Demons can be nasty critters–and unfortunately for us they sometimes hang out inside of us and wait for opportune moments to flare up, like a bad case of gout. Or allergies. Or . . . you get the point. I have been “saved” and following Jesus for over 28 years, and yet, somehow, I still find demons flaring up from inside me at the most inopportune times, often completely unnoticed by me. Tonight is not one of those times, as I was able to recognize it for what it was and deal with it.
The story will follow in a moment, as well as what I did to deal with it, but let me say this first: yes, Christians can have demons. Yes, I know there are probably a bajillion bible verses someone is readying at this moment to throw at me to Bible-bash me into correct theology without actually changing my experiences, but the truth is that I have cast demons out of a number of believers and some non-believers, and I find the “Christians can’t have demons” theology to be, in and of itself, demonic in nature. If the enemy can get you to believe that they’re not actually there when in fact they are, they’ve already won, with no resistance from you whatsoever. If you’re one of those people, don’t feel a need to comment below–although I censor very minimally, I probably won’t approve the comment. Why? Because it’s simply not true. I will probably go into “sound Biblical teaching” at another time to expound on this further, but for now, just suspend all disbelief and hear the story.
Late this evening (it is now the middle of the night as I am typing this) I was driving home from a movie with my wife. We were chatting about a variety of things when I began to go off on this rant about her, my grandchildren, and a couple other things. At one point I could hear her muttering under her breath but I didn’t hear what. Very shortly after that it was like someone turned off a switch and amidst my loud ranting and rambling, I started to purposefully quiet my voice and I said “. . . and I’m not really sure why I even just went off on you like that right now. I am really sorry.” Turns out the muttering under her breath had been my wife praying for me, and the switch that got shut off was demons manifesting through me.
Yes, I was “in control” of my body the entire time, in that I was physically driving a car, etc. but at that moment I wasn’t really in full control of my emotions. Or more accurately, I wasn’t exercising full control over them. There was this anger that was bubbling up from within me that started subtly at first but eventually was full-bore without really any reason for it in the first place other than what might normally be called “venting.” Well, I was venting all right, but only a small portion of what I was venting was my actual feelings. The rest of it was demons riding on and encouraging those feelings to blow them sky-high, and in doing so cause me to emotionally vomit all over my poor wife.
The truth is that I actually love my wife a great deal, and was exceedingly sorry that I had just treated her like that, with really no provocation whatsoever. When she prayed, it was like a veil was pulled away from my awareness and I realized that I was basically spouting the words of demons residing within me, and thus chose to stop spouting. At that point I began to renounce the feelings of anger and the beliefs that I had just been shouting, and verbally separated myself from those thoughts and feelings. Next I began to speak to spirits of anger, rage, and any other spirits that I could think of that were related to the subject matter, as well as to any that were connected to them, whether known or unknown, and whether I had named them or not. In other words, I was trying to get as many as possible out of there. A short time later I began to observe signs within my body that demons were, indeed, leaving. I cannot say how many left versus how many remained, but I was pleased that I at least became aware enough in that moment to cease demonic manifestations and emotionally hurting my wife and choose to do something about it. I have since apologized to her multiple times, and, being the gracious woman that she is, has accepted kindly each time, but it has brought a new level of vigilance in my mind regarding my behavior.
How often are my actions and emotions influenced by demons? How often do I start thinking thoughts that are being whispered in my ear, yet I believe they are my thoughts and I start actively thinking them? How often do I let myself unwittingly become a pawn of the enemy by being unaware in that moment of the spiritual battle raging around me? Probably far more often than I would like to imagine.
God has been reminding me of this issue recently, and I am amazed at how much I have forgotten to wage a spiritual war on a daily basis in my mind, will, and emotions. The soul is the zone of our battlefield, and we fight that war with spiritual weapons. No amount of yelling at my wife is going to change a single thing that love won’t change, and it will only damage in the process, whereas love will heal.
Demons want to use the creative power that God has given us in our words and thoughts to steal, kill, and destroy, and the more unwitting we are about it, the better. If we don’t take every thought captive to Jesus Christ then we invariably will be used by the enemy far more often than we think. We can choose to speak death or life over people, and according to our words it will be done in the earth.
I want to encourage each reader today not to leave from reading this post in fear of how the demons are going to get you, but with a heightened sense of awareness that we are, indeed, in a spiritual battle that is fought in the day-to-day choices we make and the things that we speak. I encourage you to ask God in the coming days, weeks, and months to reveal every place where your actions are being influenced by the demonic realms, as well as help you to exorcise all of the evil spirits that remain within you and to prevent any new ones from coming in. If you know anyone who is able to help you with that, much the better, but don’t forget that angels fight on your side, and you can ask God to release assignments to angels to war on your behalf! Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world! May you be blessed today and may the Lord reveal to you every scheme of darkness that is set against you, and deliver you from every snare of evil, in Jesus’ name. Amen!
