Flash sale for last years four-week course the ABCs of Deliverance a $50 savings from last year! Take Advantage! Also, Seize the Mantle of Deliverance for $35! You will receive all of the audio files, video playback files, and the powerpoint notes! You can email me at howarda2@gmail.com and you can use PayPal to remit payment at PayPal.me/AnthonyDHoward
Blessings,
Anthony D. Howard
The Bible says that “God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind.” Why is it though that so many people are suffering from anxiety based disorders? Anxiety Disorders affect 18.1 percent of adults in the United States (approximately 40 million adults between the ages of 18 to 54). These are recent statistics taken from the National Institute of Mental Health on April 25, 2017. I am by no means a mental health expert, but I do minister to people on a regular basis that are looking to get set free from their biggest fears and anxieties. As a matter of fact, I see a counselor, and I get deliverance from the spirit of fear on a regular basis. Fear can cripple your progress in life, cause sickness and disease in the body and distort your decision-making in life. In this blog, we are going to look at how fear gets into our lives and manifests itself in various ways that drives the above-mentioned statistics. We are also going to look at some biblically based solutions to conquering and defeating the cycles of fear in our lives and how to maintain a healthy mental, spiritual and physical balance. I don’t have all the answers in this area, but I know the God that does.
Let’s find out where fear first presents itself in the Bible. Genesis 3:10 says, “And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and hid myself.” The word afraid (Strong’s H3372) translated in the Hebrew as yare. It means fear or to frighten. Why was Adam so afraid? What caused this fear? He had spoken to God before and heard his voice before and wasn’t afraid in a fearful type of way. It was because Adam had sinned and it caused the glory of God to depart from his life. This example shows a direct correlation between sin and fear. Sin separates us from the love of God. Have you ever done something wrong and after the fact you felt so guilty, shame and condemned? These are all manifestations of fear. The good news is God love, and he has made a way out of sin through the sacrifice of his only Son Jesus Christ. Romans 5:6-8 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commandeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Because of Jesus, we are set free from sin. Jesus’ sacrifice puts us back in right standing with the Father. Because of Jesus, we have victory over sin the cause of fear. Romans 8:15 says, “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” Sin will put you in bondage and bondage leads to fear. Sin and fear have a cause and effect relationship. Sin will cause us to operate in fear and fear will cause us to sin. The good news is that Jesus broke the cycle. Jesus defeated sin by his death, burial, and resurrection. It’s up to us to begin to tackle our fears that keep us wanting to run back to sin. Paul said, in Romans 7:22-25 “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” There is a fight in our mind and in our flesh that we must take up. Psalms 144:1 says, “Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.” There are warfare and a dominion principals that God is teaching us. God trains us to take authority and fight for our deliverance just like how he instructed the Israelites. In Exodus 23:29-30 God says, “I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little by little, I will drive them out from before thee, until though be increased, and inherit the land. God desires to mature us in deliverance, as we begin to see victory after victory it increases our confidence in who God is and grows us into our rightful identity in Jesus Christ.
As people, we tend to fear what we don’t know or understand. We tend to focus too much on the very thing that makes us fearful or afraid. If our fears are bigger than the God we serve, then we need deliverance. God reminds us in 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Also in 1 John 4:18 God says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” These are meaty verses to chew on, meditate, and memorize. Every time a situation comes up that where fear tries to take over in your life begin to quote these scriptures and remind yourself that fear is not a factor. Let’s focus on the love of God and your fears will be cast out.
Recently I had a case where extreme fear was affecting the person so intensely that the person couldn’t even make the appointment for deliverance for almost a year. I had been working with the person just to get them to fill out the form and come to the appointment for a very long time. I was afraid as well that God wouldn’t show up for such an extreme case. The person hears voices, is haunted by his past, and didn’t believe they could free as well. I asked God, “What are you going to do?” God said, “I will deliver him little by little.” I was relieved because honestly, I feared what I was facing. God reassured me at that moment that he is the deliverer and not me. The Holy Spirit revealed the plan to have multiple sessions with the person, and in those sessions, we will go one step at a time. After each meeting, we give him biblical meditation homework that helps to rebuild and restore his rightful identity in Jesus Christ. Not only was the person I was ministering to was facing their fears, so was I. Not only was God was glorified, but the session was also successful, and we scheduled the next meeting. This session was a miracle for this person.
This Saturday, June 10, 2017, at 6 pm CST/7 pm EST I will be conducting an in-depth teaching on Fear is Not a Factor through the website https://www.sozohealth.today/ I will be a part of the Psychological Boot Camp, there is a $15 fee for registration, and the proceeds go towards financial assistance programs for Sozo Health. Please join in and take advantage of the teaching.
God’s mercy, we all need it to survive. We often hear the phrase, ‘Lord have mercy on me,” in situations where we are looking for a pardon or forgiveness for doing something egregious or offensive that has caused someone harm. What does mercy mean and why do we need it? Salvation is also evidence of the mercy of God. Did you know that the ministry of deliverance is God demonstrating His mercy towards us?
Mercy as defined by dictionary.com as compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or another person in one’s power; compassion, pity, or benevolence. I prefer the definition that says, an act of kindness, compassion, or favor. When God releases his power through believers like you and me, to help heal and deliver others, he is releasing his compassion, kindness, and favor. The Bible says in Luke 7:13, And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said unto her weep not. The woman that Jesus had seen, her son had recently died, and because of the mercy of Jesus towards the woman, Jesus raised him from the dead. The mercy of God will raise the dead. This is a demonstration of the power of God via his mercy and compassion for people. I often hear people say, “I want to see God raise people from the dead.” One of the prerequisites to raise the dead is compassion/mercy. Are you filled with enough mercy to raise the dead? One of our hearts cries should be, “God fill us with more of your mercy and compassion to see unusual miracles performed amongst the people!”
David, who was considered a man after God’s own heart also needed mercy. His lust and perversion drove him to commit adultery with Uriah the Hittite’s wife Bathsheba, then on top of that, he sent Uriah to be killed in battle! In 2 Samuel 11:26-27 the verses read, and when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. And when the mourning was a past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bare him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. Now we know how the rest of the story goes. God sends Nathan the prophet to David to let him know what he had done. David then famously pens one of the most famous Psalms of repentance, Psalm 51. Verse one says, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” David had done something so disgusting and offensive that God was not pleased. David passionately repents and pleads for God’s mercy, his loving kindness, and his tender mercies. Even after all that David had done God still forgave him and he still became a man after God’s own heart. Have we all done some things in life that have sorely displeased God? I bet we all have. When God extends his mercy towards us through the blood of Jesus, it delivers us from even the most heinous of crimes. It’s because of what Jesus did that cleanses us and pardons us from sin, not our works. David still had to face the judgment of what he had done, but God still spared his life according to 2 Samuel 12:13, “And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin thou shalt not die.” Even after all that God still showed David mercy!
The Bible says in Micah 7:18, “Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever because he delighteth in mercy. I say this all the time in my periscope broadcasts that God is not some fire breathing dragon in the sky. Religious people will have you to believe that God is so angry with you or is looking to destroy you for the mistakes that you make. God wants to pardon your iniquity, forgive you of your transgressions and not be angry towards you. He does delight in showing us mercy. He wants to release judgments upon your spiritual enemies, not you! All because of what Jesus did on the cross and through his death, burial and resurrection do we have a right to be forgiven and come into alignment with God’s eternal mercy! We don’t have to work for it; it’s done in Christ Jesus!
If you are a believer in God that is suffering from demonic torment, maybe you don’t know what deliverance is, or maybe your local church teaches against Christians having demons. I believe this message is for you. God wants to show you how merciful he is! He wants to demonstrate his love for you through healing and deliverance.
In the month of May, I will be hosting an online deliverance training webinar, where people just like you can learn how to minister self-deliverance, minister to friends, family and strangers alike. I want to equip the people of God to be able to stand in their Holy Ghost given authority that resides within you! God wants you and your family free from the things that torment you! Go to the website now at anthonydhoward.org, you can sign-up to take part in this three-week training course, and as a bonus, I will minister mass deliverance to the entire class at a date to be determined! In my circle of friends, casting out devils is talked about and taught quite regularly but for some of us that read this blog that is not the case. I want to highly encourage you to take advantage of this power packed course that will lead you, your family and friends to liberty in the name of Jesus.
I have meant to post about this for a few weeks now. Recently I was out of the country on a mission’s trip, and I was able to have a deliverance discussion with some key leaders. Some excellent questions were posed to me to get a full understanding of my perspective and motivation for writing on this topic. The questions were, “Can God still breathe on my religious traditions via my cultural expression?” Should I throw out all my traditions and my culture to enable the new move of God? Should I shun other people groups cultural expression because it doesn’t look our sound like mine? What role does racism or cultural bias play in promoting the religious spirit? Should I condemn others that are still stuck and bound by religious traditions that prevent the presence of God from moving amongst the congregation? What role does healing and deliverance play in destroying the religious spirit that comes to choke out the presence of God?
That’s a lot of questions that need answers. I will do my best in this forum to respond each one. Most of my answers will be my opinion filtered through my church background and cultural experience. Even before writing this article I had to make sure that my lenses from which I view this topic are not blurry or skewed. If I write an article out of my rejection and never get healed and delivered from it then, what good am I doing the people that read my blog? The objective here is to always point people to Jesus Christ as the solution to our problems.
Let me give you a little background on myself. I grew up in a traditional Baptist church. From my experience that meant that I accepted Christ early, went to Sunday School, participated in church plays, was involved in Sunday School leadership, was a Junior Deacon, and was involved at the district, state, and national levels of the National Baptist Convention. It was a good foundation, and I learned a lot. Not to bash where I came from though, I had questions. In all these religious expressions I took part in, I always wondered where the power of God was? I mean I saw people confess Jesus as their Lord and Savior and yes that is a miracle, but I never saw anyone healed, never saw anyone have a devil cast out, never saw a limb grow back into place, or the dead raised. All I remember was that church service always looked and sounded the same for years. The same person was preaching, the same songs were sung out of the hymn book, the same religious songs sung by the choir. I didn’t see anyone baptized in the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in tongues, no prophetic words released over the congregation, women were not allowed to preach or wear pants for that matter. I saw a lot of the religious spirit though.
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is that Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. A religious spirit is a form of manipulation, domination, and control. If we run the religious spirit through the 2 Corinthians 3:17 test it doesn’t pass. The religious spirit is a controlling spirit that wants things to look, sound and acts a certain way. Typically, man-made rules, doctrine, and dogma empower the religious spirit. Religion wants to control people and their expression through rules and regulations that come from a misinterpretation of scripture. Scripture interpreted by scripture should be the standard, not tradition of man, or what makes one feel good emotionally.
The spirit of religion is birthed out of rejection. The religious spirit is also a spirit that divides and scatters. It’s the main reason why there are so many denominations in the body of Christ. Someone interpreted scripture one way and another, a separate way, then they fall out of fellowship with each other and start a completely different church because of the disagreement. Or some man-made rule was made up out of the misinterpretation of scripture and caused a sharp divide amongst the people.
The religious spirit takes the focus away from worshipping the one, true and living God. This spirit loves to put and emphasis on strict adherence to the order of service, the program or the way we feel things should be. This does not make room for the presence of God. When we elevate our way over God’s way, we make our way an idol. There are some churches right now that if you visited them in 2017, there wouldn’t be much difference from 1950. The religious spirit doesn’t like change; it lulls the people to sleep with vain repetitions week after week, month after month and year after year. It is insanity to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result. The religious spirit wants to make people comfortable with never growing, or changing.
The religious spirit is more concerned with the outward appearance more than it is the heart of man. The Bible says in 1 Samuel 16:7, But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart. Religion believes that people should look a certain way to worship God or to even come into the church. Now personally, I am a proponent of decorum and proper dress, but when the focus becomes outward instead of the inward man, then I have a problem. It’s 2017; people should not be required to dress like a Pilgrim, a COGIC bishop (they do be clean though), or color coordinated like a west side Chicago pimp. People should be allowed to be comfortable in their opportunity to come and worship. When people feel, they must live up to a certain dress code, it makes the people rejected, and self-conscious, thereby taking the focus off worshipping God. I have seen people pulled aside for wearing shorts and flip flops, jeans, t-shirts and sneakers or for expressing their individuality. I have seen people labeled as rebellious if they didn’t comply with these unbiblical, man-made rules. I have seen a generational wedge driven between the people because of unbalanced rules, and dogma created by the abuse of scriptural context and the religious spirit loves that.
The religious spirit loves racism no matter how subtle or overt. This spirit loves to hide and cloak racism within the culture; it’s birthed out of rejection and allowed to thrive in congregations unchecked. Racism, as we know, is a taught, no one comes out of the womb racist towards another people group that may not look or sound like you. The definition of racism is, prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s race is superior. I would like to add to that hatred towards a people group because of a past hurt or experience. I believe a large part of what the church deals with is hatred based on past experiences. I understand that maybe you were a black parishioner in a predominantly white church and something was said, done, or that you experienced that caused you great hurt, pain, and deep trauma. The same goes if you were white in a predominantly black church. We must deal with the rejection, pain, deep hurt, and trauma that caused your heart to harden year after year. I understand that people view other people groups through the lens of their experiences. I have heard people say, “I hate white people for what they did to me back in 1968, and I never got over it.” I have heard white people say, I hate black people because of the past experiences that I have had with them, and therefore I worship with my own kind.” I have seen the power of God deliver people who suffer from religious racism. I have seen people in the middle of worship with a diverse people group look uncomfortable and out of place as God deals with their heart. I understand that people are most comfortable being around people that look and sound like them, but this is not kingdom though. God desires that all nations and tongues worship together. Ephesians 4:3-7 says, “Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as yea are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.” The word of God calls us to live and worship in unity and peace. It even goes as far as to say that we all have a grace that we all need from one another. When we get, healed and delivered from our rejection that produced racism in our hearts, we begin to realize that we all need one another. God has not called you just to the white church, nor to the black church, as a matter of fact, there is no such thing according to scripture. God can’t even fully use you to your potential if you haven’t gotten any healing in this area. He can’t take you around the world to minister to people if you can’t love those that don’t look or sound like you.
The Bible is very clear in 1 John 4:20 If a man says, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? This is the racial litmus test according to the word for me. How dare I say I love God, but I can’t love people that don’t look our sound like me? What I have learned in the church is that its ok to be racist, but it’s not ok to wear jeans in the congregation. What kind of religious malarkey is this? The religious spirit has you out here looking a like a double-minded fool. Therefore, we are not attracting and retaining the next generation. People want to experience the power and the presence of God to save, heal and deliver them from their destructions. People do not want a bunch of man-made rules that prevent them from entering the kingdom. These man-made rules are preventing people from experiencing miracles, signs, and wonders.
I hope that in some way I could answer some of the above questions from the first paragraph. They are for you to pray and ponder about regarding your own heart. Please take some time of self-examination and ask God are you are harboring a religious spirit that hides and cloaks the spirit of racism. Jesus died to set us all free from such. I bless God that I serve in a ministry where all nations, cultural expressions, and styles of dress are welcome! If you need deliverance in this area of your life, please feel free to contact me via email at howarda2@gmail.com. I am here to help you.
Pure and unblemished religion [as it is expressed in outward acts] in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit and look after the fatherless and the widows in their distress and to keep oneself uncontaminated by the [secular] world.
JAMES 1:27 AMP
I love it when a Holy Spirit plan comes together! Recently some deliverance cases have come across my desk that requires strict obedience to the Holy Spirit’s instructions. I have said that there isn’t a set formula in which to minister to people. Whether it’s healing the sick or casting the devil out of a person, we must follow the leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit. Lately, the Holy Spirit has led us into passionate worship unto the Lord while our client is in the room. With no time limit on the worship, we just flow with the Holy Spirit until we feel a release to minister to the person.
While we are worshiping the presence of God is firmly ministering to the person. We are just worshipping along as well. The person may begin to cry, cough, or feel the presence of God healing them. When we have cases like this, it’s often that we don’t have to lay hands on the person at all. I Timothy 5:22 says, “Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be a partaker of other men’s sins: keep thyself pure. We use this scripture in ministering deliverance as well. We are very cautious about laying hands on people during deliverance unless the Holy Spirit prompts us to do so. Even then we politely ask the person we are ministering to if we can touch their forehead or shoulder. If the person we are ministering to is a woman we will have a woman deliverance minister present to lay hands on her. We don’t want any “funny business,” as we are serious about maintaining our trust with people and our character.
Praise and worship are weapons of our warfare that can shift and change an atmosphere around us. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 10:4 “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. A couple of those weapons are praise and worship. In Psalms 149:6-9 says, “Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; To execute upon them the judgment written: this honor have all his saints. Praise ye the Lord.” The Bible is very clear the battle believers fight is not a carnal, physical fight. Ephesians 6:10 says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. We can’t fight a spiritual enemy with natural weapons. It may seem foolish to the non-believer as to why believers praise and worship as much as they do. Not only is it a form of adoration towards God, but it’s also a way to release the justice and judgment of God upon our spiritual enemies.
Worship invites the nature of God into situations to deliver people from their enemies. The very nature of God is love. Love is violent! Songs of Solomon 8:6 says, “Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.” Vehement defined is; showing strong feeling, forceful, passionate, or intense. The synonym for vehement is violent. Love is a violent flame against your enemies in the spirit realm. This scripture is a favorite of mine to minister to people. God shows up because the demand placed on his presence through worship, his violent nature, and character come to forcefully drive out your enemies!
Jesus demonstrates this violent love when he drove the money-changers out of the temple. In Matthew 21:12 the Bible says, “And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves.” The temple here is a picture of body and soul of the believer when devils are being cast out. The structure of the temple is the outer court, the inner court, and the Holy of Holies. As believers, we are a spirit (Holy of Holies) that has a soul (mind, will and emotions), that lives in a physical body (flesh). Note that demons can’t access your spirit, but they can have access to your body and your soul. Sin allows demons to have legal rights to these areas of a person’s life. Sin offers an access point into the life of both believers and nonbelievers. The good news is that Jesus Christ died to deliver you from sin. If we look at the text in Matthew 21 in the previous verses before verse 12, we see Jesus demonstrating a model for deliverance. Before Jesus went into the temple, strong praise, worship, and adoration were directed at him as he came into the city on a donkey. The crowd was shouting “Hosanna in the highest!” That phrase means, “Oh save Hosanna.” To save means to deliver from one’s enemies. That intense praise and worship led to Jesus violently driving out the money changers. It’s the same thing that happens when we minister deliverance to people while utilizing the spiritual weapons of praise and worship. Demons get driven out of people forcefully!
This past week as my team and I ministered to someone we prophetically told them that we could see a picture of the hosts of heaven riding down on their spiritual enemies like a great stampede. The person that we were ministering to felt the floor began to shake and asked if we could hear it. So, we kept worshipping and allowing the presence of God’s violent love drive out the person’s demonic enemies. Our client was delivered from some very heinous demons; she had not had a good night sleep in years. Afterward, she remarked how light and sleepy she felt. She reported back the next day that she slept like a baby and bragged to her friends what Jesus did for her. The moral of the story is, choose your weapons and watch God violently deliver his people.
If your local church doesn’t offer deliverance ministry please shoot me an email at howarda2@gmail.com. I will be glad to be of assistance.
Let’s establish something first. I am a spirit filled believer in Jesus Christ. I believe in one God that expresses Himself in three distinct persons, the Father, The Son Jesus Christ, and The Holy Spirit. I believe in Holiness, Righteousness and the Grace of God by which I am saved. I believe in repentance and forgiveness. I believe we are in the Kingdom now. I believe in speaking in tongues, prophesy, and demonstrating the power of God through miracles, signs, and wonders. I believe in casting out devils, healing the sick and raising the dead. I believe in the love of the Father. I believe in spending time in God’s presence especially in the place of prayer, praise, and worship. I believe in a relationship with God and not religion (I despise religion). I believe God is good and his mercy endures forever! I believe that the kingdom of God is righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Ghost. I especially like to emphasize the joy aspect of the kingdom! I can also agree to disagree with my friends that don’t believe as I do and not break fellowship with them. OK, all that is settled.
Lately over the past six months or so I have been ministering deliverance to a lot of young people in their mid-20s to early 30s that are in the church but have no hope for a future. They love God, believe in Jesus, are spirit filled, etc. They grew up in old religious, stodgy churches full of man-made rules and regulations that limited the free flow of God in their life. Especially in the area of the end times or last days. Both young and old are being falsely taught to believe that Jesus is coming back any minute now. Scripture has been misused, and the context has been abused to get people to believe a doctrine that is not even 200 years old.
In Proverbs 13:12 the Bible says, “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life. The church has robbed young people of their future by perpetuating a false eschatological spirit that has been spread across the nation and around the world, it has caused fear and hopelessness in the hearts of young people. It has gripped and coiled around their lives and is attempting to squeeze the very breath out of them. This is not the end of days nor is it “last days.” The end of days was the end of the old covenant age heading into the new covenant. The old covenant was ending, Jesus had brought the Kingdom, old things were passing away, and all things were being made new. The temple would be destroyed, and Jesus brought an invisible kingdom not earthly (without observation), that would last for eternity. Obviously here I focus on deliverance/exorcism/casting out devils (whichever term you fancy), but some eschatological truths must be dealt with for the sake of deliverance.
We as a people have been held captive to false end time teaching. It has paralyzed our hope for a future, has shrunk our worldview and has put our big God in a minuscule box. The Bible says in Proverbs 23:7 For as a man thinketh so is he. When we take an eternal God and box Him in by man’s false interpretation of the word, we limit His purpose, plans and will for our very own lives. We cut short and short circuit the vision God has for us by our limited thinking. Life and death are in the power of the tongue. If we think we will only live 60-70 years, then we will begin to confess and say that out of our mouths. You shall have what you say. We must change our confession! God wants us to cast long term vision for our lives and our future generations. He desires for us to demonstrate the Kingdom with power and authority right here in the earth. He has given us dominion! Because we have bought into a false end time teaching that limits our thinking and cuts our lives short with our words, we forfeit our identity and purpose in God.
There are several contextual landmarks, and time stampings in scripture that should challenge the way we think through the scriptures. “World without end,” “The earth abides forever,” “This Generation,” “Shortly come to pass,” “The time is at hand,” to name a few. We must respect proper audience relevance, context and time in our study of scripture. Our God is generational; He is eternal, He is not limited by our short-minded view of His word. Google, it for yourself with the terms “Rapture Darby.”
In Matthew 12:28 Jesus says, “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. He also says it again in Luke 11:20. Jesus was demonstrating the Kingdom by casting out devils. The Pharisees (which represent “religious spirits”) were challenging the authority by which Jesus demonstrated power over the devil. People are hurting and dying, and they had the nerve to question Jesus himself about his authority. Sadly, this still happens today. The world is lost, hurting, dying, and desperate to see the power of God manifest in the earth realm to be a solution to its problems.
Hear me on this, you can be passionate, and have a fire for the things of God without fearing for your future. You can evangelize, minister healing, deliverance and work miracles, signs, and wonders by walking in the love of the Father birthed out of your intimate relationship with Him. You have a hope and future! It’s not the end, as a matter of fact, it’s never going to end. Isaiah 9:7 says, “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be on end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”
I know we all don’t agree on this matter but your comments and questions are welcome to be left at the end of this blog. I love good, respectful, thoughtful dialogue that requires us to think and use our brain.
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end Jeremiah 29:11
Yep! (In my Draymond Green voice) I have seen demons manifest in people, I have battled with demons personally, I have heard them talk, seen them make people slither like snakes so on and so forth. I know for some of you that you find this shocking and for some a turn-off. Demons are real, and some people suffer from them in silence. For those of you that share in these experiences with me maybe you had nowhere to go, and nobody to tell that you have a spiritual problem. Perhaps your theology prevents you from believing that demons are real? Maybe you don’t want to say anything because you don’t want people to think that you are crazy. The last thing that you want is for someone to haul you off to a mental institution or the psych ward of a hospital.
My first encounter with demons was as a child. I know we hear stories of the boogieman and children being afraid of the dark. We have heard those stories for generations. Children are having nightmares, waking up screaming in the middle of the night, children wetting their beds in fear, children running into their parent’s room looking for a safe place to escape. At night, I would go to sleep not knowing what I was going to encounter while sleeping. I would have night terror demons choking out my breath or having a feeling of helplessness as something, or someone was trying to suffocate the life out of me. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t move, and all I could do was cry. I would try and fight them some nights, but as usual, I became overpowered by some dark, heavy, demonic presence. I wish back then that I had a relationship with Jesus to be able to use his name with authority to defend myself. I wish back then that I had known 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 to use it to ward off the attacks at night. I was like most children today. No relationship with God of my own, no authority, no teaching, training or spiritual development to fight for me. That is not to say my parents didn’t do a good job raising me in the church. They did what they knew to do. We read the bible, I went to Sunday school, participated in various youth activities and went to church like most people in our community. Something was lacking, though. As a child, I always knew that there was more than what I was being taught and shown. I knew there was more to the Bible than just a collection of stories in the old and new testament. Like most children in the church, I became limited by the cultural expression of my denomination. You see they didn’t believe in the supernatural, no one asked the Pastor questions or challenged what was preached or taught. The only book other than the bible I saw in the pews was a standard hymn book or those old Sunday school books with the old Steeplechase churches on the front cover. I don’t know what people were reading on their own at home, but you didn’t hear about books like The Diary of an Exorcist by Win Worley, They Shall Expel Demons by Derek Prince or Pigs in The Parlor by Frank and Ida Mae Hammond. These are classic Deliverance books that are about the power and the authority of Jesus Christ. These books became looked upon as heresy or taboo in most church circles and in most non-spirit filled churches still are. Now I am not here to bash my early church upbringing; a foundation was laid there that should still be honored. Something was still missing, though.
The Bible says in Mark 16:17-18 And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. I am aware of all the arguments that “religious” people make against casting out devils. I have heard just about all of them. There is one thing for sure you can’t debate with me about, and that is the power of God! You see I have cast out devils; it’s my covenant right as a believer. Never trained at the Vatican; I don’t carry a huge bible and a crucifix, wear some special robe or cape, I am a just a man that believes what my bible says.
Whatever happened to the little boy that was tormented by demons in his childhood you ask? I am all grown up now and serve as a deliverance minister in my local church where having been taught, trained, activated and released to cast the devil out of folks with problems. People contact me from all over the world to receive the kind of ministry that we have at our church. If this story resonates with you or you would like to contact me about deliverance. Be sure to go to my contact us page and shoot me a message. I would love to hear your testimony!
Well, no need to hash out the fact that I believe that people can have demons. I will deal with that topic later. Let’s just jump right into the fact that rejection is one of the main things plaguing society. You see it in the news media, you can see it in people’s eyes, you can hear it in people’s voices and you can especially see it in people’s behaviors. We have all at one time or another been rejected in life in some form or another. The roots of rejection run deep in the lives of us all. The questions become how can we deal with and handle rejection in a healthy stable way?
Rejection is defined as the act or the process of rejecting, the state of being rejected, or something or someone that is rejected. Here for the sake of this blog, we will be dealing with people. It’s people that I interact with and pray for daily and its people like you that read and have an interest in this blog. Rejection is a cruel taskmaster, it causes people deep hurt, pain, anguish, anger, bitterness, depression and sometimes can drive people to do great bodily harm to themselves and others.
Often when I am praying for people that see me for deliverance (exorcism in some circles) I ask them, “What was the relationship between your Mother and Father at your conception?” People may or may not know the answer to that question right away but they tend to piece it together from relatives or memories of how their parents treated one another when the person was a small child. This helps me to get to the “Root” of the problem. Often people are rejected in the womb at the time of conception. Mother or Father could say, “I don’t want to keep this child,” “This isn’t my baby.” Sometimes it’s not just words but actions at the time of conception. The Mother and the Father could be involved in domestic disputes that get physical while the Mother is pregnant. I have often heard time after time that of both men and women resorting to violence toward one another that could threaten the life of a child while in the womb thereby causing the person to be rejected. Believe it or not, if the Father or Mother are contemplating or vocalize that they want an abortion, that too could also cause a child to feel rejected in the womb. The child while in the womb can feel the emotions and the chemicals that are secreted during these times. What does this have to do with the adults that I minister to you say? It is these children that grow into adults that have been rejected at every stage of their life that begin to fall into patterns of failure, dysfunction, arrested development, join gangs, falls into promiscuous lifestyles, drug addiction, and self-mutilation to name a few. I don’t want to paint everyone that has been rejected with a broad brush. Not everyone falls into these and other negative behavior patterns. Some people can take rejection and use it as a launching pad to overcome life’s challenges, but for the sake of this blog I deal with and minister to those that exhibit these patterns and want help to get free from the bondage.
It is important to ask yourself, how have you handled rejection and failure in your life? Has it been positive or negative? Have you fallen into to some of the above mentioned behavioral patterns and if so how did you overcome them? My job is to help people pull up these deep roots of rejection so that you can move on and have a healthy, whole functional life, spiritually, mentally and physically. If you need help drop me an email. I will respond in kind. Oh and follow me on periscope MWF at 8 a.m. CST (@howarda2)
Blessings,
Anthony D. Howard
When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Psalms 27:10
Finally getting a chance to write something! As I am starting this blog so many topics along the lines of inner healing and deliverance are swimming around in my head. This is the place to come with your thoughts, concerns, pre-conceived notions, questions, rants and otherwise. At the end of the day my job is to provide a solution to your problem from a biblical perspective. All are welcome here and this is a seeker friendly blog. My most important vocation is to always point people to the “Ultimate Answer” Jesus Christ. He is my Lord and Savior and my Deliverer.
Here on this blog you will get to here some of my personal deliverance testimony and here some of the stories and experiences that I have had ministering deliverance and healing to others. I am here to take you on my exciting, faith filled, journey with Jesus Christ. It has been extremely rewarding to be able to use my faith to help those that are in need whether its emotionally, physically or spiritually. I will share some helpful bits from the cases that I have worked on. I will be leaving those that I have ministered to nameless to protect their identity. Discretion, safety and trust is very important in what I do.
I have learned a lot and still learning and I definitely want to impart what I have to you and others that are reading along.
Thanks for Stopping By Today.
Blessings,
Anthony D. Howard
The Children's Bread by Anthony D. Howard 