Recently during my devotion time I sensed Holy Spirit highlighting particular scriptures that connected with my ponderings this week. I realized He was guiding me through what Jesus did and how, when it came to healing various physical and neurobiological ailments and the phenomena of what the Bible calls “demon possession", or "oppression". I’ve had opportunity to explore all these topics before and have witnessed people get healed, but also get delivered from possession.
Yes, demons exist. No, they are not mythical. I’ve seen their effects, and exits from people, with my own eyes: while praying for someone’s healing (a bowel issue), while praying for a move and job transition for an individual (a spirit of witchcraft began to manifest and grip their spine), while praying for a youth pastor (a spirit of grief). How do I know they were spirits? They exit with some noise, through the persons mouth. They try to fight it, they try to exit with as much drama as they are allowed. Sounds such as belching, retching, coughing uncontrollably, seething and screaming. If you know your authority in Christ, then you can order them to exit without drama and they have to obey Christ’s authority through you. When it’s over, the person feels the freedom, because they were heavily oppressed before.
So back to what Holy Spirit showed me. I was pondering what one pastor wrote about neuro-biological disorders (NBD) (an article excerpt on the web) and thought, how brilliant, this seems simple, comforting and nice (separating demon possession from NBD's in particular). I was actually going to buy his theory, in part. But later, Holy Spirit debunked the man’s theories and interpretation of scripture, when He illuminated key scriptures about demon-possession, it’s link to healing and the fact that it is actually not rare and it does not occur with only older people who’ve committed terrible or habitual sins or are involved in the occult. In fact, a number of the most potent examples in scripture involve children. Other examples show healing of the mind, healing of speech, and healing of what appear to be symptoms of catatonic schizophrenia and a crippled body - after being delivered from a demon of “infirmity”, a “mute” demon, and a “deaf & mute” demon. When a demon was not involved, Jesus simply laid His hands on them or stuck his fingers in their ears and said “be opened”. Some ailments are caused by demons, some are not.
Some will come out if you just invoke the name of Jesus, others will say, “Who are you?”, and won’t budge unless you have a lifestyle that is marked by prayerful relationship with God the Father and lead a life consecrated (obedient, set apart) to God. Even Jesus said He could do nothing apart from the Father and He did only what He saw the Father doing. This means He had a very close and active/real relationship with God, where He could see and hear what God the Father was telling Him and then move in response. This provided Jesus with Heaven’s power and the confidence to use it.
The other thing I found, that impacted me, was that God the Father gave Jesus authority on earth because He is the Son of Man (John 5:26-27). Jesus was the Son of God and the Son of Man. If He was not the Son of Man, He would not have authority on Earth. Because God gave the Earth to Man. Satan usurped it through deception and getting Man’s agreement - this is how satan gains authority on Earth. God doesn’t usurp. He offers partnership with Heaven. He’s got the power of life, we have the authority on Earth. Jesus had both, and then through His work on the cross and the gift of Holy Spirit, that is made available to all who believe, we are to release it in the Earth, with our authority, to destroy satan’s work. We are mandated to imitate Christ and do even greater works than He did.
Nothing Jesus did should be impossible for us. Our problem is lifestyle, lack of faith and apathy, and we give up when we don’t see immediate results (and build false theology around it), as though obeying our mandate was an option based on our success rate, and lastly, we are not willing to risk looking like idiots (Jesus was accused of being out of his mind, by his family, and demon possessed, by the religious). Thankfully, Holy Spirit is available to heal those heart issues in us, if we recognize them in ourselves, confess and repent of them, and ask Him to change us. It would be His joyful pleasure to do so.
