In church one Sunday I had a willing congregant come forward to show everyone what it was like to pursue the Holy Spirit in a visual meditative state. We didn’t know what the Spirit would want us to get into ahead of time, so the entire room was surprised when my participant felt God wanted them to work through a suicidal memory. As they boldly told their story, the Spirit showed up and helped us heal their trauma in front of everyone. By the end of our 40 minute experiment, the congregant said they no longer felt suicidal.
Weeks later they asked for another meeting. They sensed that we had unknowingly kicked out a demon of suicide that night and they were now encountering some tangible oppression from some other demons they didn’t know they had.
We met and returned to that visual meditative state with Jesus. We then demanded the demons to reveal themselves before Jesus in that visual state and to give us their names. Two demons reported in and a quick Google search revealed their name meanings to be connected to the themes they represented.
We moved through their demonic themes and memories with Jesus, repented of sin, renounced the lies believed, and rebuked the demons. Then we asked Jesus to bring up a door and told them to leave.
Demons are sometimes tricky to remove. They get in through various kinds of bondage and they often don’t leave until the bondage is dealt with. And if they’re kicked out without the bondage being dealt with, they’ll often come back and find the door wide open to them. Because they’re tricky, deliverance ministry can sometimes take time. But there is no demon more powerful than Jesus and he can handle them all—hence Jesus’ frustration with his disciples when a man reported that they couldn’t figure out how to remove a demon from his child. We must stay vigilant in prayer and power. Jesus came to liberate people from demons and he will do so as we commit to working with him and taking care of the bondage.
*This devotional was created out of the themes of Luke 9:37-50 found in today’s reading at CommonPrayer.net.
Jamin Bradley 