The Bible, the Bible, and the Bible!! The Word of God is the single greatest way to combat the lies and deceptions of the devil! A great book to help you realize who you are in Christ is Victory over Darkness by Neil T. Anderson.
Some other good books to read are on spiritual warfare and include Basic Training by Kim Freeman, Spiritual Warfare Derek Prince, Battlefield of the Mind Joyce Meyer, The Beginners Guide to Spiritual Warfare Nail T. Anderson & Timothy M. Warner
If you aren’t sure your sins are forgiven, you will be experiencing guilt, and a feeling of unworthiness to live in victory. The enemy moves right in on this weakness and fault in your belief system, and uses it against you. Guilt gives the enemy room to move in and make you feel worthless, and therefore he keeps you fighting from a defeated position. You must know that your sins are forgiven so the enemy won’t hang guilt over your head! Look at Luke 7:47, where Jesus forgave that woman who lived a very sinful life, with no strings attached! Also look at other stories where Jesus said “Your sins are forgiven” with no strings attached. And Paul is another great example of how he was moved from a sinful lifestyle right into the kingdom of God without any strings or conditions attached!
This is a vital thing you need to understand; it’s the law of grace. Many Christians feel they must goto church every Sunday, and keep a list of laws in order for God to accept and love them. This is not true, God has already accepted you just as you are, and He loved you so much while you were a sinner, that He sent His son to die for your sins! Our good deeds should be a result of our love for God. Scripture says that we have died to the law, and are no longer subject to it. We are under a new law now. It’s a law of grace, and it’s worked out through love. When we realize the love God has for us, and the hate that God has for wrong, we not only stop sinning, but develop a hatred against that sin. This breaks the power of sin in our lives. It’s not a question of doing right, but a question of why you are doing right. Are you doing it because you feel obligated and are trying to earn favor with God? Then you have fallen from the law of grace and into legalism. The reason we are to do what is right should come out of our love for God and as we realize His love for us, we will naturally become more like Him and do what’s right because we want to, not because we feel obligated to.
If you think of yourself as an evil and worthless piece of meat, you will live like it. You cannot live contrary to what you believe. The truth is, you have died to the old self, you are no longer associated with your past! If you have accepted Christ, you are a whole new person! The Bible refers to us believers are saints! We are not simply sinners who are forgiven, we are saints! It may be true that we ‘were’ sinners, and that we’ve been forgiven, but we are no longer sinners, we have been washed by the blood of Jesus, and we are whiter then snow! You are not just a servant of God, but you have been adopted into God’s royal family as a child of God!
The first stage of bondage is caused by ignorance, strong holds, and the enemy’s greatest weapon in this stage is deception. Understanding a correct picture of who God is, and who we are in Christ will dissolve a lot of cases involving stage one bondages.
The primary weapon of the devil to put a person into stage one bondage is deception. It is extremely common and there isn’t a person alive who hasn’t been deceived in one way or another. If you keep in God’s Word, which you use to pull down strong holds, Jesus said that you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Stage one bondages are caused by deception and lies from the devil, so the way to combat them is with the truth, which is found in God’s Word. God also says that, “My people are destroyed by lack of knowledge.” Ignorance is a nasty disease that we need to defeat!
If you see God has a taskmaster, you will act like He’s one, and you will hurt the intimacy that God wants to have with you. You will put up a wall between yourself and God when you don’t see Him as a loving God. Is there one person in your life that you know loves you to pieces? Maybe it’s your spouse, parent, friend or even your pet. You can feel that person’s love, and have a very special relationship with that person (or pet). Now think if you saw that person as a cruel taskmaster with a cold personality? Even though it’s not true, it would kill your relationship, wouldn’t it? Think how God feels when you see Him as a cold and cruel taskmaster? It kills the relationship that He gave His son so that you could have with Him! Why did He give His son? So that we could be reconciled with Him, like it was before Adam sinned! Our relationship with God means so much to Him, that He gave His son so it could be restored!
These signs are pretty hidden. These are secret experiences a person goes through. An anxious or nervous person will not speak about it unless they have to.
The next 4 signs are a little bit more visible and may indicate repeat or sustained trauma.
In cases of early childhood trauma and traumatic stress, the self-regulation capacity of our autonomic nervous system and physiology is disturbed, preventing us from regaining a ‘relaxed normal’ state. Otherwise benign events or triggers may exhaust our nervous system whose distorted ‘normal’ settings are hypersensitive, unresponsive or erratic. Over time, after months or even several decades, this can result in unwanted life circumstances such as the following:
Many Christians have telling symptoms of unhealed trauma and don’t even realize it. Let’s look at some common signs of unhealed trauma so we can identify what might be hiding under the radar in you, your spouse, your coworkers, or your children. Once you discover signs of hidden trauma, the next step is to begin trauma healing through Jesus Christ. Thankfully, God has already provided ALL trauma healing through Jesus Christ.
So let’s take the first step. Please take a look at the symptoms of trauma listed below. Do you have any of these symptoms?
Persecution Live 