Two of the many speakers we were blessed to hear from were Paul and Cheryl Black who pastor a church in Frederick, Maryland. What an anointed couple! We learned so much from them. I would like to share with you a few small excerpts from something Paul shared with us.
He defined the Christian life as a life exchange. Your life for His life. Many will never find theirselves in Christ because they aren't willing to make that exchange.
We are body, soul, and spirit. Our body is of course our physical body and it's fleshly/carnal desires. The soul is our mind, will, emotions, and personality. Third and most importantly is our spirit. Without the spirit there is no life. Before someone is saved, their spirit is disconnected from the Father, but when you're saved your spirit has union with the Holy Spirit and takes control over the soul and body. Faith is a language of the spirit, and if you walk in the spirit you will not lust after the flesh. Since our souls like to be in charge and our souls are not used to submitting to our spirit, there is a warring between our soul and our spirit. He also stated that demons cannot affect your spirit. They can, however, affect your soul which in turn can damage your spirit.
There are several different ways your spirit can be damaged:
A timid and fearful spirit is often caused by trauma. This person may constantly need reassurance of love, they may want to sleep with the lights on, and they may be afraid of travel or new situations. This person's trauma could have even occurred in the womb before they were born, such as their mother having been in a car accident during her pregnancy or having been in an abusive relationship while pregnant.
An imprisoned spirit feels hopeless, guilty, and fearful. They often don't want to be prayed for and will claim that they are just fine.
A person with a crushed spirit may have been forced into maturity too quickly, such as having to take care of siblings when a parent died. Their face often shows sadness. They may have frequent thoughts of suicide and declare that life would be better for everyone else if they were not around.
The rejected spirit fears rejection and may have been repeatedly rejected by parents, friends, a spouse, or others.
A person with a broken spirit often has bitter anger, eating disorders, and may long for death.
The defiled spirit is the most difficult to get set free from, and is the one I most identified with. A person with a defiled spirit often suffers frequent or prolonged physical illness. Defilement of your spirit is often a result of sexual immorality or abuse. In North America 2 out of 3 girls have been sexually abused. A large majority of North American teenagers have also engaged in premarital sex and often with more than one partner. Defilement and immorality will keep you from revelation, and you can't commune fully with the Holy Spirit until your spirit is delivered from the defilement.
The Bible defines sexual sin as:
1.) Premarital sex--even if you're planning on getting married, premarital sex robs you of your joy (I can attest to this personally), and it brings death into your spirit because it is out of God's order.
2.) Trial marriages--living together before you get married
3-7.) Incest, Adultery, Homosexuality, Beastiality, and Pornography/Fantasy. Sexual abuse always traumatizes and defiles as well.
With all of these spirit issues, you have to get to the root--the original door that brought about the problem. You can do that by asking the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you.
Paul went a step further to give us a vivid illustration of the defiled spirit. Any time you submit yourself to someone in a relationship, you have a soul tie with them. There are healthy soul ties and ungodly soul ties. When you have premarital sex with someone (any kind of sex), you have an ungodly soul tie to that person and to each person they were with before you.
As an example he took two students, who I'll call Helen and Troy, up to the front of the class pretending they were planning to get married. In the illustration he showed that Helen had a relationship with two other guys before she met Troy. I'll call them Larry and Peter. But Larry and Peter had also had relationships with other girls before they had been with Helen. So those girls came forward as well. In just a few moments there were multiple soul ties that Helen had from her past that were about to become soul ties for Troy as well.
But there were more. In this illustration Troy also had a history, so his soul ties were brought forward as well. Within a few minutes Helen and Troy had soul ties to almost 20 people, and the illustration didn't even go back that far so you can only imagine how many ungodly soul ties there actually are in most people's lives.
But there are other ways to have a soul tie too, and like I said above, any time you submit yourself to someone in a relationship you have a soul tie. In ungodly soul ties there can be sickness, domination, and control. When someone begins to look to you for answers instead of to God or begins to idolize you, it creates an ungodly soul tie, sucking the life from you. The reverse is true if you're looking to them.
Even looking at pornography or provocative films creates a soul tie, and this is something most all of us have done at some point in our lives. With men in particular, there is a chemical in the brain that imprints lust when seeing something that turns them on, creating a soul tie.
That reminds me, Paul gave a clear example of the difference between falling in love and falling in lust. When you fall in love, you want to lay down your life for that person and pour yourself out to them. You want what's best for them. Love is not selfish. When you fall in lust, you want everything you can get from the other person. You focus on what you need and not what they need. Lust is selfish.
So getting back on track...How do we get free from a defiled spirit?
Every part that you gave to the other, you pray it to come back to you and every part that they gave to you, you pray that it goes back to them. It is very powerful to speak this prayer aloud and name the names that you can remember. It is also helpful to get rid of things that remind you of that person such as pictures, personal items they gave you, etc. Words cannot describe how liberating this process is.
Father, I desire to be delivered from a defiled spirit, so I call back every part of me that I gave away to (name), (name), and (name). I also send back every part of them and their previous soul ties that they passed to me. I send back every part of persons in provocative or pornographic images that I've viewed in my past as well. In Jesus name, Amen.
So once you've done this, how do you feed your spirit and strengthen it?
You do so through praise and thanksgiving, through practicing peace, through reading scriptures, and through ministering to others. Praise is a garment that you clothe yourself with. The enemy can't touch you when you are clothed in praise. Body (flesh) and soul are at enmity with God. As you sanctify (cleanse) your spirit, your flesh and soul come into alignment with your spirit and with God's spirit. Your spirit is to be strong and lead, but you have to feed your spirit to get it strong. You have to take initiative. We have a tendency to want the Holy Spirit to do all the work, but we have to take responsibility and persist to transform our thinking and our spirit.
A brain expert discovered that there are physical trails (habit patterns) in your brain.Reading scripture aloud actually changes those habit patterns thereby strengthening your spirit. So, when you are by yourself, study in the word what the Lord says about you and read those scriptures aloud.
And remember...getting free is one thing, but it's hard to stay free if you don't use the tools God gave us. So use those tools!
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