Why God Does Not Stop Evil

Some people struggle with understanding why God “lets” bad things happen. The “why didn’t God stop it” question has to do with a lack of understanding about sovereignty and God being in control. If God was “in control” like many say, then God is profoundly evil. It would mean that God intentionally causes rape, murder, and all kinds of perverse and wicked things in the earth. And even if we make the argument that God doesn’t personally perform them but “allows” others to perform them out of His infinite wisdom and grace, then God is basically a sadist, taking pleasure in the pain and suffering of others. But that’s not who God is, what He is like, or how any of this actually even works. God isn’t in control—or at least not remotely how people like to think. And this is actually the best explanation for why God does not stop evil.

The idea of sovereignty as is usually applied to God is that God is sovereign which means He is in control of everything in creation and thus whatever happens goes according to His will. This is inaccurate on multiple points. First, sovereignty has to do with being the highest authority over a domain—and that’s all it means. Note that I didn’t say “highest authority where everything goes his way”. I simply said “highest authority”. God as sovereign simply means that there is no one with a higher level of authority that God. But that doesn’t mean everything goes the way God wants it to.

We can look at earthly examples and see this is true of any sovereign. Kings and emperors are also sovereigns—the highest authority in their domain. If a king makes a decree and not everyone follows that decree, does that threaten the king’s sovereignty? Does it somehow make him less of a king because someone disobeyed the order? Of course not. Someone breaking the royal law doesn’t change the king’s rulership in any way—it simply means that if the king wants his rulership to have any value, he has to set up enforcers throughout his kingdom—those who enforce the rules the king has put in place.

We have only to look to the first three chapters of Genesis and we can see that God doesn’t always get His way in spite of the fact that He is Sovereign over everything in all creation. Adam and Eve disobeyed His instructions in the third chapter of Genesis, and mankind has been disobeying Him ever since, but that doesn’t mean that God’s rulership is threatened. In fact, not only is not threatened, but in Christ Jesus, God has appointed us who were once His enemies (Romans 5:10) as chosen enforcers of His Divine Will in the earth. God isn’t in control and things don’t always go His way, which is where we come in.

Did you know that the Bible tells us that it is largely up to us humans to decide what happens in the earth? Psalm 115:16 says, “The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to mankind.” Again in Amos 3:7 it says, “Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.” God has chosen to partner with us to influence the earth realm, even to the point that God doesn’t do anything without our involvement in some manner. And this is an important fact to take note of.

God set up laws in the fabric of creation that govern how the multiverse works. God is just, in that those laws govern all creation, He follows His own laws, and those laws don’t care who you are–they are impartial in their function. For whatever reason God gave mankind authority over the earth, and this means that He is bound by that decision as well. If God wants to do things in the earth He has to involve us in some way, so when we think that God hs somehow “allowed” evil, what has in fact happened is that we have allowed evil.

This is a hard pill for some to swallow because it means that mankind, then, is generally responsible for the ills that befall us and not God. It is frustrating at times to be sure, as demons make use of spiritual laws that we are often ignorant of to cause affliction, torment, and ultimately death, loss, and destruction—yet even then, they typically do it with our involvement as well.

For example, if someone has unhealed emotions, then demons use those unhealed places to set up a stronghold inside the person, then they expand their dominion inside that individual. Demons utilize the law of sowing and reaping to attract evil to that person over time through the position of their stronghold, and it works because they are using, even if in a twisted way, spiritual laws to gain “legal” occupancy inside a person. When bad things happen and we perceive that God doesn’t stop it, it’s because demons have expanded the realm of their control inside that person which allows the demons to afflict that person in various ways and ultimately we not only haven’t stopped it, but have made room in our hearts for that evil to exist.

The demonic make great use of the authority of humans in the earth to cause pain and suffering, and they do it by influencing our free will. The Holy Spirit does similarly, influencing us to use our free will to bring life all around us, but He is kind and not manipulative, unlike the enemy. The Holy Spirit invites us into a partnership with Him whereby we can together release transformation into the lives and circumstances around us.

And while we can make the argument that God doesn’t stop evil because it’s our job to, we also need to recognize that God actually stops evil a LOT. We don’t have half of a clue of the many myriad things God has protected each one of us from, but the moment something does make it through, we tend to get upset and blame God for “not stopping” it. No, God gave dominion of the earth realm to us. If something makes it through, it’s our job to do something about it based on the authority He has given us instead of blaming Him for us not adequately taking dominion in our own lives.

This past December we had to put our dog Rowan down. There was a known spiritual component to the problems that led up to the end result, and the entire thing was very upsetting as a result—both because we loved (and still love) her, but also because the spiritual issues that surrounded her death screamed “the enemy won this battle”. While I normally never blame God for anything, I found my own heart tested on this subject, as I found myself thinking from time to time things like “God, why didn’t you stop this?” The truth is that I don’t believe that God is in control and I haven’t for years, but when circumstances come up, it tests what we actually believe and reveals hidden motives in our hearts. God didn’t kill my dog, and He certainly didn’t cause me and my family pain in order to teach me a lesson about persistent subconscious and unconscious beliefs. While God in His infinite goodness certainly works terrible situations like this for my good, He isn’t causing it, isn’t influencing it to happen, and isn’t responsible for it. Humans were responsible for partnering with the enemy to bring harm to my family, and my responsibility lay, at least to a degree, with failing to protect a member of my family.

I don’t say or share any of this to bring condemnation on anyone so if anyone is hearing that from this story I am sharing, that isn’t the point at all (and I don’t condemn myself for it either). I am trying to illustrate that when bad things happen to us, it isn’t because God is permitting evil, it isn’t because we are being tested like Job, and it isn’t because God is giving us a heavy burden to bear because He will only give us what we can handle. All of those are highly erroneous beliefs developed from a poor understanding of God’s nature, and they have no similarity to who God is or what He is actually like.

The Bible says in Proverbs 26:2 that a curse that has no cause cannot come to light, meaning that if there is no access in our lives that negative things cannot have power to influence us. The issue many people have isn’t that a curse is causeless—it’s that we don’t have a clue what the cause is, and assume there isn’t one when the cause is just well-hidden. Many times we don’t know that we have access points for the enemy and the enemy wants to keep it that way. God, however, reveals ways that we can destroy the access that the enemy has in our lives so He can bring us into increasing realms of true freedom. In this process, God also reveals to us the authority He has given us to destroy works of darkness (Luke 10:19) so that we can enforce His abundant life in the earth.

No Longer Alone

One of the things that hit me pretty hard in the past few weeks is that we all have times when we feel like the world is crashing around us. It’s honestly quite hard when that happens, and it is even harder when we feel all alone in the process. Sometimes calling a friend helps us get back on track, and that’s something I highly recommend (provided the friend is loving, supportive, and kind). But what do we do when we feel all alone? I’m not talking about lonely—feeling like there’s no one around us—but alone, like no one is out there and we are in it for ourselves?

The best cure for being alone is to learn to experience the truth that we are never alone.

Jesus said and did a lot of really strange stuff. Really though, he did, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something. I mean, who goes and tells people to literally eat his body? Or that he is bread? Who goes and sticks spit-mud into someone’s eye so they can see better? Who expects to find fruit on fruit trees when it isn’t fruit-season, and then curses them when they don’t make fruit? Jesus did all of that, and more. And yet, in spite of all of the strange things He did, His followers have grown from an initial twelve to what amount to billions over the past couple thousand years. If we can learn anything from the odd things Jesus said, it’s that He said them for a reason and that He said all of them because he meant each and every single thing he said.

Deuteronomy 31:6 says, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” While Jesus didn’t say that Himself, He is God, which means Jesus will never leave or forsake us. But there is something Jesus said that is pretty similar, and I think it is important that we pay attention. In John 14-16 he was talking to His disciples about important things surrounding his death and resurrection, and had words of wisdom for them to continue on after he was no longer with them in person. During this time, Jesus said something of note:

In John 14:16-17 Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” Again in John 16:7 he said, “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

Jesus was pretty adamant that we would never be alone, and the Holy Spirit literally lives both with us and in us at all times. It can be difficult to accept this truth at times, especially when everything is going wrong and we feel completely alone. However, I think it is important for us to cultivate a relationship with the Holy Spirit so that even when we feel alone we can experience His presence around us and encounter the never-alone that Jesus promised us.

It can be really hard when we feel all alone to spend time with an invisible God and have that feel comforting in some way. But when we build a habit of spending time with Him and we actually develop a friendship with Holy Spirit (2 Cor 13:14), we don’t have to feel alone anymore. A few ways to do this are through something called Soaking Prayer, Resting in His Presence, or a similar means of encountering God called Contemplative Prayer. I highly encourage spending time learning to cultivate a relationship with the Holy Spirit in general, but especially for those times when we feel alone, He is always with us.

(Note: If you truly feel hopeless, alone and are at the point you want to hurt or harm yourself in some way, or even end your life, please call the national suicide helpline—1-800-273-8255. Someone is there to talk to you and help you through the tough time you are having. No matter how bad things feel or seem, there is always hope, and things can always get better. www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org)

Faith Lessons: Buying and Selling a House

For those who have been following along for a bit, you know that we have packed our house in Portland and are moving to the Houston area of Texas. The process began in the first quarter of last year, but the past ten months have consisted of her making a bunch of declarative statements about what is and is not going to happen in this moving process . . . and I basically shot all of her ideas down over and over again. She stuck to her guns, and as things have moved forward, so far she has had most everything she has been steadfastly declaring pan out the way she has been praying for it to. While I don’t normally look to her for lessons on how to engage faith, I have to say that I have learned a lot from her in the past few months.

I am somewhat Type A, and I don’t like messy change with a bunch of moving parts. I like to administrate problems out of the equation instead of fly by the seat of my pants and make decisions as things come up. Sunshine prefers it the opposite way, which is a struggle for me at times, but this time around I think the lesson has been more about purposefully engaging faith and trusting God to walk us through each step of the process. I once heard someone say that the Bible says “Your word is a lamp unto my feet”, not a 100-yard spotlight down the road, and the lesson applies here.

In this process I have become more acutely aware of how my own fears were playing into my unbelief and even discouraging her in the process. There are times to make decisions out of human wisdom, but there is a difference between being wise and being afraid. If we operate out of fear, we will think that something is wise because it is less risky or causes less fear even if it isn’t the best choice for us. However, when we aren’t operating out of fear we can be free to choose to do something in faith *or* we can choose to do something that we consider wise based on true wisdom instead of being guided by fear.

I’m still not 100% at rest with this move, but that has much to do with the fact that I will miss my local friends, my job and my coworkers whom I enjoy a lot, and we are making a huge life change in faith that things are going to “work out” on the other end. What I am finding, however, is that while my emotions may not always be totally on board with the move, God has been faithful to come through with the solutions we need as we need them. While it would be nice if God showed up early at times, He has met each of our needs every step of the way.

I recently heard a speaker point out that we have the God-given power to alter probabilities. When we engage our faith toward something, we shift the probabilities of certain events occurring in our favor. No one told my wife how we were supposed to find a new house, pack, and then sell our current house. However, months before we did any of this she made some very conscious decisions about what she wanted to see happen. She activated her faith, the time-space continuum shifted (in spite of my fear-based attempts to shift it back), and many things have continued to work out step by step as we go. There has been a lot of warfare along the way, but the lesson here for me has been a reminder that we truly do get to choose a lot of what happens in our lives. I have a choice each day and with every choice I make to partner with God in faith or partner with the enemy in fear. What kind of choices do I want to make, and what kind of person will that transform me into over time? I choose to become a man of great faith, and I am thankful that from time to time God reminds me how to walk that out.

Inner Healing: A Key To Immortality In Christ

A few weekends ago my wife and I were blessed to spend an evening with friends. We had dinner together, then hung out in the living room for a while talking about a variety of things, but one subject that stuck out to me was inner healing. Inner healing is very important to me, as I believe it is one of the primary ways we become able to step into the fullness of all that Christ has for us. It’s not so much that inner healing helps us grow, but it removes all of the hindrances that keep us stagnating in our spiritual walk so that nothing can prevent us from moving forward. What struck me about the conversation wasn’t the subject as a whole, although I did learn a few things, but something specific that my buddy Steve pointed out.

He noted that Jesus was sinless, so the power of death wasn’t at work in him, which isn’t new information, but what struck me is that Steve also pointed out that Jesus didn’t have any emotional wounding, and therefore his soul wasn’t fragmented—he was possibly the only human alive who has ever remained totally whole. While this might not sound significant to some people, it was deeply meaningful to me. (For some background, read “An Introduction to Soul Fragmentation“).

In my ongoing pursuit of immortality in Christ, I keep my eyes and ears open for information and revelation on the subject, and when I heard this, I knew it was an important key. However, for it to make sense, one has to understand something else Steve was explaining—how the enemy uses the mechanism of a fractured soul to afflict us and prevent us from living in the fullness Jesus purchased for us. When we have parts of our soul still under demonic bondage, we cannot fully live out everything that God has for us. Furthermore, demons cause ongoing death, loss, and destruction (John 10:10), so it should be of little surprise to us that having parts of our soul being tormented by the enemy can harm us as a whole. In fact, because each part of our soul possesses a portion of our free will, it is actually possible for a part of us to sin in some way even though the rest of our being is uninvolved, and we all know that sin causes death (Romans 6:23).

I should clarify here before moving on that I do believe there are men and women alive on the earth today who have lived for hundreds of years, and recognize their souls may or may not still be in some level of fragmentation (Having not met any of them personally, I don’t know one way or the other). I think that these individuals have probably touched on various aspects of this revelation of immortality in Christ, and as such are living out of the fruit of that revelation, whatever it may be. It’s also entirely possible they have hit on this point as well, but it’s not likely all of them have. Why do I say this? I don’t want anyone to think that having one’s soul made whole is a prerequisite to immortality, because I don’t think it is. However, I do think that as we pursue this revelation, that every key moves us one step closer to the goal.

In nursing and medicine, when treating people’s pain we do something called “multimodal pain management.” What that means in simple terms is that we will give someone a few different medications, each of which do different things and connect with different receptors, all with the ultimate goal of managing pain. One medication works on nerves, another on inflammation, another on relaxing muscles that are influencing the pain, and still another on the actual sensation of pain in the central nervous system. All of these together do a better job of pain management than simply using one of them, but any single one of those medications when used by itself will still help reduce pain.

How this relates to immortality is that I personally believe in a sort of multimodal approach to immortality in Christ. Some people firmly believe in taking communion daily as the key. Others focus on getting an inner revelation and mind renewal. Still others believe that growing our faith in this area is the way to go. As my buddy Steve helped me identify in this conversation, inner healing is yet another key to walking out this revelation. I personally believe that all of the above are relevant, and that we should make use of any and all of them.

If you want to learn more about this subject, I encourage you to pick up a copy of my book “The Gospel of Life and Immortality,” on Amazon, available on both Kindle and in Print. You can also check out my articles in the Resurrection and Immortality category here on the site.

Bearing Fruit That Lasts

As I said recently in a social media post, “Inner healing isn’t always fun, but it is always worth it. Sometimes the fruit isn’t instantly evident, but that’s how we’ve been trained to believe and expect things to happen in our microwave Western culture. The question we have to ask ourselves is not “does this look nice and tidy” but “does it bear fruit that lasts? (John 15:16a)”

Inner healing should bear positive results over time, but the unpopular truth is that it doesn’t necessarily mean that at the end of every session someone will feel more peaceful, joyful, or even more hopeful. Certainly one could make the argument (and many do) that if God was in it, then one should leave a session of inner healing with more fruit of the Spirit as a whole, and while that is usually true, it simply isn’t always true. Sometimes part of the inner healing process involves grieving things that you let go of. Grief doesn’t look very much like hope, joy, or peace. So while inner healing may be good, and healthy, and helpful, it is also a process.

One of the struggles of the inner healing movement is that it sometimes looks very counterproductive from the outside. What I mean by that is that if someone goes through deep inner healing and starts uncovering repressed memories of childhood abuse, traumatic circumstances that have caused PTSD, or other painful memories of past events, the long-term result will eventually be wholeness. In the short term, however, there may be an increase in emotional triggers and a grieving process for things that have been lost may occur. Mind you, Holy Spirit is the Counselor and Comforter, and during this process, He is ever-present to give both counsel and comfort, but that doesn’t always mean everything is fixed in ten seconds. To the outside observer, this tends to make things appear like they are making things worse instead of better, but that’s only if the goal is instant results instead of fruit that will last.

On the other hand, sometimes inner healing ministers, coaches, and counselors can be their own worst enemy. Certainly, there are conditions and circumstances that tend to take a lot of time and energy to wade through. At the same time, not every person or situation requires that same level of depth. If there is a high level of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA), Freemasonry, or other bloodline-related issues in a family line, those can take a good bit of time and energy to unravel, and even moreso if the individual is an SRA survivor as well. While bloodline issues tend to far more prevalent than we wish they were, the good news is that not everyone falls into those categories, and not every situation requires years of inner healing work to unravel.

The best thing we can do for ourselves and our families is to get inner healing early and often. I say early because the sooner one deals with things in his or her family line, the better one’s future will be, and this is also passed down to any children one has as well. If people get inner healing as children or teens, they won’t have the same level of problems as if someone is fifty and just beginning the journey. I say often because life throws things at us on an ongoing basis. Whether it is something as simple as remembering to forgive a coworker who upset us or something more complex such as breaking off occult curses that have recently been sent our way, engaging this process often, even if only to a minimal degree, ensures we not only maintain but continue to progress in our personal journeys to wholeness.

While Jesus is the Healer and Savior and delivers us from our distress, even He went through difficulties and problems. The Bible says in Isaiah 53:3a that, “He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. (NLT)” In Hebrews 12:2b it says of Jesus that, “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus knew that some of the things he would go through would be exceedingly difficult. It was so hard that in Luke 22:42a Jesus even asked “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me . . .” The difficulty Jesus faced at that time was more emotional than anything else. He knew what He was getting Himself into, and He really didn’t want to do it. Yet as Hebrews 12:2 says, Jesus endured all of the pain and difficulty, grief, sorrows, and shame because He recognized that on the other side would be great joy.

At the end of the day, whether the issues in one’s life are simple and easy to move through or extremely complex, highly traumatic, and difficult to deal with, it is important for us to remember that we need to be looking not just for short-term easy solutions, but for long-term fruit.

Walking Together In Disagreement

Normally, when we talk about “walking with” another person, we generally refer to being in agreement with him or her. However, in the current climate of our world, which on a political level is somewhat toxic, we need to understand the importance of walking together in disagreement.

Is it nice when we agree with one another? Sure. It certainly is convenient, at any rate. Comfortable too. In fact, some people become so comfortable in their place of agreement that they surround themselves with proverbial “yes-men,” and anyone who disagrees is removed from the circle. However, there is a certain danger in always keeping ourselves cloistered in comfortable agreement, and that danger is stagnation.

When we find people in life we disagree with, especially if we are able to handle that disagreement in a mature manner, we have an opportunity to grow. I’m going to use transgenderism as an example. I personally believe that most if not all transgender individuals have an underlying psychological issue or disorder that needs to be treated as opposed to it being a difference to be celebrated. I also believe that by celebrating dysfunction, we do these people great harm. In my line of work as a trauma nurse, I occasionally work with transgender individuals and help them along their healing journey after a car accident or other physical trauma. During that time, I call them whatever name and personal pronoun they prefer to be referred by, and treat them with the same respect I would give to any other human being. Basically, the transgender subject with that person only becomes an issue, in my mind, if it is somehow medically relevant or if they choose to bring in a whole lot of drama about it. The key to my entire example is this: I don’t have to agree with their perception of transgenderism to help them physically heal, care for them, or be kind and loving to them.

There are so many things in life where we disagree with one another. And while unity and agreement can be helpful and at times quite powerful, we also have to be able to walk together in disagreement with one another. I don’t even always agree with my wife, but we have been married for twelve years and are going strong. There are definitely a lot of times I have upset her, and she has upset me, and we disagree on a lot of things. However, the key to good relationships is learning not how to walk together in agreement, because that is easy. It’s when we disagree that we have to put the effort in and figure out how to keep moving forward.

While writing this, I was distractedly scrolling through my Facebook feed and came across a conversation about kids and Trump hats and a generally volatile real-life situation. I read through the comments and read the following quote: “my bias came out when I saw those ‘Make America Great Again’ hats. To me it just says bigotry, racism and limited thinkers.” The ironic thing about the above statement is it was possibly one of the most bigoted things the person could have written, and demonstrated extremely limited thinking. A bigot, by definition, is one who is intolerant of those with differing beliefs. The man who wrote the above quote looked at a person, saw a hat with a particular slogan on it, and immediately judged the character and heart motivations of the person wearing it without actually attempting to see if any of his judgments were actually true.

My wife and I have some family friends with very divergent political beliefs. The thing is though, that we have healthy and even enjoyable political discussions because we don’t let politics define our relationship. Our choice to share life together as friends is what decides how we manage our disagreements, not the other way around. Certainly there are times to limit the level of access that we give toxic relationships in our lives, but I think that these days we are far more focused on cutting out dissenting voices than we are engaged in learning from one another and committing to walking together even in disagreement. I think it’s high time that we bring back some maturity into our disagreements.

Can a Christian Have a Demon?

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This is a pretty common question that I hear people ask, and there are (unsurprisingly) two main answers: Yes and No. And in reality, there really are only two possible answers, although the different camps tend to break their beliefs down into further detail on the specifics. Before answering this question, I’m going to explain why it’s important to know whether a Christian can have a demon or not.

The answer to this question helps explain a number of significant things in the life of a believer. It helps assign blame appropriately when things go wrong in life. It helps us understand the root causes and influences of personal vices, sins, and ongoing life struggles. The answer helps us realize why we sometimes have difficulty overcoming in certain areas of our lives, while other areas we see great victory in. Most of all, the answer to this question helps us know how to walk in the freedom that Jesus Christ already purchased for us on the cross over two-thousand years ago.

The answer to the question is “Yes”. Yes, Christians can and do have demons. But that’s just the beginning. Not only can we have them, but we can have them influencing us in ways we never realized, and once we uncover their work and get rid of them, we can walk in levels of freedom, peace, and joy in Christ we never realized were possible. Many times we have been so used to demonic resistance in those areas that we just never realized there was something better to enjoy in God.

“But Michael, it says in the Bible that Christians can’t have demons!”

No, it actually doesn’t. People simply make assumptions based on what they wish were true and ignore the facts to arrive at that conclusion.

The most common verse people use to “prove” that a Christian cannot have a demon is from James 3:11, which states “Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?”. The idea is that “fresh water” which supposedly represents the Holy Spirit here, cannot coexist with “salt water” which supposedly is demons, and thus a Christian, who has the Holy Spirit indwelling him or her, cannot have demons. The problem with this verse is, well, the first problem is that salt water isn’t used anywhere in all of scripture to describe demons, so it’s basically making things up. The second problem with this verse is that the context is extremely clear, and it is very plainly obvious that this passage is not talking about demons. Let’s look at the passage a little deeper. By reading a larger section of James 3 and not just cherry-picking verse 11 out of context, it gives this passage a pretty obvious meaning. James 3:7-12 says:

“All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”

The entire passage is about the tongue, and the terms “fresh water” and “salt water” here are referring to our words, not the Holy Spirit and demons. Furthermore, in verse 10 it says “my brothers and sisters, this should not be” It doesn’t say cannot be, meaning it is impossible, but rather that it currently happens but it would be a good thing for it to not happen. So even if we pretended this passage was about demons and not about how we use our words, the passage would prove to us that it is possible, not the other way around.

In Acts 8, Philip went to Samaria, and verse 7 tells us he healed many people and cast demons out. In verse 15, it tells us that many new converts had been baptized with water, but had not yet received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. From this, we can recognize that Philip was doing a few different things all at the same time. He was preaching and converting people, casting out demons, and healing the sick. If all he had to do to make the demons leave was convert people, which the passage shows us he was already doing, why bother casting out demons? Why not just skip that pointless step and convert everyone if indeed conversion brings total and complete removal of all demonic forces from the body and soul? Simple: Because as much as we all wish it did, that’s not how it works.

In reality, demons make people uncomfortable. The idea that there are non-visible evil entities that can live inside us and influence our thoughts and behaviors is kind of creepy. The idea that we have a special protector named Jesus who keeps all the bad things away is of great comfort to many. The problem is that they take this fact to the extreme and apply it in ways it was never meant to be applied and in situations where it doesn’t work that way. While Jesus does give us the power to oppose demonic forces, that fact doesn’t automatically eject ones that have already taken residence up within us, and people have a hard time swallowing that. Actually, most people avoid all involvement with the demonic as a whole, including casting them out of people. I attribute this largely to a combination of fear and ignorance.

Many are afraid of demons, so if they ignore them, they can feel like demons aren’t there. Others are simply ignorant of the workings of the enemy and simply don’t have a clue of what is going on in the unseen realms around them. Still others have no clue but don’t want to get a clue because remaining ignorant means they get to stay happy in their self-protected bubble of inaccuracy. Ignorance, however, is not part of the armor of God mentioned in Ephesians 6; on the other hand, the belt of Truth is.

If we want to lead fruitful and effective lives, throwing off “everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles (Hebrews 12:1b),” then we need to include casting out demons in the mix. This goes for Christians, not just unbelievers. Most of the people I have cast demons out of have been followers of Jesus for years, oftentimes a decade or more. And while the common party line of those who erroneously think Christians can’t have them is “Well, they must not have been really saved to begin with”, the fact is they’re just wrong and don’t want to admit it.

Some people find it easier to play a round of theologymnastics to try and make all life situations fit into their inaccurate belief system than it is to admit they are wrong and learn new things. That seems silly, fruitless, and extremely immature to me, so I don’t play that game. If I’m wrong about something, I might as well realize I lacked sufficient information before, then include new information to arrive at a better understanding of how creation actually works. There is nothing shameful or wrong about not knowing something, and we are all hopefully learning new things on an ongoing basis. What is shameful is ignoring the truth when it is presented in favor of further entrenching oneself deeper into ignorance.

Casting out demons may not be everyone’s preferential way to spend their time, but it is important to at least know what to do when demons decide to unexpectedly appear. As believers, the Bible says we have been given authority over unclean spirits to cast them out, and we need to both understand and walk in that authority, even if we do so infrequently. If you don’t know much about this practice, it’s time to learn because demons don’t stop their work just because you don’t know what to do when you discover a Christian has a demon.

Below are a series of articles I have written that may help you better understand how to deal with demons when they manifest in yourself or those around you:

http://www.thekingsofeden.com/2016/04/divine-healing-that-works-part-2/

http://www.thekingsofeden.com/2016/05/divine-healing-that-works-part-5/

http://www.thekingsofeden.com/2018/01/dont-fear-demons-make-demons-fear/

http://www.thekingsofeden.com/2015/08/the-influence-of-demons/

Resting in God’s Presence

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I got an unexpected phone call the other morning from a brother in Christ, and we began talking about resting in God’s presence, a practice also known as “soaking”. He began to share about times of worship he has enjoyed where the Presence of God would come strongly upon him, but then at some point he would feel that strong atmosphere around him lift off and go away. He said something interesting, “Brother, I don’t like it when it goes away, and I haven’t figured out how to make it stay.” This statement brought further discussion, and we continued to look at the factors involved in resting in God’s presence.

The thing we have to remember about soaking is that when we do this, we are engaging a person, not a thing. The reason this brother couldn’t make Holy Spirit remain is because we don’t have the ability to control Holy Spirit, nor should we. God is God, and He will do what He chooses to do when He chooses to do it. However, while we cannot force God to do anything, that doesn’t mean we don’t have the ability to influence His choices.

James 4:8a says, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. (ESV)” While we cannot force God into remaining near us with His presence when we soak, we can always engage our relationship with Him to encourage Him to remain, and if not remain, to return. When we are in a time of resting in God’s presence and we will feel His presence “lift” or leave or lessen in some way, many times people think “well, I guess that’s it then.” They end their time of enjoying God and continue with their day. What some don’t realize is that if we feel His presence lift, if we re-engage Him, He will usually return with His presence and we can continue to enjoy Him longer.

God is a person, albeit a Divine Person, and we get our human emotions and responses from Him. When someone reaches out to us, we tend to be favorably disposed toward engaging them, and we get this from God. We like being liked, and so does God. If we choose to spend our time in adoration and/or worship of Him, we will find that He graces us with the “with you” presence spoken of in John 14:17. If we want God to come, we simply have to draw near to Him first, and He will respond. If we want Him to return, we simply have to draw near again. This is both the what and the how of soaking prayer. The practice of resting in God’s presence is incredibly simple and is all about engaging Him until His external presence comes, and then enjoying Him once He comes.

Personally, soaking is one of my favorite things to do. I greatly enjoy the sensation of feeling Him on my skin. It’s hard to describe, but there is this sort of weightiness combined with this feeling of air currents on my skin combined with this slight electric sensation. After a while, I simply can’t handle laying in His presence any longer because it becomes too intense. I rarely have an issue with His presence leaving, but when I do, it is often because my own focus wanders elsewhere. When that happens, I simply refocus on Him and His presence, and those sensations that mark His presence return once again.

Sometimes when we take time to do this, at first we may sense and feel nothing. However, as we engage Him time and time again, we will find, often within just a couple weeks or even a few days, that we begin to sense His presence. Resting in God’s presence is incredibly easy, but it might not have instant results. Then again, it may. As we continue to engage God in this manner over time, it usually speeds up the process. What used to take me 15-20 minutes of worship to sense His presence so I could then rest in Him now takes just a few moments of resting and focusing in on Him. Resting in God’s presence is a wonderful way to draw closer in our relationship with Him, and a beautiful way to fill the hunger that we have for Him in our hearts.

If you want to read more about this subject, give a read to another article titled Cultivating His Presence.

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What Do You Do When The Inner Healing Is Done?

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This past week a friend and I completed her inner healing. Yes, I get that it sounds strange to say that. It feels strange to say it. But it’s true; we have finished, to the best of our knowledge, doing inner healing with her. Is it possible we missed some small issue somewhere that is still lingering? I suppose. But at some point, if we believe inner healing prayer heals things, then it can’t actually last forever, can it? Let me put it another way. The enemy has a finite set of resources to use in each of our lives. Usually, demons work to create trauma and pain in our lives to develop strongholds—strategic points inside our hearts where they have carved out a space to live, and from those broken places, expand their reach within a person to cause more problems. When all inner wounding is healed, and all demons cast out, there simply isn’t anything left to fix. Since there is a limited amount of inner wounding that people have, and because we are healing it through prayer far faster than new emotional wounds can occur, eventually it all gets fixed. This sounds great, and it is, but what do you do when the inner healing is done? Once someone is “all better”, what is the next step?

Think about what the Bible says about sin. It says that because we are in Christ, all sin has been cut off from us. If we are sin-free, and there isn’t anything to fix, do we suddenly become the wisest, kindest, most self-actualized human beings on the planet? Of course not! Inner healing is no different. Inner healing removes negatives. It puts an end to old emotional patterns, stops negative cycles of sowing and reaping based on pain, trauma, and abuse, and sets us free from being drawn back in to our past dramas and issues. But once we are set free, again, we don’t suddenly morph into sages. After all the healing is done, we still have a growth process ahead of us. So what does that look like?

Only part of the process of personal growth is past-healing. That’s the inner healing and deliverance part. The rest are forward-focused, which looks like renewing the mind and growing in wisdom, knowledge, and character. Another way of thinking about this is that we grow in the fruit of the spirit and in our relationship with God and have our minds transformed to be like His. Even when we have fixed all the bad stuff, that doesn’t mean we are mature. However, it does mean that we are free to walk into maturity without hindrances. Hebrews 12:1-2a says, “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, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” Inner healing lets us throw off everything that hinders, but it doesn’t mean we are running our race forward. That’s the next step. This is the part where we learn the things that challenged us before: how to manage money better, how to have healthy relationships, how to make healthy boundaries, and much more. So how do we do that?

There are many ways to facilitate this, including self-help books, life coaching, and more. My friend Jeremy Mangerchine has written a book, The Table and the Dream, that looks at the question “What do you do now that you’re free?” I highly recommend this book as a good starting place on the journey forward after inner healing (and it’s still useful even if you’re still on the journey). If you haven’t begun your own inner healing journey, or want ways to move forward in your own process, I recommend you try the following:

Check out my coauthored book Broken to Whole: Inner Healing for the Fragmented Soul. Consider using the Fragment Finder” flower essence along with it.
Praying Medic’s book Emotional Healing in 3 Easy Steps
Karol Truman’s book Feelings Buried Alive Never Die
Other blog posts: Five Steps To Emotional Healing, The Weight of Sorrows, and the Divine Healing That Works series
Use Flower Essences by Freedom Flowers – designed to help release the negative emotions and make it easier to receive inner healing, there is a free intro course you can sign up for at the bottom of the home page .

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India Missions 2018: Serving The Tiger Widows

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Last week I shared about the first three days of medical clinics we held on a recent trip to India (read the article here), where we went to minister specifically to the Tiger Widows, but also to the local communities. After the first three days of clinics in a single location, a door opened up for us to go meet with some of the Tiger Widows more directly. This was wonderful news, as most of the team had come with the express purpose of ministering to these forgotten women in mind.

For those who don’t know, India still functions on what is known as the “caste” system, which is basically a cultural hierarchy that is partly hereditary. Most cultures have them, but in India, especially from a Hindu background, it is more deeply ingrained than some. In this particular system men are more valuable than women, and if a husband dies the widowed wife cannot remarry, and generally sinks into poverty. The Tiger Widows’ husbands have been killed over time by Bengal tigers while working out in the forest, leaving these women, who sometimes are young women who have children, destitute and unable to change their station in life. In other cases, the women are older and have been widowed for a long time, so in their old age, they have no one to take care of them except for some of the other younger widows. When we were informed we would be able to go meet and spend time loving and serving more of these women, our hearts jumped at the opportunity.

There have been others over time who have either used the idea of serving the widows for personal gain, using these women’s tragedies for personal publicity, or who have not followed through on their promises to help them, so some of those in government involved with helping these women had put up a hurdle for us to see and minister to them. The condition to love these women in person was to bring a gift of a sari or blanket to each widow.

We were happy to do this. Actually, we were all delighted with the idea of giving a sari or blanket to each one of these precious women. What better way to tangibly show them love is there? A single blanket or sari wasn’t super expensive, but when you start talking about 750 widows, the costs add up quickly. As none of the costs of these gifts were included in the initial trip budget, from the time we found out about it on the third day, we had 12 hours to raise $3,000 to be able to buy the gifts for these women that next day.

We all prayed, and a few of us took to social media to raise money. Within the twelve hours, we had raised 2/3 of the total. Over the next number of hours another $500 came in from donations online, and the team pooled our money for the remainder. I am pleased to say that followers of this blog and my Facebook feed contributed about $1,000 of the total. Thank you so much to everyone who gave for the critical need, as it allowed us to minister the power and love of God to those women. Let me tell you what that money did!

On the fourth day, we drove a few hours from where we were staying to a remote church meeting-place where some of the women were gathered. When I say “church meeting-place”, what I mean is that it consisted of a roof with no actual walls. We held another medical clinic there, and we preached the gospel to these women, gave them saris, washed their feet, prayed for them, and just spent the day with them. Sometime during this day, we were invited to visit homes of some of the women who were paralyzed and pray for them, so four of us and a local pastor went to pray for them. There were two homes we visited, one nearby where the woman had a stroke and regained strength and movement to her affected side. The other woman’s home was further out, so we walked about ten to fifteen minutes to her home.

The path was brick, about six to eight feet wide, and we were led by a young woman, presumably also a widow. She took us down this path for a while, passing a few houses and ponds and numerous fields of rice as we went. We turned down another path, continued for a time, then turned again down what was more of a long grassy embankment between fields than any kind of actual road or path. The area was quite beautiful, and fairly quiet. There were no sounds of road traffic which I am so accustomed to hearing living in a big city in the States, so the sounds we heard were those of individuals, animals, and just creation as a whole.

We arrived at the second house and were invited inside by the family. This house was basically a mud-and-stick construction with fabric for some of the outer walls. The five of us took our shoes off and came inside to see this woman, paralyzed from the waist down, laying on the thinnest of mats, basically just thick enough for her not to be touching the ground and providing no comfort or padding whatsoever. Her countenance was dim, she seemed mentally dull, and appeared to be in constant pain. Her neck was also tighly locked, and she was unable to turn her head from side to side.

We laid hands on her and began to pray, then had her try to move her limbs. She was able to move her legs some after we prayed for a few minutes, regaining some gross motor movement, but at some point we saw no further improvement. Tyler had the pastor share the simple gospel message to her, while her family was all gathered around listening as well. As the pastor spoke in Bengali, sharing with her about Jesus loving her and dying on the cross for her sins, this old grandma turned her head to the right to look at him more directly.

In case you missed that, this woman’s neck was locked. I personally palpated it and attempted to perform range of motion, and there was literally no motion. While she was hearing the message of the gospel, Jesus touched her neck and she regained movement that she did not have five minutes prior. The pastor invited her to pray for Jesus to become the Lord of her life, and after she prayed, her countenance visibly changed. She went from being dull and slow to smiling and having a brightness about her. We prayed again, and while we saw no further noticeable healing, it was evident that she had received a touch from heaven.

Later on, we saw her countenance dim down again, presumably due to the demonic trying to re-exert control over this woman they had been able to manipulate her entire life. You see, in India, gods and goddesses are a known commodity. Everyone knows they exist and that their power is active. Thus, when we preach Jesus, the God above all other gods, the God who is kind, the only God who heals, the only God who gives his own life in exchange for ours, they have no problem believing us, unlike many here in the United States who doubt even the existence of the supernatural realms. We prayed for her once more, thanked her and the family for inviting us into their home, and headed back to the group. This was by far my most memorable and favorite time on this entire trip.

Almost 100% of the women raised their hands to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior

The next day we held another medical clinic with many hundreds of widows, one of the team, Sung, preached a simple yet profound gospel message, and almost every widow present raised her hand when invited to accept Jesus. We treated their medical problems, and yet again, Jesus healed those we were unable to help medically. Jesus was present in the footwashing, the salvation message, the medicine, giving blankets to each woman, feeding them lunch, and every aspect of the day. One woman, crying, told a team member “you have loved me more than my gods ever have.” That is exactly what we came to do—provide an active, living demonstration of the love that Jesus has for each of these precious women.

Our short-term trip did a lot of good, I believe, but there is also an ongoing need that we are unable to meet with short-term trips. One program that the local pastors have set up for these women is a tailoring program. This program teaches the widows how to produce clothing, giving them a skill so they can run their own businesses and become self-sufficient through self-employment, one of the few things the caste system cannot shut them out of. We were able to visit where this program is run, and the sewing machines were donated during a prior mission trip. To date, 20 have finished and 32 are currently enrolled in the program. It costs about $30 USD a month per widow, and 6 months to train them.

In order to be truly independent, however, each widow who has completed the training needs her own sewing machine. The 20 women who have completed the program are still waiting on machines before they can start their businesses, and each sewing machine costs $180 USD. Furthermore, the location the training is currently being done at is temporary, and land has been donated for a permanent training center to be built, which costs another $30,000 USD to build. For all 52 women to receive a machine, the total cost is $7,800. God was able to raise $3,000 for these women in 12 hours, so I firmly believe that God not only can, but wants to provide a machine for each of these women.***

Please pray and ask God how you are to partner with The Kings of Eden and Global Mercy Foundation India for their tailoring program.

Ten people giving $15 each or one person each month for 10 months is a single sewing machine. A one-time gift of any amount is fine, but they also need ongoing partners to help fund the women as they go through the program as well. There are three ways you can send money to help:

1. A Gofundme fundraiser that will be sent to the ministry overseeing this work.

2. Send money via Paypal to The Kings of Eden, marked with a note for the widows’ tailoring program. We will forward 100% of the money to the local ministry for the widows.

3. Contact Global Mercy Foundation directly (a 501(c)3 nonprofit) and donate with a note marked for the widows’ tailoring program. For more information, and occasional updates about the tailoring program, you can visit their Indian sister-ministry at Global Mercy Foundation India.

After being there with these women, it strikes me more than it ever has before how even just a one-time donation can be a life-changer for not just a single woman, but for potentially her friends and family. If a young widow has children, she will be able to afford to raise them well, and if she is tending to other widows as well, she will have the resources to help care for them too. Furthermore, this program is a great outreach method to reach these forgotten women for Jesus.

These two days with the Tiger Widows were incredibly special to me. It was a joy to get to minister to them, tend to their physical needs, both medical and nonmedical, and above all, to see them changed by the love of Jesus Christ, working healings and miracles through the power that only He has to give.

In the next and final installment of the India 2018 Mission Trip, I will tell you about the Dump Yard Children, the healings God did there (including a young man healed of leprosy), and the work God is doing in that area of Kolkata, as well as a “surprise” ministry opportunity on the plane ride home. Check in next week to hear the final details of this amazing trip!

***please note these prices are close estimates and not exact, as it depends on the current exchange rate of dollars to rupees, which is roughly $1 : 70Rs right now.

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