Deliverance – Weird or Wonderful? Part 2

Jesus gave seventy-two of His disciples the necessary authority and power to carry out true deliverance, and it worked!

What’s even more remarkable is that the Holy Spirit is clearly willing and able to continue this work through the followers of Jesus today. I’m not fascinated by, or focussed on, deliverance and I don’t believe that it solves all our problems but, rather than weird, I think true deliverance is indeed wonderful! I realise that I’m in good company as I read today’s scripture. To see someone really liberated from spiritual bondage and walk in a new place of freedom is surely wonderful. However, the important issue is that only Jesus has the key to such a miracle.

In Matthew chapter 28, Jesus declared that the mandate which He gave to His first disciples was to be passed on to each generation of disciples when He said to His followers, ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations … teaching them to observe (or more fully, study and put into practice) all that I commanded you’.

So here we are, another generation of disciples, gifted by God to challenge the authority of the enemy in people’s lives, just like the twelve and the seventy two who walked with Jesus. The Holy Spirit imparts the necessary truth, direction, authority and power, provided we remain utterly surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus. I thank God that we’re part of Christ’s Body on earth and not isolated agents of His battle plans. We’re able to help one another to avoid the enemy’s seductive ways in trying to pick us off on the battlefield.

Prayer: O Lord, teach us in the Body of Christ to minister in deliverance in right relationship with one another, and with hearts so surrendered to You, that we increasingly see more of the truly wonderful and much less of the painfully weird. Amen.