Hi all,
Wrong thinking and wrong emotions don’t always develop into emotional illness, but we are seeing a rise in emotional illness in around the world. It starts with a wrong thought, then a focus on that wrong thought leads to an imbalance in one’s life. That imbalance is closely tied to emotional illness.
Christians with demons?
In John 8:44 Jesus said when the devil speaks a lie he is all alone. He is in the spirit realm ruling his kingdom of darkness, so he is outside our realm of the physical world, but seeks entry. He looks for people to agree with him, which legally allows him into their lives.
If they agree with him, his authority is extended to that person and expands his kingdom and it’s influence. He is confined within ‘chains of darkness’ – but if people allow his kingdom into their lives, the influence of his kingdom expands.
While a Christian’s spirit cannot have any spirit other than the Holy Spirit, one’s mind and body can entertain and even offer a home to an evil spirit. Satan wants influence in the natural world.
The spirit realm touches the natural realm at the point of thought.
I’ve seen demons sitting on people’s shoulders, then hop into their minds. Others report seeing the same thing when in the Spirit and allowed to observe how an obsessive thought happens.
In my experience, it has been those obsessive thoughts that dominate a person’s thought life that signify an emotional or mental issue. Where an obsessive thought and a demon meet depends on each situation and person.
I’ve noticed that a person who is off balance in their thinking and feelings feels threatened if they interact with someone who challenges what they believe. The ability to argue a point and still have the same good feelings about that other person is a sign of maturity and emotional health. If a difference of doctrine or opinion on anything ruins what one thinks of the other, it is a sign of immaturity and possible emotional off-balance.
And that 1 factor right there, means such a person is often single, unable to sustain several long term relationships, because when challenged they cannot separate an idea from an emotion, and their opinion of that person is ruined. That’s off-balance. Take to an extreme, it can become emotional illness.
An example from recent US history would include the prophecies from so called prophets that during President Biden’s inauguration President Trump was going to come with the army to arrest Biden. It seemed like millions of Christians were caught up in that lie, following so called prophets who banded together and whose ‘words’ were confirmed only among themselves.
I challenged that idea as of a wrong spirit and NOT the Spirit of God to a few ‘friends’ on social media, saying that wasn’t God and they needed to run from those so called prophets. I got unfriended or otherwise cut off from contact. Their response was anger, so ‘unfriend’ was the reaction. They couldn’t justify it, explain the mechanisms exactly of what that take over and arrest would look like. One ‘prophet’ even said the Father personally appeared to them to tell them it was going to happen – and false words to that effect.
Look at the emotional off-balance and perhaps illness: The loss of common sense, logic, understanding the mechanics of how things work. The unhealthy focus on 1 thing, 1 topic that drew them in. The shutting out of friends. The inability to deal with challenges to their beliefs. The insistence to hear only those who supported what they said. The certainty they had higher knowledge than others on the ‘outside’. That they felt better informed what the Spirit was saying and others would just have to trust them – all point to off-balance and perhaps outright illness.
But look at those same symptoms in the world.
The same emotion, the same withdrawl from anyone who doesn’t believe as they do. The anger, the leaving of healthy relationships to join only those who believe as they do, the feeling of being threatened if someone asks them to defend their point of view – we see it in every segment of society – Christian or non-Christian alike. How do those obsessive thoughts begin?
Before Satan brought sin to Adam and Eve, he presented a lie
Consider that statement. A lie comes before a sin. Satan questioned them about God, told them God had lied to them, that He told them wrong, and he (Satan) was right. Even a half truth is a whole lie. Eve believed the lie which caused her to sin.
An adolescent boy finds adult web sites, and sees lies of how s*x is. That’s the lie that leads him into s*xual sin as an adult and unhappiness with women in his life. A girl believes she is ugly, so she starts hating herself. Or maybe seeks ‘that one’ man who will fill her emptiness. A child is abused, so grows up with the lie that they deserved it or they were different, which leads them into sin…and on it goes. Before sin entered the world, a lie came 1st.
Or on the lighter side, ‘Just one more piece of cake won’t hurt’, lol, we know that’s a lie – so we sin against our body for the 2nd helping. “I’ll quit (the habitual sin) next week…” What other lies do we tell ourselves before we sin?
Consider that a child or adult who believed lies now comes to the Lord and in their spirit finally feel clean and new again. But their mind is still filled with all those lies – they must un-believe the lies – one by one, situation by situation. They must reject the lies as they are seen for what they are, and start thinking God’s thoughts about that situation.
People often rebuke the devil not realizing it is God bringing an event to their memory. He does so that they may say “I forgive them” or “I forgive myself” or “I’ve learned a lesson from that”. Often it isn’t the devil, but the Father trying to help us reconcile our past, bringing the memory, thoughts, and emotions related to the event to bring healing and subjection in Christ.
You’ll know He has done His healing work when the memory remains but the pain is gone.
And I’ll close it out with more about unbelieving lies, and more, next week. Until then, blessings,
John Fenn