Introduction

Jesus' teaching is that demonic action to do with Human beings has always been:-

• to steal from us or to destroy what we are doing
• to steal some aspect of our health or personality
• to bring about death to our lives or our meaningful relationships with others 

At the beginning of this journey of discovery about what they do and how they do it, we usually begin to realise that many of the thoughts that we thought were our faulty thoughts are actually demonically planted thoughts set up like bait in our minds for us to bite on and get hooked into tracks of thought and emotion that are not based in Jesus life in us at all. This article is not a how to do it fix all for ministry but about winning the personal struggles that arise.  Understanding Jesus truth is the first step to victory.

What we are

When we are born from above, we are recreated with separate parts of us biblically called “self” (or the flesh or old man) and “new creature” .  We are able then for the first time to choose which we will connect with and live from, on a moment by moment basis.  Either the Jesus shaped new creature within us or the old familiar ways and nature of the self creature that we have known and grown for years.  The good news about all this is that we are now very attracted to new creature life, and without other influences we would naturally live there all the time.  This is because when Father birthed us “from above” (John 3 ) we received Jesus as we surrendered to Him for the first time, and were touched by an experience of His nature which imprinted a love for Him and all that He is.  The new creature place within each of us looks like Him and has the connection to Him that flows with Him and we love that.  That’s why so many people love to worship, because this is one way of reconnecting from self back to new creature and experiencing Jesus love and peace flow.  The result is usually an experience of His love and peace that we weren’t experiencing before the worship.  There are other ways of connecting and keys to connection that are personal discoveries and He will teach us about these as we walk with Him and try what He shows us.

Our Father is always available

I have discovered that this flow of Him is always available if we will live in new creature connected ways.  Many people respond to this statement with something like “Yes and I would if I only could- it just seems so hard to do”.  Basically we respond in this way because we don’t realise the nature of the battle we live with every day.  The usual analysis of who we are is like “Oh I am just a sinner saved by grace” with a huge emphasis on the “sinner” part because we seem to be trapped in our thoughts and feelings of sinful waywardness.  I have news for you and it’s all good.  This is NOT who we were created to be.  What sinner thinking is really, is a mind deception that demons like to put on us because they know that it produces discouragement and the destruction of effectiveness as a Christian. 

The new creature (spirit) part of us is what John is talking about in 1John when he says “whatsoever is born of God cannot sin” and as such is always a clean place inside us that we can go to.  That happens every time we open up to Him again (1 John 1:7 ) “But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son CLEANSES US FROM ALL SIN”.   That statement in the Greek (that the new testament is written in) is a present tense continuous one.  That means it is a continuous NOW statement – not in the past, or in the future, but in the NOW.  When we practise living with Him in the now, we find that the connection flow with Father is there in force.  The switch can happen instantly as we keep short accounts with Him and keep receiving His powerful life.  What hinders is the state of our negative beliefs about who we are, what we can do and what we were created for.

Dare to believe

When we start to dare to believe that we are actually created to be the family members of God’s family, then the beliefs start to really change on the inside and an improvement begins to take place.  This improvement comes because we start to believe that we were created to live in His goodness and from His life.  Then we start to recognise the demonic seed thoughts as they come, for what they really are, and fight to reject them.  It is a matter of perspective.  This is all part of our Journey into more and more of Him.  In each new area that He is working on, it is a fight at first to keep our belief.  At the beginning we are unprepared at first for the sneaky way that demons will resist and counter attack us.  They have had thousands of years to practise on mankind, but you are just starting.  Give yourself some room to move by forgiving yourself just as He has forgiven you.  Then realise that you are going to learn to fight by doing it and its not necessarily going to be instant fix or easy.  The demons resisted Jesus and they will resist you.  He won by persisting and so will you. 

If you will do this and move out of perfect performance thinking, then you will find it much easier to succeed.  The great key to this is to realise that our Father knows everything.  He knows we are going to win some and loose some battles as we go along, but He is not fazed by this.  He is supremely confident in His ability to rescue you and guide you as you go along.  He is always watching from the inside of your New Creature place ready to catch you and stop you from being “utterly cast down” (Psalm37:23,24 ).  Like all good parents, He wants to comfort and heal us when we fall over and get a bruise, and to encourage us to get up and walk on, fight on, believe on.

We have been given authority on the earth and in the spirit, but if we don’t know that or know how it works then we don’t understand who we are and we are set up to fail against "demonic wiles" (clever schemes).

Demonic strategies

All demonic strategies can be boiled down to a few common basics.  The aim of a demon who attacks you is to get you to accept a seed thought that is injected into your mind as if it is your own.  It sounds like one of your thoughts, feels like one of your thoughts and because this demon has been doing this into your mind for a long time you are familiar with it.  So you are likely to accept these thoughts without question as one of your thoughts.  When we bite on that thought, the demon then feeds us with a growing stream of thoughts, imaginings and emotional hooks.  Then quickly we find ourselves going down a track of temptation until we detect what is happening and act to oppose it. 

For many Christians, unfortunately, the detection process seems to come too late and is accompanied by huge guilt trips.  This is because we don’t seem to realise that we are being manipulated and think that the thoughts are our own sinfulness.  At this point the demon feeds us with accusing thoughts to push us into self condemnation.  This is what it has been wanting all along.  Demons know that we find it much harder to hear our Father in self condemnation.  They also know that we can be pushed from there to discouragement, then to depression and then ultimately to suicide.  It doesn’t matter what the demon starts the track with, that is the end it has in mind.  To destroy.  Demons know that they have no authority or power over a son or daughter of God, so they influence us to use our own authority and spiritual power against ourselves.  We end up destroying ourselves and its all through cleverly engineered mind thought injection.