If we go back to the Book of Genesis, we can see God’s original intention and plan for mankind through His created beings, Adam and Eve, and how through the fall and the ongoing influence of sin down through the generations, we became damaged in our souls and bodies.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the Earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the Earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:26–27 ESV)
...and the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7 NKJV)
There are two important things to note in these two accounts of the creation of mankind.
God made man in the image of Himself, the Godhead (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). We were designed to look and be just like Him (spirit, soul, and body).
God gave His breath of Life (His Spirit breath) and man became a living being. It wasn’t until man received the breath of God, His Spirit, that he lived.
This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5 AKJV)
God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24 AKJV)
You are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. (1 Thessalonians 5:5 AKJV)
We can see mankind was originally made in God’s image of light, there was no darkness, and they were clothed in light; they were light beings. When darkness entered them through sin, that the light was quenched and they realized they were without covering, exposed and naked. And because there was no covering, their souls were vulnerable, uncovered, and also became exposed to darkness.
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord... (Eph 5:8 BSB)
Their first instinct was to cover up and hide from God. We do exactly the same thing wanting to cover the sin and darkness in our lives and hide our true state from God and those around us. Why? Because being uncovered makes us feel insecure and vulnerable to attack. We look for ‘fig leaves’ to cover ourselves with.
When Eve was tempted by the devil, he sowed doubt and mistrust into her by sowing a seed lie that God couldn’t be trusted, that He was withholding from them the ability to be like God, but we just read that they were made in the image of God; they were already like God!
Wherever there are lies there is darkness and if we doubt God’s Word or agree with and even entertain those lies, the darkness will result in an inability to see how things really are. As in this case of Adam and Eve, it led to spiritual blindness over all of mankind because the light was removed: “The blind are now leading the blind.” (Matthew 15:14)
At this stage, Adam and Eve were still in His garden (the Secret Place) and when God came looking for them, they hid from Him, knowing He would see what had taken place. Because of their disobedience (that they were not to eat from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) God banished them from the Secret Place which resulted in them being cut off from their source of Life (God). They no longer had access to fellowship with God and their spirits were cut off from His life-giving breath, or spirit, which caused them to become starved of love because the breath of God is love.
God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them (1 John 4:16 NKJV)
He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:8 NKJV)
With their spirits cut off from God, their soul and body were starved of love and they eventually died. God told them that death was the consequence of their disobedience and as a result, they died within a day. A day can be as a thousand years in God’s eyes:
But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2 Peter 3:8 NKJV)
Adam was 930 years old when he died. They died within a 1000 years.
God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden. Mankind now had to make their way, living by the strength of their own hand and their own cunning and ideas. They were now a living soul in a body, cut off from their eternal life supply (love), so they began looking to each other to meet that hunger for love and to consume their lusts on one another.
“It’s a dog eat dog world.” This type of attitude shows that mankind has turned on one another and will do whatever it takes to satisfy needs in their lives. The longer we have existed in this fallen state the more decay and destruction are produced resulting in the reduction of man’s lifespan which is approximately only 100 years. This is a far cry from the age of those who lived to be close to 1,000 years old.
As a result of disobedience, this living soul (mankind) has to live life the best way it can because its source of life has now been cut off. As a result, it has to receive everything it needs from its source, the world, through the body. Now instead of receiving life from the Spirit of God, keeping the soul in good health and harmony which in turn leads the body to live in health and wholeness - a reversal has taken place. The body receives life from the world around it, through the five senses that we were created with: seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and tasting.
Through sin all these senses are polluted which in turn influences and pollutes the soul resulting in an increased hunger and a void that needs to be filled with “something more.” That hunger for “something more” is an in-built desire to know God and to be connected to Him through spiritual senses:
Seeing
Hearing
Smelling
Touching
Tasting
The soul, which makes up of all the functions previously listed, is now receiving all of its life through these experiences of the body instead of the spirit as it should have been. The soul shapes, molds, and lives out of the following:
Conscience
Reason
Imagination (eyes of the heart)
Mind (conscious and subconscious)
Emotions
Choice
Will
Heart
One example of how the soul becomes affected is sexual sin, which is any sexual relationship or act outside of marriage. The intimate act of sexual connection is intended to take place within the boundary and sanctity of marriage between a couple in a covenant agreement before God and men.
Outside of marriage it becomes defiled and makes the experience impure, and more so if it is forced or manipulated by one of the parties involved. The first area to be defiled is the body – the sense of touch primarily, but the other senses can also become defiled.
This wrongness then flows into the soul where the emotions and choices will become damaged to a greater or lesser degree, along with all other areas of the soul depending on what has taken place. If you find yourself unable to stop sinning, though in your mind and heart you wish to stop that behavior, a damaged soul may be the cause. The depth of trauma involved will determine:
How damaged the soul becomes.
If a spirit was imparted which leads you into sin.
How long the healing process may be without assistance from the Lord.
We are instructed to obey the laws of the land (Romans 13:1). A marriage is a legal covenant before God and man, even if it doesn’t take place in a church. Without a legal marriage, the wife may feel uncovered, insecure, resentful, and also feel the need to protect herself which opens the door to a Jezebel spirit. She does not have a spiritual covering or protection of the houseband (husband = band surrounding the household).
The man in the relationship may come under an Ahab spirit because he has relinquished his headship. This can result in resentment of the emotional power the woman holds over him which will lead him to reject his emotions. He then loses his mantles of headship and lack of authority.
The whole relationship becomes inverted with the woman exercising jezebelic illegitimate authority and the man submitting resulting in one of two conditions:
Emasculated and powerless man
A frustrated and angry man
They both lose their identity and unless the relationship is corrected, it continues in an unhealthy way because it is out of alignment. If they don't repent before they marry the foundation will be unstable. Most marriages will not survive or be blessed by God because of sexual sin.
Obviously rape or molestation will produce more trauma and damage than a consensual act. The age it took place will also be a determining factor. Our enemy knows that if he can traumatize a small child whose language skills and understanding have not yet been fully formed, then he can do more damage because they can’t express what has taken place, but they just “know’ as they get older that something isn’t right.
Sexual sin is probably an extreme example however, the devil knows that if he can break the boundary line, he could capture mankind and bring about untold destruction and damage. An example of this can be seen in the historical events of the 1970s when all restraints were abandoned for free love. The soul ties that were established with multiple sexual partners did incredible damage to the soul, but sin of any kind will damage and defile the soul to varying degrees.
Until we are born again, our spirit is disconnected from God and has no life flow. Once we are born again, our spirit comes to life as we are reconnected to the Father. It’s important to grasp that because we are a three part being - spirit, soul, and body - our body exists in time, but our soul and spirit exist in the eternal realm. God exists in the eternal realm unbound by the constraints of time:
The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms… (Deuteronomy 33:27 AKJV)
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever. (Hebrews 13:8 AKJV)
God is able to go back into the past in our lives and open up an area of damage in our souls. We are able to invite Jesus our healer to come into that situation and that particular time in our lives and rescue us from the horror, fear, terror, fright, shock... or whatever the damage to our souls is and to retrieve that part of our soul that has become trapped in the trauma.
Jesus will come right into the memory of it and rescue you where you have left your body through fear, fright, or shock. Have you ever heard people say the phrase, “beside myself with fear” or “out of my mind with worry?” These are things that actually happen in the realm of the soul and when that takes place the only way to get back into your body is through Jesus.
During a traumatic episode it is possible that a piece of your shattered soul can be stuck in that particular moment and not be able to get back into your soul. That piece of your soul is still part of you, but on the outside in the eternal realm, it just exists in the trauma.
The effect of this can be seen in rape victims. Often, they will speak in the same childlike voice that they had when the trauma occurred because that piece of their soul is still stuck in that moment in time. In other cases of trauma, the victim may find themselves unable to keep from exhibiting childlike reactions to certain situations.
Consider a timeline and God who is in eternity, is above the timeline, watching you journey through life: He sees your life - past, present, and future – He is the Alpha and the Omega; He knows the end from the beginning.
Imagine your life is like a bus carrying you along in life: A trauma or shock hits the bus and the door flies open, a part of you gets broken off and falls out of the door into the eternal realm. A demonic spirit (not always, but where there is sin there is a demonic spirit) is lurking looking for an opportunity to enter your life. It can be waiting right at that point to jump in the bus before the door closes and carries on with the journey. The piece or part of you that fell off or was pushed out is now stuck in the eternal realm (this is the realm that people who astral travel enter into) at that time and in that place, unable to get back in the bus which has moved on.
There is now a part of you trapped on the outside of your soul, that if triggered by an event or a feeling in the present day, reverts back to that time and place and behaves and reacts the way you would at the age of that trauma.
This is why some adults may feel like they are still a little child when they get into a situation that reminds them of an experience they had back at that time. It can also be the cause of many mysterious hard to locate body aches and pains in which there is no known explanation. Doctors call these types of aches and pains psychosomatic.
Psycho: relating to the soul or mind.
Somatic: relating to the body.
God is the only true answer to this type of damage. There can be parts of the trauma stored in the body and when the trauma gets healed not only the soul, but the body gets healed.
Jesus, like God, exists throughout all time. He will come at your invitation through prayer, and you can, with the leading of the Holy Spirit, go back to the trauma that is lodged in your innermost parts. You can watch Him rescue you, put you back in your body, heal you, remove the trauma, retrieve you from that place, and put you back into the core “You” here today. The end result is that the soul becomes healed, and the spirit strengthened (explained in chapter 11).
We don’t need to go searching for traumas but rather yield to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to reveal in His timing what areas of our soul need healing and then leave it in His hands. He will take you at a pace you can handle. So let's look at the basic steps to take to receive healing in our soul.
1. Ask Holy Spirit to reveal what He wants to heal right now. He will show you or you may already be aware of what it is. If you are already aware e.g.: sexual sin of some sort - ask Holy Spirit to show you the first time it took place because that is where the door was opened. If it is a vague sensation or feeling, ask Him to show you how old you feel and once you become aware of the age ask Him to show you what happened at that age.
He that touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days. (Numbers 19:11 AKJV)
If you feel older than your actual age it will indicate that you have an opening to the grave through contact with a dead body, most likely having touched them (like kissing a dead person at a funeral), or sleeping in a bed where someone has died. In that case you need to cut soul ties with them and whatever they died of - like a sickness. That will usually be all you need to do.
If you feel younger than your actual age it will relate to a past trauma where part of you is stuck. Expect to become aware of a particular memory or event, a picture, a word, a thought that won't go away, body pain or discomfort. You may have one or more of these. Focus on the memory and ask Jesus to come into that time and place with you.
2. Two things will happen in a memory that you recall that will be ‘alive’ (the emotions and feelings will be as if it's happening right now). You may look at yourself from the outside in the memory or you will be looking through your eyes at what is taking place. You may also look at yourself from the outside. It is like hovering above your body or watching from a corner in the room as the memory unfolds.
You will feel all the feelings which took place during that event – shock, fright, terror, anger, fear, hatred, panic, hysteria, paralysis, etc. - which can be very scary and terrifying so ask Jesus to give you the courage to face what is happening and to come and rescue you. Look for Him to appear in the memory with you, He will never leave you to face it alone. He will always come and help you.
If you are outside of your body watching what is taking place (which happens in an attempt to get away or escape from what’s happening), you have left your body (astral traveled):
You must ask Jesus to forgive you for leaving your body.
Ask Him to come and get you and put you back in your body (inside the memory).
You will see Him come and do that.
He will also block anything bad from continuing to take place, for example if you are being attacked.
He will come between you and the attacker or block whatever is happening so it can no longer hurt you.
3. Once you feel that you are in your body and now looking out of your eyes, thank Jesus and ask Him to help you forgive the person or people involved in traumatizing you.
Then take the Sword of His Spirit and cut all soul ties and familiar spirits between you and them, and between you and the place where it occurred.
4. Also name any spirits that are associated with what is happening in the memory – spirits of terror, fear, panic, hysteria, powerlessness, helplessness, etc. - whatever Holy Spirit shows you, and cut them all off and command them to leave.
5. Receive His peace (to fill the empty space that’s now there because they have left) and ask Him to seal the open doorways with His blood.
6. Once you’ve done that, ask Jesus to now retrieve that part of you from the memory and put you back into your adult body here in the present today and watch as He does that. You can test it by looking at the memory and this time it should only be a memory that is fuzzy, blurry, or vague and it will not feel like it's alive anymore.
We don’t need to go searching for traumas but rather yield to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to reveal in His timing what areas of our soul need healing and then leave it in His hands. He will take you at a pace you can cope with, He will give you time to get ready to face those things especially if they have been serious traumas that have impacted your life. We may think we know what needs to be healed but my experience is that it’s not always what we think and often we end up being led in a totally different direction, but we know that no matter what is revealed the Holy Spirit knows what He is doing, and we can trust Him.
The Spirit manifests in the following ways in our lives through the seven characteristics of Holy Spirit -The Spirit of God, Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Might, Knowledge and Fear of God producing fruit through:
Revelation
Intuition
Fear of God
Prayer
Worship
Faith
Hope
Reverence
If the soul is damaged or crippled, then these areas of our spirit may not be able to fully engage so we cannot move into these places of strength until the soul is healed. We should always be ready to immediately strengthen our spirit along with the healing of the soul to maintain and receive any breakthroughs.
We don’t want to slip into making anything into a formula. We must always ask the Holy Spirit to reveal what He wants to do in us and to follow His leading. The aim is to have, equally: A strong spirit, a submitted soul, and healthy body. How and when God chooses to do that will be revealed by the Holy Spirit. All we need to do is be yielded to His will and work with Him.
Freeing Your Mind
The Holy Spirit revealed that He could be blocked from helping us receive healing. It was a situation with my daughter that brought this to light:
For weeks my daughter had been seldom seen, which is totally unlike her. I told her about the freedom I had recently found. I asked, “Is it possible that something like this is the reason you’ve been in your room so much?”
“Something definitely feels off,” she shrugged.
When I asked the Holy Spirit to reveal what was causing her to hide in her room, she said, “All I get are glitching scenes with lines through them, I can’t make out what I’m seeing.” When I asked the Holy Spirit to clear it up, she got a headache.
My daughter has a keen gift of discernment. When exposed to defiled objects, it often manifests as a headache. This was a message from our Guide: a spirit was blocking her mind. Leaning on Him for wisdom, He revealed that my daughter had been turning to worldly entertainment and an active imagination (internal daydreams) as a coping mechanism for a situation she didn’t want to deal with. The actions were not sinful, but responding to the prompting of another spirit gave that spirit a place to operate in her mind.
Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey… (Romans 6:16 AKJV)
The action doesn’t have to be a sin. It could be something that is consuming your time or outside of God’s will for your life. If you give in to a demonic spirit over and over, then that spirit will gain influence over you. Participating in sin brings the negative spiritual influence up to another level because sin separates us from God:
…but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. (Isaiah 59:2 ESV)
Knowingly continuing to break the Ten Commandments will cause us to lose connection with God. Paul spoke about this to fellow Israelites:
For if we go on deliberately and willingly sinning after once acquiring the knowledge of the Truth, there is no longer any sacrifice left to atone for [our] sins [no further offering to which to look forward]. (Hebrews 10:26 AMPC)
They intended to make their yearly sacrifice for sins that would keep them in good relationship with God. This is not so. Intentional sin will separate us from God and keep us from hearing the Holy Spirit. Now we know that if we follow actions that are not even a sin, but prompted by another spirit, it may give a demon a way to hinder us. When we submit to a spirit, it begins to have power over us. The first stronghold is often in our thoughts and our mind. In my daughter’s case, in order to remove the blockage, she had to take several steps:
Confess that she had listened to another spirit by using worldly actions as comfort instead of seeking God to deal with it.
State that she has no desire to follow any spirit but Holy Spirit.
Confess that her ancestors were also guilty of this.
Repent (turn from) for listening to any other spirit and using these activities as comfort.
Ask the Holy Spirit to help her identify when a spirit is influencing her.
Plead the blood of Jesus over these sins.
Thank Jesus for contending for her in the CoH, asking Him to remove any cases where the blood had blotted out the sins.
Renounce the spirit.
Ask Jesus to cleanse her mind and soul with His blood.
These are the basic steps to removing a spiritual influence. If you have been knowingly committing a sin, such as living together outside of marriage, drugs, or getting drunk, you will need to follow the same steps to remove spiritual blockages. Please research the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:6-21) to refresh your memory about what God expects of His children. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you if they apply to your life.
When you are being influenced, it can be hard to spot. One of the jobs of the demons assigned to us is to keep us from being productive for the Kingdom of Heaven. Keeping this in mind will help you spot their influence as you look for patterns in your life. A few questions to ponder:
Is there something that you “can’t do without?”
You need it to comfort you
food or a type of food, movies, working out
Do you need something to get you started for the day?
coffee, energy drink or even hot tea
drinking these are not a sin - needing them to function is
Do you need something to sleep at night?
wine, a beer, sleeping aids
a glass of wine or beer, an occasional sleeping aid is not a sin
if you need them for more than 3-4 days in a row, there may be a spirit influencing you
* Are you “in hiding?”
Is most of your free time focused on entertainment, especially when you are facing an unpleasant dilemma?
you may be avoiding interaction with people or certain people, especially those you are close to
Do you find it hard to worship or spend time with God?
it feels like a chore
These are only a few more common examples. If situations like these are recurring in your life, the enemy may be “pushing” or “nudging” you into them. Ask Holy Spirit to show you if these actions are in response to another spirit. Follow the steps above to remove the stronghold of the enemy. Once this is done, you are ready to have His help in healing a wounded soul.
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