Being Delivered From Demons
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put
on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s
schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the
rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on
the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to
stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” (Ephesians
6:10-13 NIV).
Being in the ministry is a calling from God and a privilege and
a minister of the gospel has to be equipped spiritually to deal with demons
daily as the scripture above suggests. As it is, we are engaged continuously against
demons on a daily struggle (1 Peter 5:8-9), but if we resist
him firmly in the faith he will step aside for a moment but he will be back
when a conducive opportunity arises again (Luke 4:13). As we can see
from this preceding scripture, our enemy does not give up, in fact, he has an
obsessive appetite like someone who has an addiction problem. In other words,
the devil’s appetite to destroy is never quenched (John 10:10), that is why
our Lord Jesus Christ came and died on the cross and descended to hell to disarm the enemy of our souls (1
John 3:8; Colossians 2:15) and He gave us authority to stand up against
the devil and his demons (Luke 10:19).
Can We Be
Completely Free Of Demons?
As humans, we are born with a sinful nature or rebellious nature
against God’s righteous law (Romans 7:18-20). Furthermore, and in other words, as the above scripture, suggest the evil living in us through
demonic strength desires to control us (Ephesians 2:2) so that we live to
please the flesh or sinful nature in all kinds of uncontrolled indulgences.
Now, since we are born into sin and are sinners (Romans 3:10-12) by
nature we are NOT completely free from demonic influences since the evil in
us is being controlled by the evil one (1 John 3:8; Ephesians 2:2) as far
as we allow it to be controlled by the evil in us.
What we mean is this, when we have a continuous desire or craving for something we are being controlled by some demon that causes us to have a lust for more (1 John 2:15-17) as opposed to being content with what we have (Philippians 4:11-13). The truth is, anything that we desire continuously beyond what we really need has its roots in demons and as such the spirit or fruit of self-control is not present (2 Peter 1:5-8).
How Do We
Overcome The Devil Daily?
Being sinful as we are, we have already added our testimony
on this website in which we testified how the Lord Jesus Christ rebuked us for
our wrongs when we sinned and after repenting the Lord would forgive us (1
John 1:9). Thus in this regard, the rebuke of the Lord discouraged us
from being habitual in our wrong behavior and so we avoided being controlled by
sin and the devil (Ephesians 2:2). Now! So how do we avoid being used and
controlled by the devil? By being about our Father’s business [witnessing] (Luke
2:49). As it is, by this the Lord means we must exercise our faith, and
that way we become the devil’s target. We thus need to walk in humility (not
shyness) and not being conceited (Romans 12:16). Also, we need to be
watchful and pray daily (Luke 21:36). We are to avoid the excesses
of worldliness for being worldly makes us useful to the devil, a friend to the
world, and that way we gain demons of lust and all kinds of evil desires and appetites
(1
John 2:15; 1 Timothy 6:10). In
addition, being disobedient to God and parents branches from demonic
rebelliousness. This reminds me of a stunning rebuke the Lord gave a brother
in this ministry who refused to obey the Lord (1 Samuel 15:23).
In conclusion, if we have unconfessed sin in our lives, and
if we are still living in sin and being disobedient the presence of demons will
be there (Proverbs 6:12) and we will be troubled by them (1
Samuel 6:14-23).
Blessed Grace
Brother Glenn
