Jesus frees counsellor from malevolence
E struggled to exude God’s joy, having come from a place of sorrow and self-rejection. As she diligently sought the Holy Spirit’s counsel, God gradually led her on a journey of restoration and to the very root of her self-hatred. E was set free from spiritual bondage and received God’s design for her life; she was to be God’s seer. Praise God!
Not only did I not have much courage to expect good things ahead, I was not radiating very much of God’s joy.
I thought my life and my relationship with God would somehow continue very much as I had expected; not very hopeful nor very joyful.
After all, I had been a Christian for as long as I could remember; been a married woman; already in my mid-30s, and been working in my profession for 10 years. I had even gone through several inner healing and deliverance prayers with different counsellors. I didn’t realise God had more freedom and revelation in store for me.
For a few years, there had been hardship at work.
I felt anxious, insecure, and bitter when unjust situations came up and threats were received in return for my dedication to work and endurance in integrity and honesty. I felt like I was being punished by God because what I experienced did not seem fair.
Although my mouth would say I submit everything to God, I was worshipping self-righteousness.
Until one day, God spoke through a friend of mine. God gave me Romans 13:8, ESV: “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” He also said, “Just as I have tested Job, I have allowed Satan to test you.”
I realised God wanted me to obey Him and truly submit to His words, even when it seemed ridiculous by the world’s standards and law. With some struggle and hesitation, I finally decided to let go of being right, holding onto money, and clinging to the opportunity to win an argument – in order to live out God’s words.
The desire to want to win a dispute on earth was like a fire consuming my soul, I had no peace.
On top of letting go of the things that stopped me from experiencing His peace, the Holy Spirit reminded me to forgive and repent for judging the people I wanted to win arguments with – and even those around me who tried to give me “advice”.
This process was not as straightforward as I had expected. My mind was fogged up by the enemy, so I have missed key people I needed to forgive in my prayers. Only after a counsellor reminded me was I able to forgive the people who were at the top of the list of those who had done me wrong.
After the prayers, I felt like a big piece of junk was being thrown away from my body.
My mind was clearer but I had yet to experience His peace. There was no way for me to find out what was going on, I had to seek God’s counsel again a few days later.
When my prayer counsellor asked the Holy Spirit, she heard “I hate you. I hate you…”. I wondered who it was that I was hating because I thought I had forgiven the people I needed to forgive.
I asked the Holy Spirit and then I remembered that in my teenage years, I had felt helpless and trapped in a family full of arguments.
Because I had no choice but to live with my family, I told God that I hated Him.
With many regrets and tears, I immediately repented for hating God. The hatred towards God was locking God’s love out of my heart. When the door was reopened, His peace and love filled me.
God also gave me words of encouragement through the counsellor. He told me how much He loves me and because I have repented for hating Him, I will hear His voice more clearly.
The actions I have chosen to take might seem stupid to the world – to give up the worldly standard of right and wrong – but nothing can compare to the worth of our soul which is bought by the blood of Jesus.
2 Samuel 6:22 “… I am willing to look even more foolish than this, even to be humiliated in my own eyes!”
I rejoice and dance with confidence in Him because I am set free. Jesus did not promise us a trouble-free life, but He has promised to love us so we could walk with His joy and peace.
His love for me has never changed. In fact, I was the one who rejected Him.
I now know the difficult times in life are not a punishment for me but a way to bring me back to Him in repentance.
God’s revelations and freedom did not just end like this. For consecutive days afterward, I continued to use my gift of imagination in ungodly ways to frighten myself. I was hit by the fear of being cursed and the return of more hardship.
Both my counsellor and I initially thought it was just the same spiritual attacks I had experienced in the past which I just needed to resist. But as the intensity of my fears increased, I prayed again with my counsellor who interceded for me.
Before the prayer, the Holy Spirit gave the counsellor the word “seer”.
During the prayer, it was revealed that the enemy hated me when I was still in my mother’s womb, he even wanted to murder me. God had created me as His seer, someone who sees visions prophetically on His behalf to bring His Word to people for His glory.
My prayer counselor also received a vision of a snake wrapped around the womb that was cursing me to hate myself for my whole life. (The snake was a metaphor for the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Satan.) It was also revealed that because I was fearful of the snake that I could see as a seer, I made a covenant with the snake. Its name was the spirit of malevolence, meaning bitterness, hatred, hostile etc.
With the Holy Spirit’s guidance and the counsellor’s help, I renounced the covenant made with Satan and asked God to wash me clean.
By agreeing with the enemy, I hated myself.
For my whole life, I was living with self-hatred. Therefore, I always had very low confidence and self-esteem. It was hard for me to appreciate myself. By rejecting myself, I was also judging God’s creation.
But when I was cleansed by Jesus, the feeling of bitterness left me. I was then able to remove the lies I have told myself, one by one. In the past, I hated my appearance and accused myself of being stubborn, not cool, and not fun. Now, I can receive my true identity and accept myself to be gentle and slow to anger. God even clothed me in red in a vision. It represents Jesus’ grace, His blood over me.
Hard times are never something I desired but I am thankful that God used it to set me free.
I am no longer enslaved to the fear of being cursed and the fear of a bad future. God intended for us to live in His love, not in fear. When I took up the courage to face the fears, the Holy Spirit guided me.
I did not expect my feelings to be totally unrelated to my current circumstances. Nor did I expect it to be a sin I committed when I was still in my mother’s womb. But God is faithful! He has been patient and waited for me for 30-something years.
I am thankful for the help He has sent; friends who did not give up on me.
It was not easy to sit down and dig deep into my emotions and past but it is a process of refinement that God commands us to go through so we can come close to Him, instead of burying them until the grave.
Revelation 21:8 ESV “But as for the cowardly… their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
All the way until now, I did not have much confidence in hearing God’s words, because of the way I rejected myself. But God reaffirmed that because I have stopped rejecting Him and myself, He has realigned things in my mind and my brain.
In my spirit, I can now see and hear more clearly.
I look forward to where God will lead me to, to partner with Him in His work of setting the captives free. It is true that He has blessed me with the gift of imagination but this time, He asked me not to imagine the future because there are things that I can never imagine.
He said to me, “Just walk in faith and you will see incredible miracles because I am with you.”