(5-Minute Read)

I was listening to a Post Malone song the other day and the lyrics struck me. This phrase he kept using over and over began to hold weight in my life because of the lenses I’ve previously walked around with. Here’s what he says:

“I used to have friends now I’ve got enemies.”

I know, I know, Posty is probably talking about people who have betrayed him on his journey to fame (and my life doesn’t reflect that on any level), but his words opened the door to a belief system that I used to live with.

Shame, anxiety, porn, control, fear..

I used to be “friends” with these things.

Not on purpose. But much like demonic strongholds do, they enticed me and entered in to my life as something that would benefit me, and they “did” for a season. But they quickly became powerful strongholds in my soul and mind that left me paralyzed, spinning through unhealthy cycles, and feeling powerless.

Can you relate to that?

Maybe it’s not shame or control that you’re friends with, but maybe it’s telling “little” lies, or unhealthy comparison, or a lust for power that you’ve become friends with.

The reality is, none of my things (or your things) actually were friendly. They were a trap from the demonic realm to get me to stumble backwards and pull myself away from my Dad (God). That’s the enemies’ only goal—to get us to pull away from our Father and look at Him through a lens of mistrust.

Come with me on a rabbit trail for a moment.

C.S. Lewis, in the Preface to the latest addition of his brilliant book, The Screwtape Letters, writes:

”I feign that devils can, in a spiritual sense, eat one another; and us. Even in human life we have seen the passion to dominate, almost to digest, one’s fellow…In Hell I feign that they recognize it as hunger. But there the hunger is more ravenous, and a fuller satisfaction is possible. There, I suggest, the stronger spirit—there are perhaps no bodies to impede the operation—can really and irrevocably suck the weaker into itself and permanently gorge its own being on the wearer’s outraged individuality. It is (I feign) for this that devils desire human souls and the souls of one another. It is for this that Satan desires all his own followers and all the sons of Eve and all the host of Heaven (pg. 5).”

The demons (and their king) have only one desire: to pull God’s children away from Him, and destroy the human soul.

Now I believe in a big God and a little devil. I believe when Jesus died on the cross He not only took on the sin of the world and paid for the salvation and restoration of all humanity, but that He also destroyed the devil and all of His work. Satan has no more authority, for Jesus took it back! (See Matthew 28:18)

Part of Jesus taking authority back means that He has given that authority to His followers to complete the total annihilation of the demonic realm from the earth before His return.

If Jesus hasn’t come back yet, then that means there’s still work to be done by us, to rid His beautiful creation of the demonic realm.

And that brings us back to our “friends”.

If there are still demonic forces on the earth, then humanity—you and I—can still be attacked, tormented, and tricked by these evil forces into exchanging the truth of God for a lie. We can be deceived into believing that we are powerful enough to “manage” ourselves and we don’t need God—pride, control, and manipulation flow from that tiny belief-agreement. We can be tricked into exchanging God’s healthy vision for sexuality, relationship, and love for a counterfeit and hollow addictive stronghold—porn addiction, hook-up culture, constant shame, and self-hatred are just a few of the realities that this stronghold produces. We can be so attacked by outside voices that we exchange the peace of (trusting) God for a lower-tier truth of trusting ourselves, or even trusting in the anxiety we are feeling.

This is the Stockholm Syndrome of spirituality where you become so closely related to your perpetrator (the demonic attack) that you don’t know how to live without it, so much so that you actually become “friends” with it and it creates a stronghold in your life.

But there is a solution, a way of escape for you and I.

It’s the blood of Jesus.

That phrase get’s used so often in church and Christian culture that we have become numb to the actual authority it carries.

I do not mean a metaphorical “blood of Jesus”. I mean the real thing.

The only solution for your strongholds of sin, and the only savior of your soul is the blood of Jesus.

This is the thing demons fear the most for it has all authority in it. It’s the blood of Jesus.

In the most loving act of eternity, this blood is the thing that was shed FREELY for you and me, and in the laying down of His life, Jesus has set us free. It’s the blood of Jesus.

The question is, will you receive this freedom?

It’s one thing to know you are free, but it’s a whole other thing to submit the enslaved area’s of your life to this freedom.

Accepting the blood of Jesus as the payment for your sin and bondage is what will set you free.

It’s what set me free.

I used to be friends with shame, and friends with anxiety, and friends with porn, and friends with control, and friends with fear. Though they were no friend to me, I kept them close because they provided a level of comfort that I was insecure to let go of.

But the blood of Jesus is more secure than my insecurities. The death of Jesus is more than enough payment for the wages of death that I deserved. The resurrection of Jesus is enough to bring my souls’ dead-and-rotting area’s back to life.

So now those places that I used to be so familiar with have no claim on me. They have no power to lock me up anymore. They don’t get to manipulate me or torment me or enslave me any longer. They are my enemies now and I’m on a war-bound mission to destroy those things that have tried to destroy me.

It’s all by the sacrificial, saving, blood of Jesus. Thanks be to God.

I used to have “friends”, now I have enemies.

What about you? What are your “friends”? Are you willing to bring them under the blood of Jesus Christ and be set free?

Today is the day to go to war against your enemies.

With gentleness and wisdom,

Seth