Let’s Talk About Spiritual Warfare: My Deliverance Story Part 1

HEY, HI, HELLO FRIENDS AND FAMILY!!!!! This blog is going to be a wild ride where I share some pretty personal and intense stuff that maybe some of y’all have never heard of or aren’t familiar with, so BUCKLE UP. I ask that you please pray with the Lord before reading this blog and ask Him to give you an open heart and mind as you read this. Ask God to reveal to you what He wants you to take away from reading this, and what He wants you to let go of after reading this. I am a flawed human, of course, who is still learning, grappling, growing and understanding all of this. Therefore, take ALL of this back to the Lord and ask Him to expose His truth in all of it. THANK YOU GREATLY and GET READY FOR GOD TO BLOW YOUR MIND!!!!! 

So, let’s start this wild ride with the topic of: spiritual warfare. What is spiritual warfare you may be asking yourself? Well let me define it for you… Spiritual warfare is the clash of the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of Light (Colossians 1:13, Luke 4:18). There are two, and only two, Kingdoms at work here on Earth and in the spiritual realm- the kingdom of darkness and The Kingdom of Light. “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said,”I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). The kingdom of darkness/satan/the enemy, all these words are talking about the same thing and I, as well as scripture, will use them interchangeably. 

Sin/darkness/evil entered the world in the Garden of Eden with the fall of Adam and Eve. “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). But God, being the ultimate loving Father, promised that sin would not have the final word. He would send His son Jesus to bring salvation. Jesus’ entire purpose was to come and die a gruesome death on the cross, to defeat satan/sin/darkness and restore human’s relationships with God. Jesus bore our sins so that we can now be pure, holy and righteous before God when we come under the rule and reign of our King through faith, repentance and full submission of our lives to Christ. HALLELUJAH!!! Thank you God for sending your beloved Son to die for me and my sins so that I may be in right standing with you and walk with you in light and eternity forever!

With all that being said, God has already defeated sin and darkness! He has already won the battle! When God’s promise comes to full fruition, a new Earth will be created where we get to walk and live with Him and we will fully experience His victory (2 Peter 3:13). But, while we are still here on Earth, in this broken world, we have to actively fight against the kingdom of darkness. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil and in the heavenly realms” (Epesians 6:12). 

There are many beautiful and powerful facets about fully walking with Jesus. One of them being that the Holy Spirit dwells within us. HOW COOL! “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” (1 Corinthians 6: 19) Check out Romans 8:11, Romans 8:9 and Acts 2:38 for more references! The Lord just gives us so many gifts when we live and abide in Him. What an incredible Abba he is! Did you also know as a follower of Christ, you have the Spirit that RAISED Jesus from the dead, that exact same Spirit, living inside of you? Look at you being so powerful with your spiritual authority!!! Okay listen to this fire scripture… Romans is just WOAH… So good… 

“You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you” (Romans 8: 9- 11). Is your jaw on the floor, because mine is!!!!! Like THANK YOU GOD WOW!!

OKAY, OKAY, OKAY, I just get so pumped up about this stuff!!! So to do a little recap– now we know there are two kingdoms, the kingdom of darkness and The Kingdom of Light. Jesus came to defeat the kingdom of darkness and now we get to walk in victory. When God creates His new Earth where we will walk and reside with Him, we will get to fully experience this victory. For now though, as we live in this broken world, we do have to fight the kingdom of darkness. BUT we have the Holy Spirit and the Spirit that rose Jesus from the dead living inside of us. Therefore, we have spiritual authority and power from Jesus. 

So, all of this is very important foundational knowledge to understand before I get into my personal deliverance experience. There is SO. MUCH. to discuss when talking about the spiritual realm, spiritual realities and spiritual warfare. I am still very much a novice to all of this, so I am not going to go into very much depth with the Biblical references for these topics. I am just going to mainly touch on my own experience. Again, take this all back to God, and maybe even dive into these topics yourself and see what God wants to show you! 

I want to start with John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” The enemy can essentially affect us in 3 different ways: influence, oppression and possession. Think of the enemy’s influence as an annoying mosquito. Essentially any thought, word or lie that comes into your mind (could be through others or intrusive thoughts) that is not from the Lord. This can literally be a multitude of things. All believers struggle with this. Then we have the enemy’s oppression. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines oppression as “to crush or burden by abuse of power or authority” or “to burden spiritually or mentally : weigh heavily upon”. Oppression comes from coming into agreement with the enemy’s influence. Instead of being an annoying mosquito that comes and goes, it is no longer outside influence, but actually now has a hold inside of you. This is a very common tactic of the enemy. This is why Paul writes in Ephesians, “and do not give the devil a foothold.” (4v27) Then we have the enemy’s possession. This is when the enemy has full access to your spirit and a demonic spirit lives inside of you. Luckily, this is not possible for a believer because we have the Holy Spirit living within us. 

Romans 10:3-5, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 

For me personally, I was living in oppression. I believe for many, many years. (Ask me to share my entire testimony with you sometime, I would love to!) Therefore, I had to go through deliverance and come out of agreement with lies the enemy had spoken over me, as well as generational curses, that were giving the enemy grounds to wreak havoc in my life. To set the scene, we are at squad debrief in Guatemala. We had the opportunity to sign up for one-on-one’s with our squad leadership team throughout the week. Truthfully, I had been really wrestling with some intrusive thoughts, anxiety and fear. I knew I needed a one-on-one with our squad coach, a wonderful God fearing woman named Joy (her name is so fitting for her infectious personality). She is so spirit lead, walks with INCREDIBLY POWERFUL spiritual authority and just truly has a mothers love for me, so I knew I could comfortably confide in her. I was WRESTLING though y’all. I did not want to sign up for a one-on-one with her. I did not want to talk about the things I was struggling with. I was so scared of actually speaking these things aloud. I want you to know, yes you reading this, that this is a tactic of the enemy. The enemy wants you to stay silent. He wants you to be ashamed. He wants you to be filled with fear about what people will think about you, “if only they knew “the truth””. THAT IS A LIE. A BIG FAT LIE. Do not let the enemy keep you in darkness. In God, there is GRACE. An abundance of it. There is also forgiveness and love. The enemy doesn’t want you to experience that because he wants to keep you shackled in the darkness. That is not the Lord’s will for your life. If you have sins or thoughts or something that you’re carrying and you feel like you couldn’t imagine sharing it with someone because it just feels too scary or too shameful, I ask that you pray to the Lord right now, right this second, to give you courage to tell one person. Just one person. Call me or text me if you need to. I promise that when it is brought to the light, it has SO MUCH LESS power over you. I am a personal testament to this. I see you. I have felt your pain and fear. I love you and God loves you infinitely more. No matter what it is. 

OKAY NOT TO LEAVE Y’ALL ON A CLIFF HANGER BUT… CHECK OUT MY NEXT BLOG TO READ FURTHER IN DEPTH ABOUT MY DELIVERANCE AND HOW THE LORD HAS SET ME FREE!!! 

“…because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace” (Luke 1: 78-79). 

That’s all for now friends🙂

Love always. In all ways.

Ryann