Think you might have a demon? Discerning when something is demonic is challenging to a committed Christian. You don’t want to go overboard and think that everything is demonic. On the other hand, you don’t want to ignore something that could be a genuine supernatural threat. Nonetheless, the thought surges in your mind: Is it me or demons?
With the explosion of the Internet and social media, there are many voices out there offering solutions for paranormal occurrences and supernatural attacks. This is especially true in conservative Christian circles. Many websites offer deliverance prayers, some good and some not so good. Unfortunately, some of these solutions are ill-conceived, and even dangerous.
If a person has mental health issues, ill-informed advice is even more suspect. The average person involved in deliverance has little knowledge of the psychodynamics of mental illness. It is common to hear on social media self-styled spiritual experts tell people that voices in their head always come from demons without any consideration of schizophrenia or psychosis. These suspect prophets and apostles have almost no understanding of dissociative behavior, and the debilitating effects of maladies such as depression and lack of emotional regulation. The result of such bad advice can be tragic and life-threatening. Determining if a problem has a demonic root can be complicated if you receive inexperienced advice that makes you even more paranoid about whether or not Satan is after you .
There needs to be a lot more caution and a lot less hubris in offering advice about the spiritual struggles people are going through. With this in mind, here are five considerations that will help you to confidently decide whether to proceed on the path to spiritual freedom through deliverance and exorcism.
5 THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN CONTEMPLATING IF SOMETHING IS DEMONIC
1) PRACTICAL APPROACH: Use reasonable, practical measures to arrive at an answer for your problem. Seek wisdom from a multitude of counselors. Speak with mature Christians and ask them what they think the source of your problems might be. Fast and spend more time reading your Bible to see if these spiritual disciplines push back against what is troubling you. If your problem persists, especially if it involves something supernatural happening, you might want to consider more seriously the possibility of demonic attack.
2) MEDICINE AND MENTAL HEALTH: Take advantage of medical and mental health resources to evaluate your suffering. The mind is a fragile thing and stress, depression, and illnesses may throw your thinking and mental acuity out of balance. Tell trusted friends what you’re going through or speak to a medical doctor. But be cautious. This could be problematic if what you’re experiencing is supernatural so be careful who you tell what’s going on if there are paranormal things happening. You don’t want a psychiatrist jumping to the conclusion that you are psychotic and immediately start writing prescriptions. On the other hand, you want to be certain you are of a sound mind. Hopefully you are in relationship with a good pastor and conscientious Christian people who can speak truth into your life about your mental state.
3) BIBLICAL PRINCIPLES: Apply normal biblical approaches of discipline, fasting, and intense prayer to solve your situation. If what you are going through is demonic that’s going to get the attention of evil spirits, and you will likely know by the kickback that you’ll be getting. As you draw closer to the Lord, if your problems are demonic, you may get intense, unexpected physical and emotional reactions from demonic sources that are out of the ordinary. These kinds of reactions might be falling asleep when you read your Bible; intrusive thoughts that are ungodly when you spend time in prayer; the desire to commit certain sins which don’t normally tempt you; anger and rage out of the ordinary may overwhelm you. You might even find yourself saying curse words that don’t normally cross your lips.
4) FAMILY CURSES: Consider the effect of bloodline curses and their impact on your behavior. If you don’t know how generational curses operate, get my book on curse breaking. Go to our streaming platform XDUNAMIS and check out the videos of curse-breaking prayers. If you’ve never gotten your DNA tested, check online, do so. Check out one of the companies that administers these tests and see who your ancestors really were. Do some investigation with older living family members who might be willing to tell you about some horrible things done by your forebears. Consider the effect of how bloodline curses are impacting your behavior. If you discover an unusual amount of perverted, violent, and rebellious behavior in your bloodline that may indicate your problem is exacerbated by demons.
5) COUNSELING: Consult resources of therapy and Christian counseling to address your challenges with practical human wisdom. If that doesn’t help the problem, then it’s more likely you are facing a spiritual battle with demons. Human wisdom can be helpful when solving minor spiritual attacks. But deliverance and exorcism are in order if counseling doesn’t produce significant results.
Taking the steps that I’ve outlined will help you to first dismiss normal human causative factors for whatever troubles your soul. If one or more of these approaches fail, and you are still feeling strange impulses of evil, that’s the time to reach out for deliverance prayers.
