Purpose or Pleasure

"No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it." - 1 Corinthians 10:13

Sifting through the vast collection of adolescent memories, what has transcended the test of time is the scent of aged white oak railings and faint Febreze settling on the ground like dew. It can be pitch black and my feet would still move on autopilot through the nostalgic, baking soda matted carpets of my old childhood home. Inching forward through a darkened narrow corridor, there’s my room on the right, towel room on the left, and further still coming up, my sister's room on the right. Her door is open. As I peer inside, an unusual woman is lying on her side in the middle of the room and her eyes locked with mine with piercing intensity. As if the room was candlelit, the atmosphere was energized with temptation by her seducing gaze and semi-revealed figure. I stand puzzled, but on alert, maintaining eye contact and responding with steely silence until she breaks the tension. 

“I’m Jezebel,” she said. She spoke as if I cared, nevertheless, every sense I had entered into a heightened state of resistance.

“I don’t want anything to do with you,” I shot back, unyielding from her stare in this standoff, but she broke off and laughed with utter patronizing amusement. 

“We’ll see about that,” she sneered. Then immediately after that last remark, I was transported into a massive and lavish mansion with numerous people, and they were all revealing themselves in explicit ways with most having intercourse. Room after room, staircase after staircase, on every wall, sofa, table, window, nowhere was without these people saturated in their lusts to the utmost graphical degree. I spotted an undefiled window, so I desperately rushed toward it. Slipping down the hallway lined with perversion as if I was the one oiled up, I burst out that window with pinpoint precision and then found myself tumbling down a valley of thick foliage to my salvation. I tumbled out of the vision and then laid awake with acute awareness and disgust to what had been revealed to me. I had an encounter with a demonic spirit who identified itself as Jezebel and I was living in their home.

“I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works (Revelation 2:20-23).”

As someone who has engaged with this spirit for about 17 years, victory is only found in Jesus. To tolerate means to allow something’s existence, so if this spirit persists – then it's being allowed to exist. As Jesus searches the heart, He reveals the “why.” Areas of unresolved trauma, unhealthy coping habits, and a lack of vision were impressed upon me, by Holy Spirit, about my own life which resulted in bondage to the workings of this manipulative and controlling spirit. Jezebel steals divine destinies, kills prophetic ministries, and destroys marriages. Operating in both men and women, if somebody engages with pornography, fornication, LGBTQ+, new age witchcraft, adultery, idolatry, false prophecies and doctrine, then Jezebel is at work. The manifested work of this spirit is more than simply dressing up half-naked or immodest. It may look like sleep paralysis, random bruises/scratches, failed relationships, sexual dreams, hex-like loyalty (ex.: celebrity worship, alliance to false teachings, remaining in abusive relationships), miscarriages, broken families, narcissism, and unhealthy addictions. It may masquerade as an angel of light by offering guidance, protection, and healing through tarot cards, crystal or reiki healing, yoga, “evil eye” charms, psychic readings, or accurate yet false prophetic words. It is paramount to seek God for the gift of discerning spirits (1 Cor. 12:10), and to test every spirit. 

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone into the world (1 John 4:1).” Again, God will show you the “why,” ask Him, and He will also give you every tool you need to walk in freedom. 

There is a window of opportunity to repent, and tomorrow is not promised. If Jesus came back tonight, would you be ready? Would He find you raising your hands in praise or in perversion; being engulfed in His all-consuming fire or in passion for the things of this world? Now is the time to seek diligently after God, and to tread on snakes and scorpions – and over all power of the enemy because that’s the authority everyone in Christ has (Luke 10:19). Get locked in with going to a local Spirit-led church, seek discipleship, and spend quality time with God in prayer and fasting. Trade in pleasure for your God given purpose, and you’ll find that moving in what God has spoken over you in your mother’s womb is far more gratifying than any bottomless lust of the flesh. If you believe this spirit has influenced your life, and it hasn’t been confronted by the authority given in Christ, then when in doubt, cast it out. 

Prayer of Self-Deliverance:

Heavenly Father,

I thank you that your power delivers me out of every bondage. I believe that ‘he who the Son has set free, is free indeed,’ and because of the blood of Jesus, I claim that freedom today. I confess to you all past or current engagement with sexual perversion, idolatry, and witchcraft and I break and release myself from all spiritual pollution and every spirit involved in those works, in Jesus name. In the name of Jesus, to every spirit of perversion, I am not your home – I’ve been bought by a price by the blood of Jesus, and I command you to come up and out of my life and go into the abyss right now in Jesus name. Father, let every demonic stronghold built in my life be met by the fire of God and be pulled down, and purge my life of all that is from the kingdom of darkness and thank you for my complete freedom from every demonic deposit into my life, in Jesus name.

Amen.