Spiritual Warfare

Boy did I learn a whole lot about Spiritual Warfare this summer! I grew up in an Assemblies of God church and have dealt with demonic forces on numerous accounts, but this was so much more. I personally went through the warfare and had demons cast out of me; I will share my testimony at a later time. As I stated before, I am quite aware of spiritual warfare and that satan is on the prowl. Unfortunately, there are many people whom are not aware of this or even believe that satan exists. That is a whole other topic. As I mentioned in my last article there are satanist praying against the spiritual leaders of our city. Steve mentioned that they have a list of every pastor and they pray against them from midnight until 3 am, if that isn’t spiritual warfare, I don’t know what is.
Some of the key elements that I learned in this class are if we don’t send the demons back to Jesus, when we cast them out, they will find someone else to attach to. This is very important in a deliverance session, because the spirit will attach itself to someone else in the room. It was interesting to learn that when we pray and ask the Holy Spirit to come, but don’t ask specifically for the Holy one, another spirit will most likely come instead. The third thing that I found fascinating was that the sins and spirits that we have dealt with are easily attacked with in a room with someone else that is dealing with this sin. If we are in a room and start struggling with one of the sins that we have already dealt with, then it is most likely because someone else in the room is struggling. I found this to be true very quickly after internship. I had done tons of spiritual clean up and had a very clean Spirit. I immediately felt the spirits of others and could tell what they struggle with (I often do any ways due to the gift of discernment, but it had never been so strong); it wasn’t long before I was once again struggling these same issues.
At first I freaked out and was scared about dealing with the same things over again. I was insistently trying to pray them out and find others to do deliverance once again. After meeting with Steve and Joe, my focus shifted from these struggles and spirits to Christ and His promises. It wasn’t long before the truth shut the door on the enemy. I was reminded of what a Rabbi once told me, that when bankers are trained to identify a counterfeit, they study the real thing not the counterfeit, that way they will know the real thing so well that they will be able to spy a counterfeit immediately.
I wish I could say that I am out of the woods and will never have to experience spiritual warfare again, if I were to believe this I would only be kidding myself. The truth is that there will be warfare all throughout my life, especially in Africa where warfare is even more rampant. I have to be reminded to focus more on Christ and to not worry about the attacks of satan. Every day I have to visually put on the armor of God, for He is the only protection I have from the enemy. I am thankful that we have such a big and powerful God and that through the blood of Jesus Christ we have the power to speak against any spirit that is not of God.