Sex is a tridimensional experience: spirit, soul and body. Anytime you have sex with a person, you bond with them. Dr. Daniel Amen writes in his book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life:

Whenever a person is sexually involved with another person, neurochemical changes occur in both their brains that encourage limbic, emotional bonding. Limbic bonding is the reason casual sex doesn’t really work for most people on a whole mind and body level. Two people may decide to have sex “just for the fun of it,” yet something is occurring on another level that they might not have decided on at all: Sex is enhancing an emotional bond between them whether they want it or not. One person, often the woman, is bound to form an attachment and will be hurt when a casual affair ends. One reason it is usually the woman who is hurt most is that the female limbic system is larger than the male’s.

This phenomenon is what we call “soul ties.” Sex is like gluing two pieces of wood together and the next day, ripping them apart. Of course, wood from the opposite board remains on each board. A piece of your sex partner (the good, bad and ugly) stays with you (and vice versa) for the rest of your life. You can only imagine what it looks like when you bond with multiple partners.

Unhealthy soul ties are often the ramifications of having partners with whom you create a lifelong bond through a sexual encounter(s), but with whom you only have a short-term relationship. The bond (soul tie) remains long after the relationship is over, leaving both sexual partners longing for wholeness.

3 Reasons Unhealthy Soul Ties Take Place

1. People are misinformed and therefore convinced that sex is strictly a single-dimensional, physical act with no emotional or spiritual connections. Yet after sex, they find themselves mysteriously longing for the person they may not even like.

2. A person (usually the woman) gives him or herself sexually to someone, expecting that the intensely intimate act of intercourse would create a bond that would lead to deeper levels of commitment in their relationship. But soon she discovers that her sexual partner was taking advantage of her need for intimacy and used her vulnerability merely to have sex. Of course, this leads to a person being emotionally and spiritually bonded to somebody they deeply resent.

3. Two people commit to marriage and therefore surmise that the covenant vows are only a formality. So they live together and enjoy a sexual relationship outside of a life-long commitment. But later they decide (for whatever reason) that they don’t want to live in a covenant relationship and eventually break up. They usually don’t realize how deeply they have wounded each other, as their souls are ripped apart, tearing the very fabric of their beings in the separation.

I understand there are hundreds of other reasons why unhealthy soul ties take place, but I am simply trying to give you a few examples.

7 Signs You Have an Unhealthy Soul Tie

1. You are in a physically, emotionally or spiritually abusive relationship, but you “feel” so attached to the other person that you refuse to cut off the connection and set boundaries with them.

2. You have left a relationship (maybe long ago), but you think about the other person obsessively (you can’t get them out of your mind).

3. Whenever you do anything—make a decision, have a conversation with someone and so on—you “feel” like this person is with you or watching you.

4. When you have sex with someone else (hopefully your husband or wife), you can hardly keep yourself from visualizing the person with whom you have a soul tie.

5. You take on the negative traits of the person your soul is tied to and carry their offenses, whether or not you actually agree with them.

6. You defend your right to stay in a relationship with the person to whom your soul is tied, even though it is negatively affecting or even destroying the important relationships in your life (husband, wife, kids, leaders and so on).

7. You have simultaneous experiences or “moods” as the person to whom your soul is tied. This can even include sickness, accidents, addictions and so forth.

“Do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh” (1 Cor. 6:16).

There Is Hope

There is hope if you find yourself in an unhealthy soul tie. You can never fall so far that you can’t be restored. New life is available to you by simply repenting and asking Jesus to forgive you. Forgiveness restores the standard in our lives, and you can live in freedom and hope again.

For more on this subject, check out my book, Moral Revolution.

Have you been freed from an unhealthy soul tie? {eoa}

Kris Vallotton is the senior associate leader of Bethel Church in Redding, California, and cofounder of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM). Kris travels internationally, training and equipping people to successfully fulfill their divine purpose. He’s a best-selling author, having written more than a dozen books and training manuals to help prepare believers for life in the kingdom. He has a diverse background in business, counseling, consulting, pastoring and teaching, which gives him unique leadership insights and perspectives. Kris has a passion to use his experience and his prophetic gift to assist world leaders in achieving their goals and accomplishing their mission.

This article originally appeared at krisvallotton.com.

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President Donald Trump is suggesting a delay may be needed in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Brett Kavanaugh after a woman went public saying the judge sexually assaulted her when they were in high school.

“If it takes a little delay it’ll take a little delay,” Trump told reporters Monday. “I’m sure it will work out very well. We want to go through a full process … and hear everybody out,” he said.

Accuser Christine Blasey Ford came forward publicly Sunday, claiming the 53-year-old judge attacked her when they were teenagers at a high school party in the early 1980s.

“He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing,” said Ford, a 51-year-old research psychologist in Northern California. “I thought he might inadvertently kill me.”

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Asking for anonymity, Ford first shared her story with Sen. Dianne Feinstein in a letter dated July 30. The California Democrat later turned it over to the FBI, but she only revealed its existence to the public after Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings were over.

Ford told The Washington Post the attack was not successful. But the paper reports that in early August, Ford took a polygraph test administered by a former FBI agent, and the results indicated that Ford was being truthful about the incident. Ford says she never revealed what had happened until 2012, when she and her husband were in couples’ therapy.

The revelation of the identity of Kavanaugh’s accuser comes days after 65 former classmates of Kavanaugh, all women, came forward in his defense.

“Through the more than 35 years we have known him, Brett has stood out for his friendship, character and integrity,” the women wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “In particular, he has always treated women with decency and respect. That was true when he was in high school, and it has remained true to this day.”

Ford, however, isn’t backing down, saying she’s willing to tell her story to the Judiciary panel.

For the rest of this story, visit our content partners at CBNNews.com. Copyright The Christian Broadcasting Network, all rights reserved.

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Bar-Ilan University Professor Raanan Eichler discusses why the book of Jonah was chosen as one of the readings at services tomorrow on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

This article originally appeared on worldisraelnews.com.

Last week, the nation remembered the anniversary of the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001.

We have been praying through the 40-day Jewish season of repentance, Teshuvah, which ends on Yom Kipper. As we complete the prayer journey, we want to share a prophecy given in 1998 which warned us of the 9/11 catastrophe and launched the Teshuvah Prayer Initiative.

In the summer of 1998 a well-known prophet, Chuck Pierce, warned the church to cleanse itself during a 40-day period corresponding to the Hebrew repentance season of Teshuvah, which ran from Aug. 22, 1998, to Sept. 30, 1998. He warned the church of the coming rise of the Islamic spirit and the spirit of lawlessness in the U.S. He also warned that, if the church did not repent and find God’s plan, it would be unable to stop the disaster which would come at the end three years.

On Sept. 11, 1998 the special prosecutor appointed to review to the scandals of President Bill Clinton announced that the president had committed perjury about an affair with an intern and committed other abuses of power. Instead of removing the president, as the Republicans had done when Nixon was caught lying, the Democrats lined up behind him. By doing so, they endorsed his lawlessness and released the spirit of lawlessness on the country. And the church, divided by politics, made no effective response.

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Exactly three years after the announcement by the special prosecutor, just as the prophet had said, a catastrophe hit the United States. The Islamic spirit warned of in the prophecy rose up and killed 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001. Few understood the judgment that had fallen on America. Many politicians made a show of defiance by quoting from a Scripture, Isaiah 9:10, about rebuilding bigger and better. What they failed to understand in their ignorance was that the Isaiah 9:10 Scripture was a condemnation of their attitude of defiance against God.

Last year, the prophecy came to our attention as we prepared to pray for repentance, unity and healing the land during the 2017 Teshuvah season. For more information, get a free download of our book Teshuvah Eclipses. This year, we have again prayed through the Teshuvah season, which ends with the Hebrew Day of Atonement on Sept. 19.

We believe that God has begun to deal with the spirit of Islamistism in answer to our prayers. The so-called caliphate of the ISIS terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq has collapsed, and the worldwide terrorism wave is receding. The U.S. has also scotched the terrible Iranian nuclear deal and has brought the terrorists in Tehran under tremendous pressure. Much remains to be done, but much progress has been made against the Islamist scourge.

Here in the U.S. we are seeing the exposure of the lawlessness loosed by the Clintons and fostered under President Obama. Senior officials of the Justice Department and FBI have been caught colluding with the Clinton presidential campaign to excuse Clinton’s wrongdoing while working to undermine the Trump presidential campaign and his presidency. Many Obama-era regulations, promulgated illegally, have been rolled back. And the appointment of a second originalist Supreme Court justice promises to bring back the rule of law into our judicial system.

We thank God that in His mercy, He has brought relief from the threats of Islamistism and lawlessness which the church failed to deal with 20 years ago.

Let us pray that the church will continue the Teshuvah prayers of repentance, unity and healing of our land and will seek God for His plans for our generation. {eoa}

Ron Allen is a Christian businessman, CPA and author who serves in local, national and international ministries, spreading a message of reconciliation to God, to men and between believers. He is founder of the International Star Bible Society, telling how the heavens declare the glory of God; the Emancipation Network, which helps people escape from financial bondage; and co-founder with his wife, Pat, of Corporate Prayer Resources, dedicated to helping intercessors.

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The Thomas More Society has received notice from the City of Rochester, New York, that it will no longer hold pro-life advocates to restrictions on abortion facility access that were improperly enforced against them by Rochester Police.

Since October 2017, Jim Havens and other members of ROC Sidewalk Advocates for Life have been offering alternatives to abortion with women going to a Planned Parenthood abortion facility on University Avenue in Rochester. Havens and the ROC group did this on the public sidewalk without restriction until June 2018 when Planned Parenthood prevailed upon the Rochester Police to instruct them that a federal injunction prohibited them from approaching within fifteen feet of the entrance.

The 2005 injunction is in place at the location as a result of a previous lawsuit and sets a buffer zone preventing those bound by the injunction from coming closer than 15 feet from the Planned Parenthood entrance on the public sidewalk. The zone is marked by yellow lines painted across the sidewalk on either side of the Planned Parenthood facility entrance.

The City of Rochester law enforcement officers invoked the injunction and ordered Havens and his group to obey the buffer zone imposed by it. Thomas More Society attorneys took the position that Havens and the ROC Sidewalk Advocates for Life were not bound by the 2005 injunction.

Accordingly, Thomas More Society attorneys sent a letter to the City of Rochester explaining that the Rochester Police were illegally denying the pro-life advocates their First Amendment rights. The letter pointed out that Havens and members of ROC Sidewalk Advocates for Life were not defendants in the 2005 legal matter, and were not acting in concert with anyone who was violating the injunction.

For that reason, they are not subject to it and could not violate it. In answer to the letter, Patrick Beath, deputy corporate counsel, said that “[t]he City of Rochester agrees.”

Thomas Olp, Thomas More Society vce president and seniorcounsel, explained the significance of the victory.

“The practical effect of the City of Rochester’s agreement is that Mr. Havens and the ROC Sidewalk Advocates for Life can ignore the yellow lines on the sidewalk that mark the injunction’s 15-foot buffer zone around the Planned Parenthood entrance in Rochester,” Olp said. “The injunction arising out of a court case almost 20 years ago can be enforced only against those who were parties to the case, and not against the world at large, as the police tried to do here.

“Jim Havens and his group may not be threatened with contempt simply because Planned Parenthood doesn’t want them on the public sidewalk outside their abortion clinic, when Havens and his group were not parties to the original lawsuit, and are not acting in concert with any party violating the injunction. The injunction is not a ‘free pass’ allowing police to restrict free speech rights of pro-life advocates who did not prompt the issuance of the injunction, were given no due process ‘say’ in the proceeding that gave rise to it, and have never assisted those bound by the injunction to violate it. We appreciate the City of Rochester’s acknowledgment of these well-established legal principles.”

Read the Thomas More Society’s Aug. 7, 2018, letter to the City of Rochester’s Corporation Counsel here and the City of Rochester’s September 6, 2018, reply here. {eoa}

National and state pro-life leaders sent a letter this week to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar urging the government to end the taxpayer-funded use of aborted fetal tissue for research.

The letter reads, in part: “We were shocked and dismayed at the news report that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has signed a contract to purchase ‘fresh’ aborted fetal organs from Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR), for the purpose of creating humanized mice with human immune systems. We expect far better of our federal agencies—especially under the leadership of a courageous pro-life president—entrusted with the health of American citizens. It is completely unacceptable to discover that the FDA is using federal tax dollars and fomenting demand for human body parts taken from babies who are aborted. …The federal government must find ethical alternatives as soon as possible, and should end all association with those who participate in any trafficking or procurement of aborted baby organs. No taxpayer dollars should continue to go to this gruesome practice.”

According to GSA’s federal contract database, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration signed a new contract on July 25 with ABR to acquire “fresh” organs from aborted babies to implant them into mice. The taxpayer-funded project includes paying nearly $16,000 to ABR for harvested organs, even though the organization remains under investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ).

A new report shows that ABR has harvested aborted baby organs for research for more than what is legally reimbursable. The 11-page report details how ABR charged universities a significantly marked-up price for the organs it harvested from aborted babies received from Planned Parenthood. The Center for Medical Progress released a new report showing ABR charged researchers up to hundreds of dollars per harvested human organ in addition to packing and shipping fees—prices that indicate the organization may have been marking up the cost of fetal tissue beyond what is legally reimbursable.

Liberty Counsel is defending Sandra Merritt against 15 felony charges, brought by the Attorney General to punish her for undercover work in exposing Planned Parenthood’s unethical and potentially illegal profiteering from the sale of aborted baby body parts.

“It is horrendous that the FDA signed a contract to purchase aborted baby body parts with taxpayer dollars,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “It is a positive move that the Department of Justice is investigating Advanced Bioscience Resources, but then counterproductive to hand them money for their heinous crime. These despicable acts by these companies and their owners underscore why our client Sandra Merritt should be applauded for revealing the seedy underbelly of Planned Parenthood.” {eoa}

For the original article, visit lc.org.

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Many Christians in the Western world don’t even realize that the persecution of the end times has already started.

All over the world, Christians are being attacked, Bibles are being burned and churches are being shut down. This persecution has been escalating for quite some time, but what prompted me to write this article today was the dramatic change that we have witnessed in China this year. Up to this point, the Chinese government has largely tolerated the booming house church movement, but now that era of toleration is officially over.

New religious regulations that went into effect in February are being brutally enforced, and this is causing some to point out the frightening parallels between Communist China and Nazi Germany.

According to Fox News, during this new crackdown Chinese government officials have been “destroying crosses, burning Bibles, closing churches and forcing Christian believers to sign papers renouncing their faith”…

The Chinese government is destroying crosses, burning Bibles, closing churches and forcing Christian believers to sign papers renouncing their faith as the crackdown on religious congregations in Beijing and several provinces intensifies.

The suppression of religious freedoms is part of an official campaign to “Sinicize” religion by demanding loyalty to the atheist Communist party and removing any potential challenge to the party’s power in the country.

Doesn’t that sound quite similar to Nazi Germany and other tyrannical regimes?

If Christians refuse to sign these papers, they could lose their jobs or be cut off from all government benefits.

So let us pray for strength for our brothers and sisters in China, because many of them will be confronted with some very hard choices.

According to the Express, authorities have also “raided Christian homes to remove religious symbols, arrested church members and seized churches”. In Henan province alone, more than 7,000 crosses have been destroyed, but other than Fox News most of the mainstream media outlets in the United States have been completely silent about this very important story.

You can see some footage of Bibles being burned in China on Twitter right here. This is evil on a level that is hard to describe, and it seems to be getting worse with each passing month.

Earlier this month, one pastor was heartbroken after authorities burned crosses, Bibles and furniture after a raid on his church…

A Christian pastor in the Henan city of Nanyang, whose name was not identified out of fear of retaliation by the authorities, reportedly confirmed that crosses, Bibles and furniture were burned during a raid on his church on Sept. 5.

He added that local authorities were in discussions with the church about reforming it, but no agreement had been reached.

According to Chinese laws, religious believers are allowed to worship only in government-sanctioned congregations. But many millions of Christians belong to underground or house churches that ignore government regulations.

So exactly what kind of “reform” did the authorities have in mind?

Basically, China wants churches to look like something out of a George Orwell novel. The following comes from CBN…

Chinese Christians report authorities have urged church leaders to remove pictures of Jesus from their sanctuaries and replace them with patriotic posters or posters of President Xi instead. They’ve suggested hymns be replaced with patriotic songs about the “wonderfulness of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Nettleton also said Chinese authorities are using advanced artificial intelligence software to monitor church attendees.

“One pastor in Beijing not long ago was told by the government, “Pastor, we don’t mind if you continue holding your services, we just want to put this camera on your platform looking out at the audience and it’s attached to facial recognition software so that we can tell who comes to church on Sunday and who’s there and what they are doing and how involved they are,'” he said.

Could you imagine going to a church like that?

I couldn’t.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is it.

This is the persecution of the last days, and it is only going to get worse.

In addition to everything else, the Chinese government is banning just about all expressions of faith on the Internet:

In addition to these attacks, the Chinese government is implementing tight restrictions on online content related to religion. Images and descriptions of religious activities will be largely prohibited, with exceptions for organizations that have obtained licenses from the government—and even then, what kinds of religious content they may share is restricted. As the Telegraph reports, “Individuals would be forbidden from posting photos, videos and even text related to religious activities, or sharing links related to preaching.”

This will happen here in the United States too eventually if we don’t fight it.

And of course it isn’t just in China that we are seeing a rise in persecution.

Just a couple weeks ago, Islamic radicals viciously attacked home churches in Egypt:

Homes of Copts in the Minya region were attacked by hundreds of furious locals, leaving two Christians with knife wounds in the head and face, World Watch Monitor reports.

Four homes were ransacked, looted and partially set on fire by a Muslim mob during the three-hour-long attack, which was reportedly in protest of one of the properties being used as a home church.

A local source for Christian persecution watchdog World Watch Monitor said the small Coptic community had been warned about the attack on Aug. 31, a few days before it took place.

And earlier this year in Ethiopia, a total of 69 churches were torched by radical Islamists:

On March 2, Muslims went on a rampage in an Islamic area of Ethiopia, beginning with an assault on churches in Asendabo. ICC and others alerted the world and called on the Ethiopian government to intervene. Unfortunately, the local government did not intervene and the attacks continued for a week. When the smoke cleared, the damage was evident. The Muslims had burned down the homes of 30 Christian leaders, they had killed one Christian, wounded several others, and torched 69 churches, a Bible school and a Christian orphanage. One of the many wounded in these attacks was the grandson of a church elder who put himself in between the Muslim militants and his grandfather when they arrived to kill the elderly man. The Islamists attacked the young man with machetes—seriously wounding his head and hand and leaving him for dead. His family was forced to make a three-hour journey on foot to bring him to a hospital in a nearby city.

Hatred for Christians and the Christian faith is rapidly rising all over the planet, and this was something that I warned about in my book about Bible prophecy. We should do all that we can to put pressure on governments to stop persecuting Christians, but if we really are in the end times, ultimately the persecution is just going to continue to escalate.

The good news is that persecution always brings out the best in the people of God, and I believe that the greatest chapters of the church are still ahead.

So let us pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters all over the world, and let us also prepare ourselves for the immense persecution that is on the horizon for all of us. {eoa}

After 72 years of worldwide ministry, 67 years of God-blessed marriage, celebrating his 87th birthday—and one year after receiving a supernatural death- to-life healing miracle from paralyzing vasculitis, international evangelist, Dr. Morris Cerullo has conducted his final crusade in Los Angeles, California (Aug. 24-25).

Upcoming final crusades are scheduled in Toronto (Oct. 5-6) at the International Centre, and New York (Oct. 12-13) at the Jacob Javits Convention Center.

Morris said, “The heartbeat of God is souls. God said, America needs to experience once more my supernatural power…just like I healed you, I want you to take My healing power to London—Los Angeles—Toronto—New York.” I must be faithful to the Lord! I am calling on believers everywhere to stand with me—to pray with me—mark these dates down for a great harvest of souls and make your plans to join me.” (To request complimentary commemorative tickets visit mcwe.com.)

During both nights, over 500 responded to Morris Cerullo’s gospel invitation to receive Jesus Christ, what he calls, “the greatest miracle in all the world” during this Final Los Angeles Crusade.

A great cross-section of nearly 100 Los Angeles pastors joined their hearts and hands together with Morris Cerullo for the sake of precious souls and to honor 72 years of faithful ministry to Southern California and the nations of the world, including Dr. Fred and Betty Price, Pastor Tommy and Matthew Barnett, Bishop Charles Blake, Dr. Michelle Corral, Bishop Ken Ulmer, Pastor Tim Storey, Pastor Sonny Arguinzoni, Rev. Sergio Navarrete, Bishop Clarence McClendon and many others.

Over 200 counselors from churches across Los Angeles received Morris Cerullo World Evangelism’s “Never Let Go” training—a discipleship plan that connected hundreds of new converts from the Los Angeles Crusade altar into local churches.

The biggest concern some Christians have regarding angelic interaction is that they fear Satan will come as an angel of light and they will accidentally start worshipping him. As we have already discovered, there is no record in Scripture of any believer actually doing that, so biblically speaking, that fear is not justified. It is also significant that the clearest instruction we have on not worshiping angels was delivered by an angel himself!

That it is a huge revelation in itself, and now we want to examine the passage about the “angel of light,” since that has also been greatly misunderstood. When Paul mentioned Satan masquerading as an angel of light, was he somehow trying to subtly warn the Corinthian Christians about the “perilous dangers” of engaging the angelic realm? What do those verses in Second Corinthians actually say?

Let’s take a look at them in context:

For such are false apostles and deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works (2 Cor. 11:13-15).

We can start by understanding what Paul is not saying. He is not discussing worship. The focus of his conversation is not Satan. Paul is writing about false apostles who pretend to be good but they are not. That is what this passage is about.

Then, almost off-handedly, he mentions Satan. You could paraphrase the verse this way:

“False apostles pretending to be apostles of Christ? No wonder; even Satan tries to make himself out to be an angel of light. It’s not a surprise his followers do the same! But no matter, they will all be exposed.”

We recognize immediately that, more than anything, this is simply a discussion about deceptive people in the Corinthian church. Just because there are false apostles or false prophets, does that mean we reject all apostles and prophets? Surely not, since Paul was an apostle himself. So too, just because there are fallen angels doesn’t mean we systematically reject all angels.

Of course, we want to glean any secrets Paul may be revealing about our enemy in this passage, but have we potentially misinterpreted his words? Obviously, unbelievers who don’t have the Spirit of Christ in them can and will be deceived by Satan. They are already deceived by him. Their eyes have been blinded, and they live in spiritual darkness. Paul says that before we were saved, we were in darkness (Eph. 5:8). This is how Satan can disguise himself and appear as an angel of light to unbelievers.

But that has nothing to do with you.

As Christians, we are no longer in the darkness (1 Thess. 5:4). We are children of light and children of the day; we do not belong to the night or to the darkness (1 Thess. 5:5). We walk in the light as He is in the light (1 John 1:7). Jesus, the light of the world, is alive in us and now we are light in the Lord (Eph. 5:8)!

Our eyes have been opened: Truth is a person, and He lives in us (John 14:6). His Spirit of truth enlightens us, and His discernment guides us into all truth (John 16:13). First John 2:20 tells us that we have His anointing to know truth and the passage goes on to say,

“I have written these things to you concerning those who deceive you. But the anointing which you have received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. For as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and just as it has taught you, remain in Him” (1 John 2:26-27).

Hallelujah! We can be confident that Holy Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom Himself, will give us supernatural perception and discernment.

What Does Jesus Think?

Jesus, when asked about prayer, said:

“What man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a snake? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matt 7:9-11).

If we go into our quiet times with the Lord asking for an angelic encounter, is He going to give us a demonic counterfeit? Do we believe He’s a good dad who can keep us out of trouble and protected? Do we think His power to keep us is greater than the enemy’s power to reach us?

If we believe God is going to keep us safe and sound for all eternity in the spiritual realm of haven, then we can probably also trust Him enough to keep us safe and sound in the spiritual realm now while we interact with angels for a few minutes.

Faith is the currency of heaven (Heb. 11:6). It is what we can give to a God who has everything: our faith, our trust, our strong belief in His strong love. If we are in fear, we are questioning either His goodness or His sovereignty.

We purpose to know and believe the love God has for us, because that is what casts out the fear (1 John 4:16-18). Father has gotten us this far; how could we worry that He’s going to let us down now? He doesn’t know how to fail, and we cannot trust Him too much. Indeed, Jesus told us that the work of God is to believe (John 6:29).

In summary, we understand that we no longer need to walk in fear of deception, since it is God Himself who is teaching us and leading us. We can be confident that any “light” the enemy may attempt to mask himself with is a weak disguise that pales in comparison to the shekinah glory of God that dwells within us and radiates through us.

Jesus told us that we are the light of the world (Matt. 5:14). Light is not afraid of the darkness. Light simply shines, and darkness flees. So arise and shine (Isa. 60:1). Shine brightly. Shine brilliantly. Shine on! {eoa}

Charity Virkler Kayembe has a doctorate in biblical studies, is passionate about the sacred supernatural and writes about the unfolding adventure that is walking by the Spirit on her blog at GloryWaves.org. She has been featured on Sid Roth’s It’s Supernatural!, Cornerstone TV, Charisma magazine and The Elijah List. Charity is the co-author of four books, including Hearing God Through Your Dreams, Unleashing Healing Power Through Spirit-Born Emotions and Everyday Angels.

This article originally appeared at glorywaves.org.

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