“Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil. May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.” 1 Thessalonians; Chapter 5: 13-24
My thoughts are; when a person has committed themselves, repented and then belongs to our Lord Jesus through his saving grace, then he also does pray/intercede on our behalf to the Father and asks for the Helper (Holy Spirit) to live in us, teach and guide us; as He said He would never; leave or forsake us; He is with us until the end of this world.
I have also found in amongst the born again churches; dreadful deliverance sessions, where Christs’ people ( ones who are the body of Christ ) are subjected to this, myself included. And it takes months, sometimes many years to heal from these spiritual attacks/abuses.
In other words these churches are trying to cast out Almighty God’s Holy Spirit; who lives within us, calling the Holy Spirit; so called demons; even to the point of naming demons, names I have never heard of.
The Holy Spirit cannot be in the same person with demons. And even our Lord Jesus was accused of being demon possessed when He walked amongst mankind; as son of man; and son of God.
Thank you Barbara Roberts as I have found much confusion in churches about this subject, and your clarity on this subject is a God send, as I am still trying to deal with 7+ years of horrible spiritual abuses in both cult and mainstream churches; just before the past 20+ years of enduring this same abuse/s yet again. So far in my life I have only been fully healed from church abuse back in 1966; when I was 4 years old. God bless you, my heartfelt thanks.
Thanks for sharing my post, Farthing2014. 🙂 I’m glad you found it helpful.
I’m a Christian. Born again in my mid twenties. I’m a survivor of multiple kinds of abuse, but not ritual abuse. I’ve been aware of ritual abuse for many decades. I first became aware of it by becoming face-to-face friends with a fellow Aussie who was a survivor of ritual abuse (RA) and Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA). Since then I have gotten to know a few other survivors of RA.
I agree with you that there are “deliverance ministries” which are re-traumatising victims! I’ve known quite a few people who were DEEPLY traumatised by foolish, arrogant “deliverance ministries”.
I’ve also become painfully aware of the fact that there are many people in Christendom who claim to be helping Christian survivors of extreme abuse, but they are in fact super-dangerous people. These dangerous people tell lies and half truths. They re-abuse the survivors and traffic or funnel them back into the evil network of predators. You and your readers might like to check out my article about these dangers.
The lifeboats around the sinking titanic which is the institutional church.
If you don’t want the link at your blog, feel free to delete it from my comment.
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Thank you very much Barbara, I have looked at your post with this link and I believe it will also help others, thank you for sharing it. Thank you for your kind words, and yes, there is an arrogance/ignorance with deliverance, causing traumatised sons and daughters of the most High God much more pain and suffering. However we are all warned; Not many of you should become teachers, as will receive a harsher judgement. Thank you for sharing our Lord Jesus’ Love and your site, God bless you.
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