| In the years that have followed my deliverance, I have come to grow in my understanding of what actually took place. It was not an instantaneous deliverance wrought by the miraculous intervention of the hand of God. It was the working or energizing of His Spirit in me that receives the glory and praise for what I am about to share. The spiritual principles discussed in this deliverance are applicable to any addiction, providing three prerequisites are met: One, recognizing and admitting that you have a problem. Second that you want the deliverance. Thirdly that you become born again, a newly regenerated Holy Spirit being. The only thing that will truly bring deliverance is the power of the Holy Spirit. I did not go the route of the world. I did not seek professional counseling, support groups, etc. That is not to say that they are not helpful in their proper place, but I was not seeking or interested in behavior modification but rather behavior eradication. I wanted deliverance. I wanted the sucker dead.
My story begins in my early teen years when I began to sexually mature. My playing of sexual games and exploring with other guys led me on a path that brought me to an awakening in my early twenties. I was indeed gay or at least had very strong sexual desires in that area. This was something I had not predetermined that I would be, but woke up one morning believing I was. For me this was the beginning of the reality that I then began to confess and live until I was 28 years old. It was then that I met the woman who became my wife and that I am still married to today. At that time, I believed that if I got married, then all this stuff would simply go away. Indeed it did, until some time in my mid 40's, when it came roaring back with a compulsion that drove my behavior for approximately the next nine to ten years. I could not stop, not matter how many times I tried. I found myself living in an adulterous life full of lies, deceit, self condemnation and shame, trapped and seemingly no way out.
Early in my marriage I became a born again Christian. I became energized in the word of God, being a loving father and husband, raising a family and pursuing the things of God. When I fell back into my homosexuality, I used all of this as a covering to hide my secret life. I even had a bachelor of theology to my credit. In all my studying of the word, however, no one had ever taught me the “how” of what I needed to know to be delivered. I knew about the power of God to heal and deliver, but I did not know how to operate it. The sad thing was, everyone else I knew did not know either. Being too ashamed to go to anyone for help, I became trapped and enslaved to my own behavior. Instead of being freed from sin, as I should have been as a Christian, I was a slave to it. I remained ignorant to the ”how” of the practical application of what Christ had accomplished for me and in me. I was ignorant to whom God had made me through the new birth and how to energize the power and authority I had been given.
My deliverance began, when my wife confronted me and my best friend, who was my lover. I am forever thankful for this, no matter how painful it was. That confrontation became the window of opportunity for God to begin a work of grace. My secret was exposed and I could now begin to deal with it. The separation from my behavior was not easy. The first month I remember being very distressed, full of hurt, wounded, in pain, physically wasted, ashamed and shaking. The breaking away was difficult and not without its stumblings, but because I had a loving wife and family that I did not want to lose, I had something to fight for. After a couple of months I managed to break free from most of my habits, but I still had to deal with the inner compulsion that drove my desire. I really did not know how long I would be able to fight it and sustain my self-imposed behavior modification. Without deliverance from the inner compulsion that drove my behavior, I would be unable to break free, and would remain a slave to my addiction.
Several months passed, when my wife and I received a couple of tapes in the mail, from a friend out of the past. These teaching tapes completely changed my life. For the first time, I was taught how to practically apply the power of God to my own life. I learned that I was not dealing with flesh and blood but with spiritual strongholds outside of myself. Spiritual entities, spirit beings exerting their will, either in me or on me, to accomplish their purpose and desires. I learned that it was not my body, nor my soul, but a spirit being that inhabits a body and desires. As a Holy Spirit being, I learned that I have a superior will that is able to subjugate my soul and body. Yes! My behavior manifested in my flesh, but the cause was a spiritual one. The battle I would have to fight would need to take place in the spirit realm. I would have to quit attacking my behavior and begin attacking the source of my behavior. I had been going at everything from the wrong end.
When I became born again, I became a new creation. A super spirit being created in the image and likeness of the Almighty God and Father. Obedience, righteousness and true holiness became my spiritual nature. I had become a superior Holy Spirit being, that sits at the top of the spirit realm given authority and power to exercise. Because of this new spirit creation that I had become through Christ, I found myself spiritually already delivered from all my sins, all my transgressions, all my iniquities, all my sickness and my own death. Spiritually I had passed from death to life, from sickness to wholeness, from sin to holiness, from disobedience to obedience, from unrighteousness to righteousness, and could never be anything less for eternity. I had been sealed by the Holy Spirit. I had become a child of the Almighty God with His Spirit (Holy Spirit) infused within my own spirit. The spirit being that I had now become was greater than the spirit of the world that I had been wrestling with unknowingly these many years. I learned that as this new spirit being, I had powerful weapons. My primary weapon was words, words that I could speak as an authoritative individual into the spirit realm, against my enemy. I learned to speak to my problems, to my thoughts, to my images, to my desires. I spoke either words of my own understanding based on the truth of Scriptures or words spoken in the spirit. I learned to wield effectively, the sword of the Spirit - both sides, blessings and cursings. I learned that because of who I had spiritually become, that all this power and authority was latent within me. I did not need to ask God for anything more. It became my responsibility by the power already in me.
I learned also that in all my Christian experience, I had never really come to a point of knowing my Lord and savior Jesus Christ. He was a name only that I used, but not a person I had come to know. I set out to know Him, not by studying about Him, but by worshiping Him. By establishing a personal and intimate relationship with Him, He became my friend, the one I could talk to about anything. It became His strength in me that carried me through the hard places. This began to turn the rudder of my life's path. For months I began to submerge myself in worship, listening to praise and teaching tapes, and confessing the words of truth in the face of facts. A spiritual principle that the world will deny, because they say you are in denial. Not so! I had chosen specifically to confess the perspective of the spirit (truth) rather than the perspective of soul and body (facts). I had made a decision and now had a desire fueled by a determined will. I could and would be delivered because I knew I was greater than my problem. I had the promise of God that He had already delivered me. I had already won the battle. I already had the victory. It was a past tense spiritual reality that was now my responsibility to make a present tense reality in my soul and body.
I began to go on the offensive, confronting my strongholds rather than defending myself from them. I became the spiritual aggressor, using my spiritual weapons to confront the thoughts and images of my mind and desires of my flesh. I became the attacker and faithfully persisted. I changed the way I prayed. Instead of asking for healing and deliverance, I began thanking God for having already healed and delivered me. I had already been delivered from the lust of my flesh. I was no longer a sinner, no longer my old man nature, no longer a homosexual, no longer the lie, because all these things were now spiritually dead to me. I began to confess myself as a new creation in Christ, totally separated from all my past and present sins. They no longer existed. They had been crucified with Christ. They no longer had power over me, but I had power over them. I was no longer a slave to them. I did not realize it at the time, but I was making Romans 6:6 a reality in my life. “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin”
Instead of asking for strength, I thanked God for having already given me all the strength I needed and more. He had made me completely complete. There was nothing lacking. I had everything I needed already in me to claim my deliverance. I just needed to get it out. This brought my confession in alignment and harmony with the word and will of the Father. He did not expect me to ask for something He had already given me, but to thank Him and begin claiming what was already mine. Words that confess truth, claim the reality of that truth, and it is truth that sets you free. At the time, I did not realize or comprehend that I was putting into place the foundation for my own deliverance and the energizing of my faith which brought it to pass. I learned that faith is an implement of the spirit. If you want to bring to pass out of the spirit realm, a promise of the Spirit, you have to use faith.
After several months of this warfare, I came to a point of realization that I had claimed the victory Christ had won for me. When this truth hit my spirit, I was delivered. I knew it without a doubt. I no longer had to stand against the driving compulsion that fueled my behavior. It was gone and with it all the trappings of that lifestyle. My behavior had not been modified, but eradicated. I raised my hands in the air and began to shout and dance, and praised Jesus for the victory, tears running down my face. I have since come to realize that the daily confessing of truth, in the face of facts is what built my faith to a point of deliverance. I had succeeded in retrieving out of the spirit realm by my faith, the victory Jesus had deposited in my spirit for me. No one had prayed for me, no one laid their hands on me, no one anointed me with oil, no one received revelation and ministered deliverance to me through the gifts of the Spirit. I had been set free and delivered because of the covenant relationship that I had established with my Lord and my friend Jesus Christ.
Spiritual warfare is not difficult. It just requires persistent faithfulness, using the weapons of our warfare. Our enemy is already defeated. We don't need to confess the problem, only recognize it and confess the accomplished deliverance. No matter what it is we are dealing with, through Christ we already have the victory. When He comes to live in us, He brings our victory with Him. It then becomes our responsibility, to get it out! Christ did His job! Now it's our turn!
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