Unequal Yoking has a Price

I had a fascinating experience last night.

Yesterday I wrote about spirits I’ve noticed, operating in my presence. The ones I mentioned were spirits of fear and groundless anger.

While it was still dark today, I woke up, and a spirit of fear was with me. I was very anxious…about nothing. Usually when we have emotions, we are able to come up with explanations. For example, if I had to be sentenced to prison today, I would tell myself I was anxious or afraid because of that. This morning, there wasn’t a rationale for my anxiety. I have little challenges, but things are going very well.

I use the word “rationale” because I know our emotions aren’t as connected to circumstance as we think.

I know I’ve had emotions that were not caused by my circumstances. For example, when Jesus visited me in the night, I felt overwhelming joy, and I knew I was going to be safe forever. My circumstances hadn’t changed, apart from the visit. After the visit, the joy left, and so did the knowledge that things were going to be all right.

When I entered the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, I felt grief fall on me like a cold blanket being dropped over my back. I knew it wasn’t my grief, because I wasn’t a good enough person to be that affected by the misfortune of others. It was the grief of the Holy Spirit.

I used to suffer from depression. I thought I was depressed because I lived with abuse, because my parents had a marriage of discord and torment, because I did badly in school, or because I was dissatisfied with my social life. I later learned I was depressed because I was depressed. I heard irrational negative thoughts all day. I didn’t have a good reason to be depressed; there is no such thing. Even when you have no hope, depression isn’t necessary or helpful. I was young. I was very able. I had great opportunities. Another person in my situation might have felt very encouraged in spite of the problems.

I’m sure spirits were involved in my depression and the grief I felt at the museum. I know they produce many of the emotions, thoughts, and drives we think originate in us. I know the emotional state of Jesus filled me when he visited.

This morning, in my dark bedroom, I believed I had a spirit of fear, so I did what you do when spirits trouble you. I fought it supernaturally. I spoke defeat to it. I asked God to drive it out. I commanded it to leave. I prayed in the Spirit.

There are levels of belief. For example, I have a certain level of belief in Jesus right now. When he visited me, the level was much higher. I knew he was there. If he had physically manifested himself, I suppose the level would have been higher still.

I believed a spirit of fear was after me right away, but when I started fighting it, I became very aware that it was distressed, and that I was feeling fear that came from a separate being. I could feel it moving in me, in turmoil. My belief that a spirit was with me became knowledge.

I continued fighting it, and eventually things subsided, and I went to sleep. I can’t say it’s gone for good, but I scored a knockdown with God’s help.

Some people say love is the opposite of fear. I don’t think that’s true, but John said perfect love casts out fear, so perfect love and fear can’t coexist. I think that when God’s supernatural love flows through you, it pushes out fear, not because fear is its opposite, but because you naturally prefer love to fear. Love takes up your attention, and fear can’t get a hearing because it’s repulsive and no longer makes sense.

When God’s love is flowing in you, God is with you, and you can’t be afraid in his presence unless you have an issue you need to address.

That’s my best guess. When people say love is the opposite of fear, it doesn’t ring true with me, and when I ask God if it’s true, I get no confirmation.

The people who say love is the opposite of fear are generally people who aren’t Christians, and I don’t accept doctrine from the lost.

God’s presence is like light, and all forms of evil are like darkness. His presence annihilates them, the way light annihilates darkness. It’s not a battle. When God appears, where he is, evil instantly ceases to exist. When God is present, love flows from him like light from the sun. I’ve felt it, not just emotionally, but physically. When he’s around, you can feel the rays of love bathing your body.

Actually, light is like God’s presence. His presence existed first.

I have some confirmation. Look at what I found when I checked 1 John:

Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.

He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.

He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.

But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.

I don’t think love and fear are opposites. I have the conventional, ancient, nearly universal belief. I think anger is more like love’s opposite. It certainly cuts off love in me, more than fear does.

If anger cuts off love, you would expect anger to open the door to fear, because it blocks the presence of the one who annihilates fear.

That makes more sense to me.

I have pursued God’s love for a long time. I know anger is poisonous, and I know it’s an issue with me. I spent years cultivating an anger addiction. I always pray for God to help me love people and to forgive them. Especially the most vicious people in my life. But anger is a habit, like fear, and I am tempted to be angry many times every week. I am subjected to vexatious behavior from people who love darkness.

Provocation by obnoxious people who love to cause suffering is temptation. Trying to stay free of anger when there are vexatious people in your life is harder than getting free after those people are removed. It’s like trying to get free of lust while living in an apartment in the back of a strip club.

We don’t call provocation “temptation,” and that’s remarkable, because that’s what it clearly is.

When Jewish leaders beat Jesus and spat on him, they were tempting him. They wanted him to sin so Satan could have him condemned and destroy his power to keep people free while alive and out of hell after their deaths. Satan also wanted Jesus in hell very badly.

The spirit of anger is the spirit of murder. I learned I had it a long time ago. God mentioned it to my by name. I had it cast out, but it returns, so I still have to battle it. It doesn’t mean I have any desire to harm anyone physically. I could never do that except in a self-defense situation, and I don’t want to. It just means that when I get angry with people, I have a desire to diminish them, take their dignity, and remove them from my life. The Jews believe verbal abuse is a sort of murder.

Orthodox Jews who hate Jesus call him “YESHU,” which, in Hebrew, is an acronym for “May his name and memory be blotted out forever.” Some Jews who have accepted Jesus say that, at least. It’s not just a mean name. It’s an attempt to annihilate him.

One wonders…what is better? To ask God for deliverance from obnoxious people, or to be made so powerful in love, obnoxious people can’t make headway?

Here is what I think, based on the Bible. You should do both.

The Bible tells us not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. They tempt us in all sorts of ways. It also says we should not put God to the test. When you associate needlessly with unbelievers, you test God. Clearly, then, we should avoid being around nasty people when we don’t have to.

Jesus got away from vexatious people. He spent a certain amount of necessary time with them, and then he took off. If Jesus himself didn’t hang around with his enemies, neither should we.

As for being built up in love, that’s a fundamental goal no Christian questions.

Prepare for conflict, but avoid it. That makes sense to me.

I know people who got married or pregnant before getting to know God. Their pain is tremendous. They are stuck in relationships with people whose presence is like being flogged, or they are recovering from such relationships. Sometimes the problematic partner changes. Usually, they don’t, and it doesn’t matter what the believing partner does, because any conversion can be prevented by free will.

Being single has its downside, but like I always say, the wrong woman is literally worse than cancer. No one ever commits a murder-suicide because of cancer.

The spirits of fear and murder are desperate to stay with me and work on me. They use abusive people. They use people who won’t listen. They use caffeine. They use every tool they can pick up.

If I can get lasting victory over these spirits, God’s love should flow through me unopposed, and I should feel considerably better.

This stuff is important. You have to maximize God’s presence in your life, and you can’t dictate terms. You have to do it his way. Give up what he tells you to give up.

I envy people who have very limited exposure to the nasty and the boorish, and who spend a lot of time sharing love with like-minded individuals. I expect to get there myself some day.