Deliverance is in the Word, and I want you to know (whoever you are) that while you’re down, there are times when you’re wrestling demonic spirits that have made a home around your issue. This is called a stronghold.

In worldly terms…

In psychology, There is intelligence quotient (IQ), adaptability quotient (AQ), and Emotional Quotient (EQ). Everybody knows what IQ is, right? A measure of your intelligence. Adaptability quotient is exactly what it sounds like: your ability to adapt. Are you stretchy? Flexible? Able to think in your feet and revise? Emotional quotient is a persons ability to self reflect on their emotional state and after labeling properly, use that understanding to act—or not.

If you are around someone with a low EQ, they will gaslight you because they CANNOT offer very much in the way of emotional and psychological support. They lack vital self awareness and as a result are inherently selfish when it comes to empathetic interaction—they need it but can’t give it. They love sympathy and want all the support but become disparaging and demeaning when you need it in turn. You will think that there is something wrong with you for desiring regular human connection and support because instead of them admitting that they don’t have that capacity, they will make it seem as though what you’re desire is outsized and unfair. “You’re irreparably broken and lucky that they put up with you”—when really, you’re isolated and don’t realize that they are using you because no one will put up with THEM.

In Jesus language…

The most effective trick of the accuser is the wave of thoughts that constantly course through your mind. These thoughts build the basis of your bad decisions and your interactions with people and life. This too is spiritual warfare, and one of the most used tactics of the guerrilla warfare of the devil. It keeps your mind and emotional state out of whack so that you cannot focus on the things of God. You are forever fighting the fight of fresh emotional confusion. This spirit always links up with those who have experienced early, painful rejections (usually from parents or other important familial bonds). It is codependent on that hollowness that comes from not feeling worthy, not feeling inherently good enough, so they “must be right, there must be something wrong with me.”

The devil doesn’t need to do anything other than get you thinking on the wrong loop; after that, demonic influences show up to build strongholds around the thought loop that you’ve now come into agreement with by rehearsing it in place of God’s word. Your family may start it, or your significant other; your pastor may have even seeded the terrible ways you think of yourself and life by interpreting the word of God out their own experience rather than through the mind of Christ. But once it gets in there and takes root? Then deliverance must take place: the uprooting of unbelief in God’s word, the tearing down of strongholds, the replacement of the lie with the truth God has spoken, the rehearsing and rebuilding of your faith in God and not the loop, the closing of the door of opportunity to the enemy, the realignment and agreement with God rather than the falsehoods of the enemy.

So can we start there? Let’s start there.

Deliverance breaks the demonic bind off you. It exposes the agreement built up around a bad belief, a terrible lie that you’ve allowed to become a false truth in your life. Jesus came to set the captive free. It’s why we preach the gospel. The preaching of the gospel brings the Light of Christ, and darkness cannot exist in the light. That exposure be too much.

If you’re going to start anywhere? Start with challenging what you believe. Infiltrate the systems of this world by the Word of God, which is mighty to the pulling down of strongholds, in Jesus name.