If you've spent any time online lately, you've probably seen them. The videos. Someone on a stage, a person in front of them shaking, screaming, the minister commanding in a loud voice for the spirit to leave. Sometimes they ask the spirit its name. Sometimes the crowd cheers.
I understand why those videos spread. There's a hunger to see something supernatural with our own eyes, proof that God is still moving. I don't doubt that hunger. I have it too.
But I need to say something, because I think some of you have been quietly wondering if what you need has to look like that. It doesn't. Deliverance isn't always loud. It isn't always a performance. And in my experience, it isn't about figuring out the name of whatever has been holding on to you.
When I work with someone, the only thing I need to know is that something is there, and that it's been influencing their life in the wrong way. I don't care what its name is. I don't care what its agenda is. I just want it out, in the name of Jesus.
I'll be honest about something. When I first started this work, I learned that there were two ways to do it. One was to rebuke the spirit out in Jesus' name. The other was to remove it gently, in the love of Jesus, and give it the option to leave peacefully. So that's what I tried at first. I was gentle with it.
And I was convicted. The Holy Spirit showed me what these things actually are. They're not petty. They don't just steal your lunch at work. They work against your salvation. They work against your willingness to be with God at all. Once I saw that clearly, I was done playing with it.
So now my command is simple: get out of this person and go see Jesus. He'll tell you what's next. I'm not the one deciding whether it gets to roam around or where it ends up. That isn't mine to decide. I just hand it to Jesus.
Most of what I do happens silently. I speak only to help the person on my table settle. The rest is prayer, in my heart and mind and spirit. I ask for it to be expelled. Then I ask for the Holy Spirit's fire to come and clean up every tiny leftover piece, so nothing is left behind to take root again. And then, this is the part that matters most to me, I pray for that person to be filled. Filled with the fruit of the Spirit. Peace. Love. Joy. Patience. Because an empty house doesn't stay empty for long.
That's what I believe deliverance is. Not the shaking. The filling.
A friend asked me once: why isn't it like it was with Jesus? He spoke one word and the person was healed, right there, done. Why does this take time?
I don't have an answer to that. I really don't.
But here's what I've noticed. When healing looks instant and dramatic, it becomes very easy to look at the person doing it like they're a little god. I see it online. People start following the minister instead of the One the minister is supposed to point to. "You have to go see her, she healed my cancer." And I think maybe, in His wisdom, God puts the brakes on that. So that I can never call myself a healer. And so that no one else can either.
What I see instead is that God often gives the person something to do. Something to carry home and keep practicing. And I think that's on purpose. Because when you've walked through it yourself, when you've put in the time with Him, the healing isn't something that happened to you in a room one afternoon. It's something you built with Him. It's yours. It's your relationship with God, not your relationship with me.
I don't know if that's the whole reason. I hope it is.
So if you've been waiting for something loud, something you can film, before you believe anything is happening, I'd gently say: freedom can be very quiet. Sometimes it's just a body that finally stops bracing. A night without the nightmare. A peace you didn't have to perform for.
Take it or leave it. But if any of this is stirring something in you, I'd rather talk about it in person.
