Last night at youth group, I took a demonic punch for the team. Seriously. And a seer witnessed it. This article illustrates the value of having a seer present when praying for someone’s deliverance.
Demonstrating God’s Love
A certain teenaged boy has been coming to youth group for three or four weeks.
The first time he visited was the same day an adult threw him into a wall so hard, the drywall cracked. He came with bruised and pained ribs, and when I prayed for him, he was shocked that the pain and bruising went away. I was demonstrating God’s love for him with power.
He has a rough life, and it doesn’t take much insight to see he has a lot of anger going on.
Each night he comes to youth group, I make a point to pray with him some, and each night, his body twitches or shakes uncontrollably. His leg just bounces out of control, and he blames it on anxiety. I say a spirit is on him and reacting to the prayer.
Are you ready?
Last night, I asked if he was ready to confess Jesus Christ as Lord, that Jesus was the Son of God, that he died for his sins, and that God rose him back to life.
He thought a moment, started shaking, and said, “You don’t know what I’ve done. I keep it all bottled up.” Ok, so he changed the subject.
So I began to talk to him about the stuff he’s done, and explained that Jesus had a rough life also. Being born in a culture that rejected as outcasts kids born to unwed mothers, Jesus spent his entire life mocked as a bastard, and his adopted father Joseph was considered a fool for marrying a woman who clearly had sex with who-knows-who.
Jesus Understood the Least, the Last, and the Lost
One of the psalms written hundreds of years before Jesus prophesied about his childhood.
I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons….
I am the talk of those who sit in the gate, and the drunkards make songs about me.[ref]Read Psalm 69. The line, “alien to my mother’s sons” must refer to someone whose biological father is uncertain by the community. Jewish culture was a patriarchal one, and followed the family line through the father. This, along with several other clues in Psalm 69, indicate the Psalm is about Jesus’ life. [/ref]
Psalm 69 suggests he nearly drowned (although that may be a poetic metaphor to the chaos of his life), was hated, lied about, stolen from, gossiped about, and utterly rejected by his community. Even the drunks in town made fun of him.
Jesus can certainly relate to the least, the last, and the lost of society.
Cling to God in Faith
Through it all, he clung to faith in God as his rock. Yes, Jesus was God, but he was fully human. He had laid his divinity and his power to come to earth as a human.[ref]Hebrews 1[/ref].
As I explained this to the teen, he started trembling more. I continued speaking about God’s plan for his future.
During this, a young seer was sitting cross-legged nearby, watching with her big eyes. I was sitting on the cushioned chair in front of him, on my knees, with my arms on the back of the chair.
A Spirit Takes a Swing
A Medieval Artist Depiction of Demonic Warfare
“In the name of Jesus, I release you from this spirit of anxiety,” I said.
I suddenly sat up a little and my face was physically pushed back by a thick breath of air, and the oxygen was sucked out of my lungs, as if something had rushed passed my face, creating a vacuum in its wake. The word “spirit” literally means “breath.”
It was like someone had aimed an air-puff gun at my chin, which struck me with such force, I almost fell backwards off the chair.
I was startled and surprised, but not uncomfortable. The power and love of God was very thick there. I didn’t feel any fear.
I kind of laughed and said, “What was that!?”
I looked at the young seer, and asked, “Did you feel that?”
She just looked at me and said, “You know what that was.”
“What. The Holy Spirit?”
She raised her eyebrows, like, really? Then she said, “No. It just took a swing at you.” She demonstrated with her right hand an uppercut punch.
I said, “What? The spirit did?”
She nodded. I asked again, to be clear, and she demonstrated and said. “It tried to punch you.” I sensed the Holy Spirit on me deflected the punch somewhat, but I still was physically pushed back.
The seer actually saw all of this in the spirit realm.
Game on… or not?
I looked at the boy. He didn’t raise his head. I said, “Oh… this thing’s got to go!”
Now, let me be clear. My heart wasn’t stirred up. I felt pride in my mind, like I wasn’t going to let the spirit that was clearly on this kid, and which just threw a punch at me, win.
The seer interrupted me. “No. He’s not ready….”
I looked at him, really wanting to deliver this kid from this oppression.
The seer added, “You always tell us not to cast spirits off people unless they’re ready to accept Jesus.”
This is true. The risk is, the spirit will leave, and then just come back with more of his buddies, leaving the afflicted person worse off.
I put up a feeble protest. My pride was at stake. This was my youth group, after all.
She said, “Don’t do it. It’s too dangerous.”
Ahh, I love having seers in my youth group and present during prayer.
Pride Goes Before the Fall.
I relented… I should say, I submitted…
Pride goes before destruction,
and a haughty spirit before a fall.It is better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor
than to divide the spoil with the proud.[ref]Proverbs 16:18-19[/ref]
So I told the kid, “You know we believe in spirits, right? And you know that one is on you. When you’re ready to give your life to Jesus, you’ll be set free…”
I paused, and suddenly my spiritual discernment finally activated[ref] It’s interesting that I had to humble myself before the gift of discernment was given to me in this situation.[/ref], and I sensed deep malice and fierce hidden eyes fixed on me with hate. I recalled some recent victories in spiritual warfare in my life.
And then I added, “And then I’ll send that thing to where Jesus has prepared for it. Jesus prepared hell for demons… but not for you.”
He nodded.
The Gospel Delivers
Next, I prayed for a senior girl who was visiting for the first time and had a spirit of depression on her, and she was delivered. And then we prayed for another girl with a “fetish” tick that made her pick a scabs on her face and neck… and I think she too was delivered.
But the boy wasn’t ready.
Later, by text, I thanked the seer for telling me to not war against the thing on him, and she replied, “I didn’t want to get attacked… lol… so had to.”
And she forwarded this text which she sent to that kid… and it applies to some of you who are reading this:
God wants you to go out and build his love upon people so they can experience the Holy Spirit and come to know his love and come to know Jesus. He wants you to lead! God is great and wants you to be his! I feel like he has great things in store for you but first you have to accept him into your life.
#boom
…See this update.