Faith's Story

Read Faith's story of her freedom from the addiction of perversion and lust..........

I was a slave to sin. Jesus banished my slave-master and set me free.

The way I described it was that I was “In a longstanding, sexually-charged relationship with a demon.” You might say that I was addicted to fantasy, but that language doesn’t adequately reflect the depravity, power and control, fear, guilt, disgust, allure, adultery of heart, manipulation and destruction.

For many years I had been wrapped in this addiction, and I’d fought and fought and fought it any and every way I knew how. Then at times, I’d called to it and welcomed it like a warm blanket: an escape, some excitement, a little comfort. I was like the dog returning to its vomit: but I didn’t want to do this!! I did the things I did not want to do. There were times I thought I had control of it, only to realise that as always it controlled me; I was its puppet; it would allow me to think I had control only to take pleasure in calling me back from my supposed reprieve; when it called, I was powerless to resist; it was my master and I was its slave. I stopped resisting.

The impacts were significant. When it was upon me it affected my concentration, my engagement with my husband and children, my patience, my capacity, my mood. I would stop praying and drawing near to God (I was so, so dirty, how could I come to God?!). I would recoil from my husband. My husband’s mood would be affected dramatically, and he would often get demonic visitations that lined up exactly with the addiction coming upon me. You’d think I’d be motivated, then, to kick this thing!! But I simply was unable. I was a slave to sin. It called, I answered.

When I heard about the Freedom and Fire ministry, there was no question: I knew that I knew that I had to go.

The experience was not what I expected! I thought, “Oh, I have one gnarly demon. They’ll kick that out and I’ll walk out of there, 15 minutes later, free.” Well! The process was very, very thorough. It was fascinating having God unravel and reveal things through the discussions at the start, and sensing the enemy becoming skirmish as God approached. It became very apparent that there was more than just one “gnarly demon.”

A couple of times during the discussion I was unable to say the words, like my tongue couldn’t move properly in my mouth, and another time we were going through something I thought to be a complete non-issue and I started crying uncontrollably. Through the Freedom and Fire team God also revealed another significant area of deception in my life, where I thought I had a revelation from God, but really the enemy was appearing to sound like God and using fear to keep me bound up. The team were so very patient and thorough, and honest with me, counselling me and giving me advice, telling me straight if something I was saying was off the mark.

The deliverance itself was such an experience, and not what I could have imagined or conjured up. I often see images in prayer, and for each demonic stronghold that the team prayed through, I had a strong image-experience. Most of the images involved Jesus standing beside me in various situations as the demons presented in various forms and scenes.

When dealing with one of the strongholds, YHWH stood up off His throne and stood behind Jesus and me. In another, Jesus got angry (I had never experienced him angry before!) and came in front of me to protect me and do holy violence to the enemy. Perhaps the most impactful was the final image. When the team member said the name of this last demon I thought, “Oh, that’s not an issue for me, but I don’t want to be impolite and tell her she got that one wrong.” Well, God must have revealed something that I couldn’t see even in myself, because this one didn’t want to let go: this one I couldn’t let go of! I was at the cross, Jesus above me, with this thing in a bag on my back, and I needed to take the bag off my back and give it to Jesus. I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. I tried, but it couldn’t be done. I was crying, asking God to help me give it to him, looking at Jesus as he was hanging there, so patiently inviting me to take this thing off and put it on him. I didn’t want to give it to Jesus, it wasn’t his to carry, it was mine to carry, I had done this to myself!

Eventually something shifted and I was able to take this bag off and give it to Jesus. When I had finally given it to him, he died. It’s like he had been holding on, staying alive long enough for me to give it to him, and then he was satisfied and let himself die. I wept, not because Jesus had died, but because when I gave it to him he smiled and he was so, so happy. He was dying, but he was happy, because he got what he wanted – my sin on him: my freedom.

I am no longer a slave to sin: I am set free from it! (Romans 6)

It is for freedom that Christ set me free! (Galatians 5:1)