There can be so much shame, condemnation, fear and confusion when we come into seasons of warfare, especially if we don’t know the tools to get out. The enemy loves nothing more than to make us feel defenseless and weak so we never accomplish the great call upon our lives.
The Ticking Time Bomb
Just over four years ago, our whole world came crumbling down. To be honest, I felt like life was good up until that point so, I didn’t expect what was going to take place that day of January 2013.
I checked my phone at work to find more than 10 missed calls and messages from my wife, Christy, saying she was not handling things and asking if I could come home. All the way home I felt uneasy, not knowing what to expect when I arrived. As I walked inside the house, I was not greeted by the smiles and laughter that were my normal afternoon ritual, but instead saw a sullen Christy looking down at the floor in a state of disarray. Immediately she got up and stormed off to her bedroom and slammed the door. What is happening? I thought.
That night, after both our daughters were asleep, I sat down on the bed. Not knowing what to say, I asked, “Are you OK?”
“No, I’m not!” she said quickly, with tears in her eyes. She then began to tell me how that morning, after I left, she was tidying up the house when she suddenly felt a dark heavy cloud descend upon her. She said it felt like the world instantly went dark and she suddenly didn’t have the will to live anymore. That night, we just laid in bed and worshipped until she felt ease and felt the cloud lift.
This went on for days in that same pattern, and we didn’t know what to do. Even the doctor ruled out postnatal depression, concluding it was an iron-deficiency issue. We were confused but continued to worship nightly and pray together as a matter of survival until it lifted. We realized very quickly it was not depression induced by a medical imbalance. This was demonic.
Identity Crisis
Prior to this life disruption, we had been through many years of disappointment and were beginning to feel like our best days were ahead. In 2010, we moved back to Australia after working and travelling for a ministry in L.A. and had to begin again. We had job losses, worked up debt and lost our home.
During those years, God did an overhaul on my heart, and I was beginning to hope and dream again, but now this? I didn’t understand, and I was angry and tired. We attended a great church, but in trying to reach out, I felt as though there were a disconnect—as though they didn’t have a grid for what we were going through.
We continued to worship every night and would pray together. This would last up to four hours a night at times, contending and warring, declaring and praying. But one night, Christy had a dream in which she was lost and abandoned. She woke up realizing two things: She had never known who she really was, and she knew the Father was the only one who could show her. It then clicked, as though we finally understood why she was in this battle.
Christy had grown up in the church but she had never really developed her own deep relationship with Jesus. It was there, but it was buried under many lies that she believed about God and herself. This was an identity crisis, and the enemy was throwing everything he had at her to keep her from discovering the truth.
In the middle of it all, God was calling us up to a higher level of authority and teaching us to fight for the territory that lay in front of us. We were getting somewhere, and we weren’t going to give up.
It Has to Come From Your Own Mouth
One night, I heard the Lord say to me, “I don’t want you to pray anymore; it has to come from her own mouth.”
I love the analogy of the chicken and the egg. In order for the chicken to be hatched, it has to apply pressure on the shell from the inside. Many times, we are praying for God to burst into our situations and rescue us when He is saying, “You have me inside you; try letting me out.”
In that same way, we see now how God wanted Christy to begin declaring who she was with her own mouth. There is something about grabbing the Word of God and speaking out truth that destroys the lies of the enemy. Christy started doing that about six months into her ordeal, and she began to see dramatic results.
Finding Your Roar
One December morning, just over 10 months from when all this began, I was getting ready for work, and our girls were watching a cartoon called How the Lion Found His Roar. It got my attention. This story was about the lion who was the king of the jungle but was a pushover because he didn’t know how to roar. The animals in the jungle didn’t respect him, because he didn’t know who he was, and he didn’t know how to do what he was born to do. This continued until he found a cave where his forefathers had been and saw drawings there portraying stories of courage and bravery. Suddenly, he discovered who he was and began to roar.
I knew this watching this was no coincidence for me. I felt a burst of hope in my spirit and said to myself, This is the day it ends.
That night in worship, it felt so hard to press in. Christy was still being mentally tormented and struggling against demonic oppression that plagued her mind. That night, she felt a physical, dark presence surrounding her. After worshipping a long while, we were about to just go to bed when I remembered the cartoon from that morning and the words I had proclaimed: “This is the day it ends.” So I told Christy about the lion who had found his roar, and it gave her renewed strength. She grabbed her Bible as she had always done many nights before, clinging to the highlighted Scriptures that become her food each night for almost a year now. She began to decree them.
Something happened next that I cannot quite explain. As she was speaking out the Scriptures, it was if they were her own words—she owned them, and then suddenly I watched as she closed her eyes and began prophesying over herself with authority and power; it was like the sound of a loud, deafening roar in the spirit, and we both heard the sound of demons shrieking in terror, as she declared, “For every day you tormented me, Satan, you will pay! You will pay for what you put me through. I am a daughter of the King, and you messed with the wrong person!”
Then complete silence and peace fell on the room. We stared at each other for a few moments in awe, and knew that it had broken. The year-long battle was over, and she was free!
Isaiah 61:1 says; “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor; He has sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” This Scripture is prophesying Jesus because Jesus came to break us free from every bondage. If you are bound to anything, I prophesy that this is your hour of freedom in Jesus’ name.
Free Online Workshop
From this experience in our lives, we created a free online course called “Bondage Breaker.” If you have struggled with oppression of any kind; suicidal thoughts; or bondage to ongoing depression, anxiety or relentless fear, in this free workshop you will learn just how powerful you are when you realize your true authority in Christ and change the way you think.
This workshop will begin to uproot any foundations that do not align with the heart of the Father in your life. You will learn how to dig up the old stones of bondage, tear down the strongholds and raise up new foundations securely founded on the rock—Jesus. To access this resource, click here. {eoa}
Nate and Christy Johnston launched their ministry, “Everyday Revivalists,” in March 2016 as a community of powerful and free revivalists. It has become a fast-growing collective of men and women who are secure in their identity in Christ, free from the past and released with the purpose to radically change the world around them in their everyday lives. Nate and Christy’s desire is to see every son and daughter of God released from shame and past disappointments and free to live the life Jesus died for. It is with this mandate that they teach online workshops and studies to help equip people with the right biblical tools to walk out their God-given destinies on the earth.
For more information or to contact Nate & Christy, please visit everydayrevivalists.com.
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