Most of us have known since childhood that “Jesus came to save sinners” –that is, to forgive our sin and rescue us from its eternal effects. But too few of us have understood that our salvation is a comprehensive “deliverance package” for this life as well as the next.
Consider Isaiah 42:6-7: I have given You [the Messiah] for a covenant to the people, for a light to the nations; to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, and those who sit in darkness from the prison.”
In similar scriptures such as in Isaiah 61:1 and Luke 4:18 God’s word proclaims liberty to the captives. It’s clear that God is speaking of our complete deliverance and well-being in the “here and now.” And it’s clear, of course, that He isn’t talking about a literal jailhouse, but about “prisons” of the body, mind and spirit.
What does a personal prison look like? Basically, it’s anything that cripples our bodies, minds, spirits, or relationships. The emphasis of this ministry, of course, has been on “illness prisons”; some of us may be in bondage to diseases that the doctors say we’ll just have to live with for the rest of our lives. But other prisons and bondages can be just as dangerous to our living in God’s shalom here on earth. Some of us may be captive to destructive emotions such as grief, sorrow, hate, resentment, fear, anxiety, or deep-seated anger. Some of us may be locked up in damaging (and therefore sinful) habits that we can’t manage to break: lying, gossiping, stealing, covetousness, envy, a murderous tongue. Some of us may be afflicted with an addiction of some kind. We may be addicted to alcohol, sexual sin, cigarettes, bad eating habits, drugs, shoplifting, pornography, gambling and so on.
Let’s be bold and identify such things for what they are – demon-driven problems in our lives. And let’s be equally bold in drawing on God’s power to deliver us from them all.
And how do we do that? The same way Jesus did: by taking authority over such problems and telling them to get out! Matthew 8:16b says, “He drove out the spirits with a word and restored to health all who were sick.” The Amplified Bible. You can use the same words for your deliverance. Just say something like this: “I take authority over you, sickness [or fear, or sin, or over anything else that has you bound] and I command you to get out of my life! Now, you go in the Name of Jesus. Amen.”
You and I have been given authority by Jesus to command all the problems in our lives to leave and never come back. When we’re speaking such words directly to our problems in the Name and Power of Jesus Messiah, those things will disappear out of our lives. They will go because we are throwing the Name of Jesus and all of His Power at them.
Deliverance already belongs to you, Dear One, because of what Jesus did for you when He was suffering and dying on the Cross over two thousand years ago. Deliverance belongs to you in the same way that salvation and healing belong to you. Jesus paid the price on the Cross for you and me to be set free.
Mary
