The most effective lie . . .

. . . that our adversary uses to keep us bound to the spirits who torment us is that these things are a part of ourselves.

For instance, I am not, by my spiritual nature, bisexual, any more than any of us are by our spiritual nature promiscuous or insatiable. But by getting us to believe that this is a central part of who we are, our adversary gets us to embrace and cling to things from which Christ has set us free. The more we accept these things as part of our own nature, reinforcing them by choices and behavior, the more we become enslaved to them and, in a vicious cycle, the more we tend to see them as part of ourselves. In a case like mine, this can be true even if I remain very careful not to ever commit adultery because of this misconception. As long as I continued to hunger for sexual experiences which are not God's revealed will for me, I remained bound to the effects of this spiritual influence. (In this case, it is easy for anyone with spiritual discernment who knows my story to see how this spiritual influence entered by life. Sometimes we are completely aware of this, so we keep our story to ourselves, for a variety of reasons. This keeps us in isolation, darkness, and bondage.)

I believe the same thing can be true of physical and psychological manifestations of spiritual influences. It may be important to obtain the medical or psychological help we need, for a couple reasons. We may need to deal with our thought and behavior patterns, or the chemical effects that they have had in our bodies. We also need to keep the manifestation from pushing us to grow more unhealthy or to participate with worse, more destructive influences. In the latter case, these may also appear psychological in manifestation but have a spiritual influence or root. To completely get rid of them, eventually we are going to have to renounce the lie that this thing is a part of ourselves. 

But that renunciation won't take hold in us unless we are using all the keys Jesus has given us to spiritual freedom. Those spiritual influences entered our lives through decisions we made, sometimes in response to terrible things that were done to us and sometimes simply in sin. They come in, and they lock the door behind them, and they set up house and make us think they are a part of us.

It is a lie.

We must often discover the door through which we gave them access, so that we can renounce the decision we made or the lie we believed, or repent of the sin that let them in or kept us bound to them. ("It's okay for me to not forgive so-and-so, because what they did was terrible and hurt me deeply." And the accompanying lie that forgiveness is an additional burden rather than a gift God gives us once we trust that He will do in us what we can't for ourselves.) Once we do, in Christ Jesus' authority we can kick them out, and they have to leave. And we can take back the freedom we have yielded to them in our ignorance of our adversary's schemes. 

Once we are in Christ Jesus, the adversary has no power over us anymore except what we continue to yield to him. 

One of the other tricks he uses is to keep us from those who can help us see clearly. If we resent them for some offense that we perceive (even if they haven't actually done anything wrong), or if we think they're off base by attributing spiritual influences for stuff that can easily be explained without anything so mystical, then instead of turning to their help we are isolated in our battle. This is another of the adversary's schemes.

I'm preaching to myself here, btw. My own bondage can seem so attractive, and even when it doesn't it can seem like a natural part of me. God, please help me to always see it as You do.