Why? Because I was struggling so much with rejection. ![]() Over the last year I’ve experienced many losses, some of them I wasn’t equipped to handle emotionally. But wow, have I experienced some bondage since then. The day I gave my life to Christ I became owned by God. But a Christian can be under the control of a demon.” As Robert Morris, pastor of Gateway Church in Texas states, “A Christian can’t be owned by a demon we’re owned by God. Let’s pay attention to that last statement – to be under the influence of. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, the enemy cannot take your spirit, but your soul (mind, will, emotions) can be under the influence of demons. The Greek word for possessed is daimonizomai, which means to be under the control of to be under the influence of. Don’t have one? Me neither, but thanks Google and Robert Morris for your help. And to do that, I need you to get your Greek dictionary out so we break down that word together. Seriously though… I think many of us automatically categorize that word with something scary, so we can’t see past it. Ready to find FREEDOM in Christ? Join my free Winning at Warfare Facebook group as we get free together! When you first hear that word, do you get a mental picture of a priest standing over you, throwing holy water at you and pushing a cross against your forehead? No… just me? Carry on then. So, if we have Jesus Christ in our spirits, how can we be possessed? To answer that, we have to fully understand what being possessed means. Breaking Down the Understanding of Possession We have the Spirit of Christ living in us, but we still have to fight against our own desires (mind, will, emotions). I don’t know about you, but when I make decisions from my own will versus the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I get myself in trouble. We make many of our decisions from our thoughts, our emotions, our desires. The soul is made up of three parts: our mind, our wills, our emotions. Salvation is a decision we must make for ourselves. We don’t become Christians because our family grew up in church. Holy smokes, that makes me excited! Not everyone has the Holy Spirit residing in them. You are literally indwelt with the Spirit of Christ. When you accept Christ into your life as the only one who can save you from your sins, His spirit enters you through the Holy Spirit. It’s past time for the church to start talking about Spiritual Warfare. I encourage you to dig deeper for yourself. And please understand, this is the extremely short version. So, let’s quickly break down the difference so we can understand better. That’s the key word right there – soul. For the longest time I thought it was all the same – the spirit and the soul. Though that answer made sense, something about it just didn’t settle well in my soul. ![]() Nothing can take control of my spirit because it belongs to Christ. I’ve given my life to Christ, which means I am filled with the Holy Spirit and Satan can’t take that away. The author stated in the book that once we become Christians we cannot be possessed. Several years ago I was reading a book about overcoming the darkness and learning my identity in Christ. ![]() perfect love casts out the darkness. Why should we be afraid of that? He told us to cast out the darkness in his name. ![]() Not one single time in Scripture that I’ve found does it tell us to be scared of the dark forces of evil in this world. Maybe we get scared because others have taught us to be scared. Why do so many people get freaked out when we start talking about Satan, demons, deliverance, etc? Because we’re afraid of something we haven’t been taught. We must stop pretending warfare only happens in the movies. Because it’s past time for the church to start talking about spiritual warfare. It’s time for the church to stop pretending like warfare is simply something Jesus experienced when he was alive. Let’s talk first about why we need to address this topic. Let’s talk about hard stuff, shall we? Hard stuff like demons and whether or not a Christian can be possessed.
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