 1:5 explains that every single time Job’s adult children would have a party (which seemed like it was regularly), he would then make them go through ritual cleansing and he would perform a series of sacrifices on their behalf. Why? On the off chance they might have cursed God silently in their hearts sometime during their revels. If that wasn’t sufficient, it seems Job had a lot more fear too. Job 3:25 says, “What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.” He apparently feared losing his family, his belongings, and his health because all of that already happened in Chapters 1 and 2, and in Chapter 3 he makes that statement. And while that sounds kind of mundane, I suggest that Job had a high level of ongoing anxiety about his family on a daily basis that stemmed from a deep fear that he fed daily

People like to frequently make the argument that “God didn’t stop Satan” or “God allowed it”, but they seem to ignore two key points. The first is that the ancient Jewish belief is that Satan worked for God, so that in afflicting Job they believed Satan was actually performing God’s will. Jesus clarified for the Jewish people that Satan was an enemy of God and not working for him, but Job didn’t have that revelation. The second is that Job created tons of openings in his life for demonic affliction due to an easily-identified stronghold of fear. Job invited the affliction due to legal access via sowing and reaping of fear, and the enemy capitalized on that and wreaked havoc in his life.

We like to think that God is somehow supposed to wave His cosmic arm and make all bad things go away when it conveniences us, and the rest of the time our choices somehow don’t matter. In reality, our choices, beliefs, and emotions are what dictate to the greatest degree the things that happen in our lives. Certainly there are a number of factors that influence life events, but our choices, thoughts, and emotions are by and large the biggest contributors. When people get up in arms about why God “allowed” Job’s affliction, I suppose one could make the argument that God allowed it by setting up spiritual laws that govern the cosmos that in any way at all made it so Satan could afflict the man, but that is a gross oversimplification of a LOT of things and ignores a number of other highly important issues, free will being one of them. God didn’t make robots, so He also didn’t take total control over the lives and choices of angels, humans, or any other created beings, and neither we nor He would want it any other way anyway—except when it inconveniences us, that is. So if God giving us free will means he “allowed” Satan to attack Job then sure, that would be accurate. Otherwise it’s untrue.

The thing is, God doesn’t change cosmic laws willy-nilly based on our opinion that morning or based on whatever unfortunate thing happened that day. Some people get offended over that fact, but it’s a fact. God cares incredibly much about each one of us, to the point that Jesus willing laid His life down to purchase total freedom from all demonic oppression for us. God cares far more than we will ever realize. Do we really understand that Jesus literally walked headlong into situations that he knew were going to cause him intense trauma and pain, and then continued to walk through those situations when at any second he could have said a single word and stopped the whole thing? He underwent possibly the worst torture a human can undergo, and to make it worse he knew that if he failed, then all of humanity for all time and eternity would be eternally lost. He had the biggest gun in all creation pointed at his family’s head and knew that if He didn’t go through abject torture then every single one of us would die eternally. Can you imagine how hard that was for Him? I can only barely begin to touch on how He must have felt. But Hebrews 12 tells us that He did it because He knew it would be worth it eventually.

God didn’t afflict Job. He didn’t “allow” it. He didn’t “permit” it. Job and Satan worked together to bring calamity upon him, and when all is said and done, Jesus is the one who stepped out of heaven to fix things. He did it with Job, restoring double all he lost, and He continues to bring restoration in our lives as well because God is always, only, and ever good and about abundant life.

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