SPIRITUAL WARFARE, step one
-April Chapel, MA, ALC
"Submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." James 4:7
This is the formula for spiritual warfare. If satan is eating your lunch, then there is a problem with either step 1, submitting to God, or step 2, resisting the devil.
What has not been surrendered to God? Pain? Offense? Relationships? Trust? Fear? The past? Control? Trauma? Guilt? Unrealized expectations?
Whatever emotion or experience you have little tolerance for, most likely is rooted in woundedness. Sin and trauma wound the soul. If we refuse to submit those wounds to God for healing, we allow the enemy of our souls a legal right to traffic in our thinking, our emotions, and our lives. We come OUT of agreement with the slimy snake who uses our pain as a weapon against us by surrendering our wounds to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and the healing work of his Holy Spirit.
“Father God, right now I come to you in the midst of my pain and brokenness. I submit __________________ to you and invite you into my thoughts and feelings. This is an opportunity to more fully surrender my emotions to You, therefore, I will respond to this trigger with hope. I open myself up to Your love and grace. By faith, I take captive every memory and every fear that is causing me distress and submit them to the authority of the Holy Spirit. Reveal, Lord, every way of thinking that is in opposition to Your truth. I trust Your Spirit to guide me into truth. I will not allow the enemy of my soul to use my trauma as a weapon against me. Expose any lies related to my trauma that I have come into agreement with. Show me, Jesus, how You protect and defend me. Let me feel Your presence and Your love now, God. Your love conquers all fear. You give perfect peace to those whose minds are set on You, so I now shift my thinking from what has triggered me to how much You love me. You are my Refuge and my Hiding Place. Restore my sense of safety, Lord. I echo the prayer of Jabez, that “Your hand would be on me”, healing and protecting me from evil. I trust you to redeem my traumatic experience for a purpose You call good. I receive Your healing and comfort from this present moment all the way back to my original trauma. In the mighty name of Jesus, AMEN.”
