There is a principle in spiritual warfare that we need to be reminded of from time to time. The principle states that whatever we come into agreement with, we empower. If we come into agreement with an idea, we empower it. For instance, suppose I wake up one morning with a few aching muscles, mention those aches to someone, and they say, “You must be coming down with the flu.” At that moment, I can think that aching muscles can come from many sources and the flu is highly unlikely or, at that moment, I can think that person could be right. After all, it is flu season. Some people at work have had the flu and now maybe I have it now. For the rest of the day, I will search my body for every symptom of the flu and obsess on every small indicator – imagined or real. I will feel fatigue just because I have been worrying all day and I will turn down offers to go out to eat with friends because I might be coming down with something. I have given the idea power over my life.
If I come into agreement with a spirit, I also give it authority in my life. Adam and Eve came into agreement with Satan and ended up forfeiting their rule over the earth. If a spirit comes along and whispers that my spouse is such a horrible person that I should get a divorce and go find someone who will give me the happiness I deserve, and I entertain that thought long enough, I will come into agreement with it. That will become my prevailing thought about my marriage. When that happens I give the enemy authority to establish a foothold in my life. The prophet Amos declared, “How can two walk together unless they are agreed?” The corollary is that when we agree, we walk together. We have formed some sort of alliance.
When our thinking and our words stand in opposition to the Word of the Lord, then what we are thinking or saying is a lie and that persistent lie invites the Father of Lies (Satan) into our life. Every demonic oppression begins in our flesh with our own choices about what to believe and speak when those things are opposed to God’s truth. If we persist, then we open up a door and the enemy can move in. Rotten thinking invites demons in the spiritual realm like rotten food invited flies. The enemy then amplifies the lie and distorts our perceptions so that those lies seem even more true.
Fairly often, we minister to people who have made a number of bad choices in their past. Maybe they were involved in drugs, stole things, had multiple sexual partners, were prostitutes, had abortions, and so forth. These men and women are often demonized and when we begin to minister deliverance we hit a roadblock. The roadblock is often their agreement with demons that they are beyond forgiveness. The inability to “forgive ourselves” is primarily unbelief in the encompassing grace of God. The unbelief empowers the enemy and gives a spirit the right to remain. When the spirit is not cast out, then the person is all the more convinced that he or she is beyond God’s love and forgiveness.
The most necessary conviction in spiritual warfare is that God’s word is true and every thing that disagrees with that word is a lie – regardless of how we feel. Lies are really the only weapon Satan has to use against us. It was true in the Garden. It is still true. When he whispers his lies, our first test should be the Word of God rather than whether or not that thought feels right. Any agreement with Satan constitutes unbelief at some level. That unbelief gets in the way of both deliverance and healing.
Too often, I find myself chasing spirits of rejection, condemnation, shame, self-loathing, etc. which all need to be expelled, but I sometimes forget to find out what the person truly believes about God’s love, grace, and forgiveness for him or her. If a spirit of unbelief or a lying spirit is operating, the person’s continued agreement with the enemy makes it very difficult to dislodge those spirits. Leading a person to repent of unbelief in the complete forgiveness they have in Christ and to renounce that unbelief is a simple thing but can be overlooked in ministering to people.
It might be worth asking some basic questions to begin, such as, “On a scale of 1-10, how much do you believe that every sin in your life is totally forgiven and forgotten?” “On a scale of 1-10, how much do you believe that God totally loves and accepts you?” “On a scale of one 1-10, how much do you truly believe that you are a beloved son or daughter of the King?”
Satan always wants to hide our identity from us and distort it so that we forget who we are in Christ. He wants us to believe that we are weak and sinful people despised by God rather than who we truly are in Christ. When we come into agreement with that distortion, we empower him and give him a place in our lives from which he can grow in influence. His power is taken away when we align ourselves with the Word of God because when we agree with God’s word, we empower it in our lives. Too many of us pay no attention to out thought life which is the in indicator of what we truly believe. We talk about what we think we should believe, while being ignorant of what we truly do believe. Since the Holy Spirit leads us into truth, a good exercise might be to ask Him to show us what we really believe about things so that we can maintain our alignment with the Father through frequent course corrections in our thought life. Whatever we agree with, we empower so lets be careful to agree with God.
