Spiritual Warfare 24/7

Why are getting attacked by Satan and his fallen angels 24/7?  It is because Satan’s wants to destroy God’s children. Unfortunately, we allow the attacks with very little resistance from the Body of Jesus Christ and we have not been taught how to pray effectively, James 5:16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. 

Satan knows we are sinful and we give him a legal right to harass us.  Evil spirits can be very powerful and hard to cast out as Jesus said in Matthew 17:19-21  Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” 20 So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

Why are we sinful?  God tells us we are sinful because of disobedience as it says in Deuteronomy 28: 15 “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. The curses are sickness and disease.  God tells us about many sicknesses and diseases in verses 16-68.  God tells us that all sicknesses and diseases come from disobedience/sin in verse 61 Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed.  If all sickness and disease symptoms come from sin (disobedience) why do we ignore the warnings of God? Why are we not praying without ceasing, 1 Thessalonians 5:17? 

Praying is not a complicated process.  It is made complicated because we refuse to pray day and night when needed.  How do I know we are not praying day and night?  Because, we are all struggling with sickness and disease, physically and mentally. We are we struggling spiritually as well because we do not believe we can be healed even though God promises healing.  God is not our first choice for healing.  Science, doctors, and every remedy under the sun is our choices for healing even though we remain sick and diseased.  

Jesus tells us The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly, John 10:10.  Satan (the thief) seeks to rob believers of our spiritual life, health, peace, joy, and purpose, ultimately aiming to destroy our relationship with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Satan intends to steal our hopes and destroy lives with sin. 

Steps To Counter the Attacks from Satan and His Fallen Angeles

Sin began with Satan telling Eve a lie, Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die, Genisis 3:4.  Eve was tempted by Satan to do what God told Eve and Adam not to do.  She believed Satan’s lies, You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it, John 8:44.  Nothing will change unless we pray against Satan and his fallen angels whose only objective is to destroy and ultimately kill us.

The soul is where our thoughts come from. Thoughts come from ourselves, thoughts from God, and thoughts from Satan in the form of lies and temptations.  Our body is a rebounder to who we are in thought.  It’s referred to as the mind-body connection.  It is a biological truth that the things we think about and dwell on actually become part of who we are. We will never get to the spiritual roots of health issues if we don’t first understand the biology of how our minds affect our bodies mentally and physically. Thoughts can be anger, hatred, self-hatred, bitterness, self-bitterness, unforgiveness, unforgiveness of self, feeling unloved, unbelief, fear, fearing into the future, hurts from family, friends, employers, the church, and rejection, to name a few.  All of these and countless others lead to sickness and diseases. Again, it is the mind-body connection.

Science has identified over 3000 sicknesses and diseases and are listed in Merck Manuel. These illnesses are symptoms.  Ask the science and the medical field what caused the illnesses and they can’t give you an answer.  The medical field treats the symptoms, but can’t heal the symptoms.  Yet, we continue to put our trust in the medical field instead of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.  I don’t advocate eliminating doctors.  I do advocate what God instructed us to do in to eliminate our health issues in James 5:16 Confess your trespasses (and repent) to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed…  First order of business in this verse is to confess our sins. Second order of business is praying away the causes of that led to the symptoms of sickness and disease.  We can’t ignore God’s promise of healing in this verse.  So, why doesn’t the Body of Jesus Christ do as God instructs us to do?

When Shall We Pray  

As I said earlier, we must be praying without ceasing, 1 Thessalonians 5:17.  It means we must counter all attacks with prayer at the moment we are attacked.  Example: When you feel depressed, pray away the anxiety (fear) that caused the depression, Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, But a good word makes it glad, Proverbs 12:25.  Praying away the depression is not effective prayer, James 5:16.  When depression hits again and again, then pray away the fear again and again.  Eventually, the depression will minimize.

Another example is high blood pressure.  Science says that stress causes blood vessels to narrow causing the heart to pump harder.  Stress is fear in the Bible.  Fear is mentioned in the bible hundreds of times.  Fear causes high blood pressure.  Praying away the high blood pressure is not effective prayer.  We must pray away the fear that causes high blood pressure that affects 120 million Americans and keeps them in captivity.  If you have high blood pressure every day, we must pray away the fear that causes high blood pressure every day.  Same hold true for any sickness and disease symptoms.  Do you agree?

A third example is dementia (Alzheimer's).  Dementia symptoms include forgetfulness, progressive memory loss, difficulty completing familiar tasks, language problems, poor judgment, mood changes, and confusion.  Confusion is from Satan because God is not an author of confusion, 1 Corinthians 14:33 For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.

God gives us a clue about dementia in 2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.  Satan gives us a spirit of fear and he gives us an unsound mind.  Basically speaking, dementia is an unsound mind.  The clue God gives us is on what causes an unsound is in the first part of the verse, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear.”  The elderly have been exposed to thousands of fears all their lives like most of us.  Eventually, fear can cause dementia and many other fear related health issues.  We must pray away the fear that causes an unsound mind, confusion, and many other health issues.

Understand that Satan brings fear to us from past generations as well because of iniquities/sin as it says in Exodus 34:7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 20:5).  This is perpetual down the generational line.

The elderly have all these generational fears, fears from childhood, fears as adults, fears in middle age, and elderly fears. Most every fear is a separate fear and most fears are fears into the future.  Over a lifetime we can have thousands and thousands of fears that cause many sicknesses and diseases because we don’t pray and cast out all fears.

The best scripture when praying against all fears especially fear of not feeling loved is 1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.  This scripture is for all fears when you declare out loud that you receive Gods perfect love that casts out ALL fears.  This would be an excellent prayer for the congregation to declare during service.

I have been visiting churches for many years and I ask the volunteers, leadership and pastors these two questions:  1. Why are we coming into church sick and diseased and leave sick and diseased even though God promises healing?  2. Why are we not praying before, during, and after every church service and every church function?  I have yet to hear an answer that is pleasing to God.

Jesus prayed before, during and after in His ministry. He knew how powerful prayer was.  His teachings and especially His prayers led to many healings.  His initial teachings were rather foreign to most at the time. As He prayed for healing of the people, word got around through testimonies of healing and his ministry exploded because people wanted to be healed from their sicknesses and diseases.  The Bible tells us of the four and five thousand came to hear Jesus’ teachings and His prayer for healing.  Isn’t this the blueprint Jesus expected the church of today to follow? Most of the churches I visit are not full to capacity. Quite a few are only half empty. Is it because they are not a praying church and not experiencing miracles of healing?

This scripture is the last thing Jesus said to the disciples before he left to be with His Father, And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons (evil spirits); they will speak with new tongues; 18 they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands (pray) on the sick, and they will recover.”  Are we following this commandment? Our sicknesses and diseases are telling us a different story. 

Prayers are powerful, but prayers and scriptures together are twice as powerful if we pray throughout the day to counter the attacks from Satan so that we can be delivered from our sins that cause health issues.  Most of us going into church service knows the Bible, but most do not pray or do not know how to pray effectively to come out of captivity.  We must be a praying church at all ages because all of us are suffering.  Even the children.  Children need to be taught how to pray for one another and self.  Prayer is not just for adults.

Perhaps the church needs the elderly to take the lead and pray as the Bible tells us to do in James 5:14-15 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

Every day I try to hold myself accountable to do as God instructs us to do and emulate what Jesus did in His ministry.  Everyday I make myself available to pray for people who are sick and diseased.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of people do not make themselves available for prayer in or out of church based on my experience the past 21 years.  May God bless you abundantly.