Leave it at the Cross

In the garden of Gethsemane

Your soul in sorrow overwhelmed

Your sacrifice of love for me

Twisted, nailed in offering there

The agony you died for me

The grace and love you live for me

On your knees your Father’s will

My bread, my blood, my Holy Lamb

We fall asleep on watch for you

Yet patient, you wake us again

Walk with you, wait with you

You died, so we live—our Father’s own

Last November I went through three days of deliverance ministry. If you read through the prophets, they declare how the Messiah will set captives free and bind up the broken hearted. When you read through the gospels you see that Christ did indeed repeatedly cast out demons and commanded his disciples to do the same. The demonic is as real as the heavenlies. When Jesus went to the cross he died and rose victoriously over not only all the sin in humanity, but also over all disease, death and powers of darkness. The necessity for deliverance ministy in our lives comes from the fact that when we sin, we allow satan and his ilk a legal foothold into our life and into our children's lives (so you can carry stuff from your parents or grandparents). That demonic spirit then rides on you, sometimes even indwelling within you if you do not have Jesus Christ within you as your Lord. You can be completely forgiven your sin and still have the demonic whisperings in your head or outright guidance in your actions. It can so overwhelm you till you are sure you are crazy or that there is no hope for your life ever being normal. Those are all lies, because of course there is all hope in Jesus Christ, but satan wants you so beaten down that you can't see that. This will continue until the demonic spirits are broken off and cast out. They then have no legal right to return as long as you continue to walk as God would have you walk. Though be sure they will come harrass you trying to get your attention (read up on Jesus in the Wilderness). If you fall for it and respond, they have hooked you. Your attention is now on them and not your walk with God, and you are ripe to fall back into sin.

Though I had been born again 2 and 1/2 years before these deliverance sessions, and had asked for forgivenss of all the sins I could imagine (that took several days and sheets of paper to list it all out), I still struggled under the oppressive weight of the enemy (to use Christianease). I can only describe the deliverance experience as something akin to "an incredible lightness of being." My whole body eased and lifted up. I knew beyond all knowing and through the depths of me that in that ministry room I had taken the unholy garbage in me and on me and handed it to my Lord. In love He had accepted it completely, conquering it for all eternity. In return I had freedom and healing. I also had a glorious hush inside my head. I never had to think of those things again; I didn't have to torture myself with "how could you have been so stupid.." All of it was dead on the cross AND completely forgotten by God. It was no more unless I chose to go back and dive into the rotting grave to wallow in it (and yes, I've made that mistake as a future post will describe. Thank God for grace!).