I am writing this as a warning to my Prayer Warrior friends out there who - like me - have been suffering a good deal from demonic attack lately because they are regularly praying for the nation and their political leaders - often asking God to bring down, destroy or severely limit various spiritual principalities and powers over our nation's capitol, over various cities, and over various regions of the world.
I was doing the same thing because I had been taught that it is within our authority in Christ to do so. But I now know that this practice is not only unhealthy, but foolhardy, especially if we are not engaging in praise and worship of our Heavenly Father as often or as much! In fact, I now understand that there are some very real limits that human beings need to set around Spiritual Warfare so that they do not bring curses on themselves. These curses manifest when we do not understand the boundaries that surround our inherited power and authority in Yahshua.
For example, when we humbly pray for something specific, requesting God's intervention, and recognizing that only His power and authority can get the job done, God isn't going to turn it into a curse on us, or someone or something else. He will only do that when our request is made with boasting, pride, or selfish ambition, and/or it is interfering with, or trying to target spiritual principalities and powers that are not under our jurisdiction, but that belong solely to God to govern and control.
So - as long as we are praising and worshiping God daily, and then praying for things that are physically needed, like forgiveness, or healing, or spiritual equipping, we are not going to cause any trouble for ourselves or others, and will see real and good results from our prayers. The key to achieving this is to not engage the Devil at all, or mess with His authority, which was given to him by God for a set time and purpose, and is governed by a principality that we have no business messing with. In short, we don't have any right to war against the demonic spiritual principalities and powers in high places directly, but only to ask God to deliver us and our loved ones from demonic attack here on Earth when it manifests in our limited sphere of influence.
Only when we recognize that the unseen principalities governing demonic oppression and attack are not under our jurisdiction will we be delivered from, and protected from direct demonic attack and oppression when we ask. We can command demons to flee in the Name of Jesus or Yahshua, but we cannot demand that God destroy the principality that allows those same demons to attack the unwary. This is because it is God who set up its parameters, and it is God who controls the limits of that principality's extent and power, and not us.
This likely explains why I - and others I know and love - have been suffering so much lately with poor health and financial woes. We have erroneously been trying to wage a spiritual war in the heavenly places without first seeking to love and worship and praise God for what He has already done on our behalf, and what He has promised to do when we ask. Instead, without recharging our spiritual batteries by drawing near to God and getting a fresh infusion of His love and healing touch, we are not caring for our wounded and broken bodies, and are instead rushing headlong into battle unprepared and lacking our SHIELD OF FAITH (See Ephesians 6:16).
We aren't supposed to be commanding God's angels or His Spirit to break down spiritual principalities, and to destroy or bind the powers of wickedness over our nation, over our cities, and over our neighborhoods and homes where we have no business or authority to do so. Instead, we're supposed to be praising and worshiping God, loving Him and ourselves and our neighbors, and basking in His love for us before we ask Him to meet our needs. As a result, we have been cursing ourselves with demonic oppression by not being covered with a hedge of protection through our worship and praise, and we have been improperly interfering with God's and the Devil's authority.
Attempting to bind and destroy spiritual principalities and powers that Yahshua set into place to accomplish the Father's will is a direct affront to God's authority, and this affront sets us up to be cursed rather than protected by God. We all need to learn to stay within our sphere of influence, which extends no further than our homes, our church family, our local politics, and our individual finances. Everything else is - or should be - spiritually off limits!
This limitation to the kinds of spiritual warfare we are allowed to have, and what kind of warfare we have the authority to wage becomes evident when we look at examples of the kind of prayers we ought to be praying. These examples are primarily found in the Gospels, and in the Psalms.
The biggest and best example is when Yahshua or Jesus taught us how to pray by sharing the prayer now known as the "Our Father". When Yahshua prayed this prayer as an example to us, He did so with humility, not commanding God, but humbly beseeching God, and asking only for our collective and individual spiritual and physical needs to be met.
In His prayer example, Yahshua or Jesus first worshiped the Father by hallowing His Name,or reflecting on the goodness and loving nature of His Character. He then asked God the Father to deliver us from evil or sin. In addition, He asked God to help us to be able to forgive those who sin against us as we await our deliverance in the Rapture, and to seek to work toward the setting up of the Kingdom of God on Earth. There were no curses in His prayer aimed at the Devil or his demons, and no proud commands for God the Father to disarm or destroy the wicked principalities governing various regions of the Earth.
Instead, Yahshua simply commanded the demons to leave the people that they had possessed, and they did. He also directed where the demons could go after they were cast out, such as when He allowed demons to possess a bunch of swine or pigs that then ran head long into the sea and drowned (
See Matthew 8:30-32). We can also ask God to cast demons into the Abyss or bottomless pit. Just don't order them to go there by your own authority, but instead remember that we can only act with the limited sphere of authority that God has given to us.
I previously had been erroneously telling the Devil to get out of my life with a measure of pride, foolhardy courage, and contempt for years, and so have many of you - unwittingly cursing yourselves with demonic trouble whenever you do! So please be careful, fellow believers. Do wage Spiritual Warfare daily, but be careful to keep your warfare prayers within the parameters that have been physically assigned to you by God, which are clearly delineated by your own sphere of influence, and do not go beyond it, even as I am now humbly learning to do.
Please remember that the Holy Spirit is not being poured out to bring people to Christ because of our will, or our prayers. It is being poured out because that is what God intended to do all along, just as the prophets of old revealed! The Holy Spirit is and has been poured out many times since Christ died on the Cross to raise up true believers where there once was none, and to show the world that God does not need the help of any believer to fulfill His Great Commission unless they are acting within His Will.
God will accomplish His Will on His own, if necessary, and we should know that He doesn't need our help unless He specifically asks us for it via the Holy Spirit living in us! Sadly, however, many have ignored the need to hear from God before they pray, freely attempting to engage the evil spirits dwelling in the supernatural realms where we are not, and were never authorized to go. Too many believers have been operating under the notion that we have the authority to command God to act on our behalf - without knowing or caring what God's Will is, or thinking that God's Will must be our own! How presumptuous and pompous of us, and how foolhardy!
Just as the Old Testament patriarch Job was put in his place by God when he questioned God's Will and God terrifyingly answered Job out of a whirlwind, or tornado (read ALL of Job, Chapters 40 through 42!), those of us who presume we are acting under God's authority when we attempt to command angels and demons should be ashamed of ourselves for thinking that we have that kind of authority! It is not, and never has been our place, or God's Will, and what we are actually doing is playing with witchcraft under the false guise of truth when we do this! This is why Yahshua rebuked some of those who claimed that they were doing mighty works in His Name like healing, telling them this:
~*~ Matthew 7:21-22 ~*~ “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”
These people claimed to be believers, but did not even know Yahshua, so they could not have been doing the supposed "good" works that they did with God's approval, authority or power, and were rather using the Devil's stolen authority to perform seeming miracles! This is a really sobering thing to face. I know I've been guilty of this, and many others in the Church have also. We all need to repent of this NOW, and seek to do God's Will from now on, and not our own.
The lesson I've learned from this is that we should not engage evil directly unless it manifests itself in something like demonic oppression or possession in our own lives, or in the lives of those we love. That is the only time when we have the authority to exorcise the person or persons affected, and address demons to flee from us or them in Yahshua's Name. Doing something in Yahshua's Name means doing it knowing that we represent Christ and HIS AUTHORITY, and not our own.
We can do everything that we do by the power of Yahshua's Name and His shed blood. But we must remember that we are not attempting to do the work, but are calling on Christ to do the work. Sometimes, we may also need the prayers and intercession of others more grounded in faith to find complete deliverance, as some demonic principalities and powers that are encroaching upon our lives are far too strong for one believer alone to deal with. See
2 Peter 2:10-12 and
Jude 8-10 for Scriptures that fully back up what I'm saying here.
Also, please read all of the following articles named and linked to below, especially the last one listed, for clear instructions on how to safely engage in spiritual warfare.
Stay Safe and Secure in Christ With Prayer!
Helena Lehman of
The Pillar of Enoch Ministry
Ministry Web Site: http://pillar-of-enoch.com
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