Years ago, I was wrestling with a question pressing on my heart about deliverance.

I wanted to know why so many people go through deliverance ministries in various forms but find themselves still stuck in familiar patterns and behaviors.

When someone is “delivered,” shouldn’t those thought patterns and behaviors that stem from past hurt or demonic strongholds leave — if one has gone through deliverance, why aren’t they living transformed?

Now, let me back up for a minute…I’m not dismissing or contradicting the power and authority we have to cast out demonic forces. This is biblical and one of the mandates Jesus gave to all His disciples (which includes us). What I’m referring to is an overwhelming percentage of men and women who “clean house” or work through certain steps to break free of their past but still live emotionally reactive, battle with the same internal wrestles such as anxiety, dips of depression, and many other familiar thought patterns and behaviors that do not line up with their new life in Christ.

When one has worked through the particular steps of a freedom ministry, and they find themselves still battling, they believe they need more freedom and go back for another round. Fast forward several years and continued struggles, or so-called setbacks, and they are led to believe they need more ministry, more prayer, and more deliverance so they can break free.

I’m sorry (not sorry), but this seems like madness to me.

Jesus paid for our freedom.

When I read my Bible, I don’t see anywhere that we have to be delivered over and over or that we need to go down this particular step plan of looking at all we’ve done and why we did it to access our freedom. Honestly, that leads to shame and condemnation, which is anti-Christ. I don’t read that we have to create an emotion or strong feeling and have a radical encounter to get a breakthrough. I don’t believe we need to pray a specific prayer and renounce what our great, great, great grandpa may (or may not) have done so that their past sins aren’t affecting our current new life in Christ.

Do some of these methods get put in place?

Yes, only when the Holy Spirit guides one in that way. Just because someone was guided that way and got a breakthrough doesn’t mean we create a whole step plan, one size fits all box to cram everyone into.

For most, it’s simply not understanding or believing what Jesus paid for.

We’re under a new covenant.

The chains that kept us bound to our old ways are gone!

We are purified, redeemed, and washed clean by the blood of the purest Lamb!

So why are so many still struggling?

I don’t believe it should be as difficult as we’ve made it.

I can’t imagine Jesus telling someone, I’m sorry, you have a complicated past, but you’re going to have to work much harder than Janie to reach freedom. She was an easy one. But you, yeah, I’m sorry, get ready for YEARS of ministry, tons of podcasts, seminars, conferences, group sessions, and books before your chains are fully gone. You’ve got a process to work out.

Does that even sound biblical?!

That doesn’t sound like anything Jesus would say, right?

Then why do we?

Why do we believe that our freedom and healing are almost impossible to obtain on this side of Heaven or only for a select few?

We have decided it’s a process based on feelings and experiences, but that is not what the Word of God says.

Let’s be real…human reasoning, emotions, flashes of the past, and feelings have overridden TRUTH on so many levels, and the enemy has taken ground through belief systems that are NOT JESUS!

And we need to lift the veil and get back to the simplicity and the power of what Jesus paid for, and today, I’m going to tell you how.

But before I do, I want to call out those humanistic thoughts that are hardwired in you that will pop up and argue with what you’re about to read.

How do I know?

Because I’ve sat with people for years both casually and through ministry, and these are the most common phrases I hear when I share a scripture that contradicts their belief system:

“Yeah, but…”

“You don’t understand what I’ve been through…”

“You make it seem so easy, but it’s not..”

“Easy for you to say…”

These responses to scripture are called strongholds. They are belief systems that are set up against the knowledge of God and they need to go!

Period.

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 

-2 Corinthians 10:5 (NIV) 

I’ve had to (and continue to) confront my hardwired belief systems that are attached to feelings and experiences as well.

If any thoughts along those lines pop up as you read, there’s your starting point to breaking free!

Take that thought captive and demolish it!

Ok?

Are we on the same page?

Yes? Then let’s proceed…

Back to my question that I was seeking the Lord on; He led me to Luke 11:24-26:

“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ 25 When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. 26 Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”

27 As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.”

The answer to our original question is in Jesus’ response to the women who called out from the crowd:

28 He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

We need to hear the Word and then obey it.

You might be thinking, how does that have anything to do with deliverance?!

The answer is simple: The Bible reveals to us that it’s TRUTH that sets us free. Not prayer. Not a ministry. Not a book or anything else — the Word of God has the power to change us — we need to believe it and walk it out.

Pray with me:

Father, I’m overwhelmed. I have so many inner battles I don’t even know where to begin. I have so many beliefs that I genuinely thought were the Christian way, and now I’m not so sure. Today, I’m laying it all down. I’m willing to confront and undo all my belief systems, including the way I was taught in church that are man-made methods and not the real, transforming power through Your Son! Holy Spirit, reveal to me all the strongholds and belief systems that have been costing me my freedom! Help me hear the Word of God and show me how to apply it in my life daily. Show me where I’ve emphasized and have been living by my feelings and experiences rather than living by faith. Today, I’m consciously choosing to believe that I am already free, my chains are gone, the devil does not have a hold on me, my past has been redeemed, I’m a new creation in Christ and an empowered vessel of Your Spirit, and any thought or memory that comes in and tells me otherwise, I will now address as a lie that is set up against Your knowledge — I will dismantle it by taking it captive, and make my very own brain and body obey You! Father, thank you for Your Truth that sets me free. Thank you, Jesus for delivering me!