The “Most Practical” Advice for Demonic Attacks/Obsessive Thoughts – Purity 1374
Purity 1374 06/13/2024 https://mt4christ247.podbean.com/e/the-most-practical-advice-for-demonic-attacksobsessive-thoughts-purity-1374/
Purity 1374 on YouTube: Coming Soon!
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the sun and clouds over Waite Rd – forming a Pillar of Fire By Day (Exodus 3:21) to light my path comes to us from yours truly as I captured this scene yesterday afternoon as I decided to take a couple of photos on the way back to my countryside home even though the brilliance of the sun before me had me effectively “blinded by the light”.
Well, It’s Thursday and there is a popular proverb that says “there are none so blind as those who will not see” and “according to the ‘Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings’ this proverb has been traced back to 1546 (John Heywood), and resembles the Biblical verse Jeremiah 5:21 (‘Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not’). In 1738 it was used by Jonathan Swift in his ‘Polite Conversation’ and is first attested in the United States in the 1713 ‘Works of Thomas Chalkley’. The full saying is: ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know’…
But that is assuming a lot! This wisdom assumes that people can see and people “already know” something and by implication would be fully capable of applying their knowledge to their lives.
As a Christian life coach, teacher, and encourager, I know that this isn’t necessarily the case. In the past – on the blog, in classes, and in one one-on-one conversations, I have encouraged scores of people to seek the Lord, follow His ways of living, and to “keep on walking and talking with God” continually as the means for their freedom and victory. While many have expressed their thanks to me for my encouraging words and the help that I have tried to give, I noticed that few of the many seemed to have experienced the increasing levels of freedom, peace, and joy that I have found by following my simple advice.
That’s why I have decided to become a Christian life coach to help others to be accountable to “knowing what they know” and living according to their wisdom. As a coach, I make the same encouragements and give the practical advice that I would as a teacher or blogger/podcast, but I do so in the context of a relationship where I work together with my clients to insure that they are “seeing” what they should see, that they really “know” – experientially- what they should “know” and are making efforts to put their knowledge into practice.
I often have people referred to me for advice or to receive help with spiritual and personal conflicts and yesterday I received an email from someone who I have already given some “practical advice” and free resources in an attempt to help them overcome recurring afflictions of a spiritual/mental nature but apparently – the advice wasn’t taken, or wasn’t effective because they were reaching out to receive “the most practical things” they could do to reduce or eliminate intrusive visions or thoughts of an occultic symbol that played a part in some very real trauma in their past. I don’t take their pain and suffering lightly at all, and I am blogging about this today as an attempt to address their concern specifically and to help others who may be suffering from recurring thoughts or visions that may be demonic in nature.
Ok, first in foremost, while I am responding in kindness, I am a student of what we would call the nouthetic approach to Christian counseling – which is an approach that:
- Demands personal responsibility of the counselee for their healing.
- Believes in the inerrancy and authority of the word of God as the best advice for living and human flourishing.
- Believes in the spiritual realms of darkness and light portrayed in the Bible and the implications of the “permissions” we give to the spiritual forces of darkness through the things we believe and the way we live our lives.
- Confronts the counselee with the inconsistencies of their choices to believe and obey what the word of God teaches.
So, with that said, I have to point out that I gave the following resources and advice to this emailer previously:
- Here is a link to my podcast walkthrough of the Freedom in Christ Course on YouTube. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYr9n4D1yfkq0ZMuXvt4PX2QmtyMN6Keb&si=9GIiQ1OQvjDx0DGk
- You can buy the Freedom in Christ participant’s guide and go through the material as well.
- You can go through The Steps to Freedom on your own. I would recommend doing all the lessons up to and including the one on forgiveness before you try.
- Or get the free book restored (https://www.ficm.org/read-restored-online-for-free/) and read through that before going through the Steps.
Like I said I believe in the personal responsibility of each one of us in our receiving healing and freedom from the Lord. We have to do our part. We have to believe what God’s word says and take the advice of those who offer us help. Otherwise, we are just a “hoping and a praying” – treating God as a genie in the bottle.
Because this emailer gave no feedback on how these resources were received or how they were used, I have to assume they went unused. I personally know how effective the Steps to Freedom in Christ can be in eliminating obsessive condemning thoughts, so I doubt they were able to complete them. And that’s okay – but I got to keep it real. Also please understand that it’s not the “Steps to Freedom in Christ” that’s sets us free, It’s God and you working together, in faith, in repentance, and through the power of Holy Spirit and with the use of this prayerful repentance process that spiritual conflicts are resolved, and freedom is experienced.
So you couldn’t, wouldn’t, or were unable to do this, but you are still looking for “the most practical things” you can do to stop these flashes of an occultic symbol from your traumatic past. So what do you do?
Well, it sounds like there are some real problems here.
- You obviously have unresolved problems from the past, and most likely some very real current problems with your walk for faith.
I have to imagine that there are some fundamental trust issues between you and the Lord, and I suspect that the life you are living is less than one of complete faith and obedience to God’s word (that’s okay -it’s pretty common) which probably includes some if not all of the following:
- Sexual sin -specifically – fornication (sex outside of marriage), masturbation, homosexuality, continual or regular lustful thoughts
- Unforgiveness – Bitterness – Anger
- Faithlessness – Biblical illiteracy, irregular or no fellowship with a local church, no real intention of following the Lord with one’s life.
- Blasphemy – Negative view of God or heightened view of the Occult’s power
- Secular / Occult forms of entertainment
- Dishonesty – Lying
- Sloth – Gluttony – Laziness – Obesity – Passivity
- Addiction – Alcohol, Drugs, Food, Sex, Gambling, Money, Shopping
I point all these things out – not to appear holier than thou – or to beat you up – but to expose the areas of your life where the satanic forces of darkness can claim permission to stay in your life and afflict you with demonic visions or thoughts of the occultic object of your past.
With this specific occultic symbol reappearing – there is also a fundamental “category error” that is being made here that exposes “believing a lie”. The enemy is using your past traumatic experiences to cause you to believe that this symbol and the demonic entities it represents is somehow more powerful than the Lord of ALL CREATION – including said demonic entities…
Not to sound unkind, but REALLY???
If you think about it, it’s really dumb – Satan and the occult are not equal and opposite forces to God – they are created beings underneath Him.
The problem is not that they are more powerful than God – the problem is that your past traumatic experiences, and not for nothing, your less than stellar commitment to following the Lord, and the permissions that your believing lies and living a selfish/sinful life creates – have allowed the enemy to afflict you and caused you to continue to believe something that isn’t true.
Please forgive the bluntness of all the above, none of this is meant to condemn you – it is meant to expose those lies and to stir in your heart a desire to repent and surrender to the Lord to get set free.
So what do you do? Depending on how much of the above shotgun blast of possibilities is true about you, you could have a lot or a little to address.
What is the most practical thing you can do to help when this occult symbol comes flashing into your life?
DO SOMETHING!
The first thing that comes to mind is to “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”
When it comes, rebuke it.
Say “I recognize that this symbol is inferior to the Lord Jesus, and I cast it out of my mind in the mighty name of Jesus! I recognize it as one of Satan’s counterfeits and deny its power over me because I have been saved by Jesus Christ. I commit myself to following Him and receiving His guidance and protection. That symbol and the trauma of the past didn’t kill me, and I now live to testify of the Lord’s power over it and all the spiritual force of darkness.”
If you repent and start living as a Christian with those other areas of your life, and develop a daily spiritual practice of prayer and Bible study, the Lord will bless your life and give you the power to go through the Freedom in Christ course, read the book Restored, and go through the Steps to Freedom in Christ – to help resolve those spiritual conflicts of the past, to break those permissions, and to live a new abundant life in purity and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So here are some suggestions that are very practical and will help:
- Read the Bible every Day (start and stay in the New Testament to know who Jesus is and to know how to live as a Christian – after you’ve done it a couple times – do the Old Testament – knowing that God’s word is a progressive revelation and that it all leads to Jesus)
- Pray – Talk to God every day – throughout your day. Stop talking to yourself and start talking to God – Ask Him for help, guidance, and strength to live for Him.
- Decrease/eliminate secular or occultic forms of entertainment.
- Join a church where the Bible is preached and taught to be lived by – serve and fellowship there.
- Try Christian forms of entertainment. Listen to uplifting praise music and sing along. Watch The Chosen (it may not be perfect in its artistic license but it’s good).
- Turn from sexual immorality.
- Forgive those who have offended or harmed you, from the heart.
- Stop lying – live a life of honesty and integrity.
- Remove all occult objects from your home – throw them out or burn them.
- Be a good steward to your body. Go to recovery for addictions (preferably Christian). Exercise. Eat a healthy – low fat, low carb, low calorie – diet. Get lots of rest.
- Take responsibility for your thought life – think on the things of God and those things that are good.
Wow, basically out of time.
Do these things and trust in the Lord and your life will change and the enemy will flee. God bless you all.
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For those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/ .
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Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By John G. Kruis.
( While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick Google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late author’s work. (https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Scripture-Reference-Counseling-Kruis-ebook/dp/B00CIUJZT2?ref_=ast_author_dp )
This morning’s meditation verses come from the section on Divorce.
Matthew 5:31-32 (ESV)
31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’
32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Today’s verses are the first of two passages of scripture that fall under the fourth point of our counseling reference guide resource’s section on Divorce.
4. Jesus says: No divorce, except in the case of adultery.
Today’s verse establishes divorce as acceptable in cases of adultery. Jesus said so… So there. Out of time today.
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As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.com where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from “According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament” By Stephen F. Olford – A Collection of Devotional Journals: 1940-1941.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage you all to purchase Olford’s books for your own private study and to support his work. This resource is available online for less than $10 at many sites.
EVENING READING: 1 CORINTHIANS 1
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those
who are perishing.” – 1 Corinthians 1:18
Lord, give me a real passion for perishing sinners. The Word of the cross may be foolishness to many, but there are plenty who long to know Christ has died for their sins according to the Scriptures, that He has been buried, and that He has been raised, according to the Scriptures.
The tragedy is that they are perishing now. Give a vision, Lord, of a perishing world. Give a vision of Yourself. For Your Word has taught me that “where there is no vision, the people perish” (Prov. 29:18, KJV).
Hear my prayer for Christ’s sake. Amen.[1]
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“The views, opinions, and commentary of this publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries, or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the author may represent.”
Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1] Stephen Olford and Heather Olford, According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament, A Collection of Devotional Journals 1940-1941 (Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2008).
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