Religious Spirits & The Mind Control Game
10/7/08
www.upstreamca.org
goinupstream@hotmail.com

Every day we are assaulted on all sides by mind control.  This morning as I awakened I was feeling like God was showing me to write on this topic, because all around us, on TV, in movie theatres, in the news, in our churches, in our work, there is an assault of witchcraft through this form of control.

Basically many of us are prone to being mind controlled by leaders, family, friends & others if we allow it.  This principle is being used in leading crowds of people into ways of thinking in the church and outside the church.  ie If you think as I think, as I say, the bible reads, then you are ok.  If you don't you are a rebel or a jezebel.  There is something wrong with you. This is mind control at work.
Sitting in front of the TV you would get hammered with the “you need this, you need that, eat this, eat that, buy this” & photos that suggest you will be attractive or successful, & the “buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy” greed of our times.  I know you get it.  Our minds need to be insulated from it.  Growing up we are taught to OBEY our parents so we think what they think, do what they do.  Most children in the first 6 years have learned more than we can imagine.  But as a Christian, I had to RENOUNCE agreeing with many of the things my mother and my foster mom said to me.
These are just examples: “all men are pigs”, “you will never amount to anything,” “you will be nothing but a whore like your mother”, “you will never make it”, “you have to help yourself or no one else will help you” [ teaching self sufficient pride ] etc.  
I was abused and abandoned alot, but MANY of us have issues with having been programmed to think a certain way only, and not to deter. The catholic church taught me I could never go to another type of church, or I would be transgressing the law. There are some pentacostal churches and others that pretty much indicate the same thing today. 

There are many people who grew up with severe control in their parents who to this day do not know how to think for themselves because they are unhealed and will be vulnerable to think like anyone they are around. Thus corrupt companions will influence in an evil way.  They get around others and they want to be accepted or approved of, part of the group. My son had a friend near us in the apartments whose father was an abusive alcoholic.

The first time I was at their apt. to meet them, he was in the kitchen and got angry with my son’s friend and took him by the neck, lifting him up choking him.  If he hadn’t stopped I would have intervened in some way. But it was such a shock, yet God allowing me to see the kind of control in that house, so I could pray for him.  He was one who whenever he was around others, just did what they did. He had no ability to make decisions for himself for years.  After years with my son though, he finally started to be able to decide what he liked or didn’t like.

There are those who also take on the role of the parent having been influenced by them and try to control everyone around them to think and believe ONLY as they do, whether good or bad.  They learned well how to control and are still doing it, many without even realizing it.  I know because I did it and have done it to my own son in the past under the guise of teaching him what is right.  But it was more than that...it was "overprotective" control from FEAR, just as I had been dealt with before getting inner healing.

FEAR & PRIDE undergird control the Lord once made clear to me.
Intolerance for other people's ways of looking at things only breeds contempt.  Of course there are clearly rights and wrongs to bible interpretations, for example,  but there are language differances from culture to culture that allow the bible's principles to be taught in ANY NATION, even though they may say it a bit differently. Yet some will pick and pick about which version you use. Clearly a few are better than others.  But my first bible was the “horrid” LIVING BIBLE.  It’s all I could read at the time because of the demons in and on me, and the blanket of spiritual blindness that I had to overcome.

Many times another person's way of looking at the Word has taught me SO much wisdom, and other times it is error.  We have to know the differance between what is teaching and what is mind control and mind binding spirits.  The minute someone disagrees with us, we sometimes get so defensive, that we can’t even have a conversation at all. I’ve done it many times in the past, myself, to my shame. Often it is because we have a fear of getting into error, and we just don’t want to entertain anything that is opposite to what we believe even in our conversation.  Yet in other nations often people reason together and talk about their differences without getting violent or angry. If we find ourselves getting angry, then we have to check the pride barometer, as that is the usual source of our defensiveness.

On the other hand there are some people who refuse to talk sanely on issues that are differing, even to get to know another person. We write each other off so easily.  It’s such a wonderful thing that GOD doesn’t do that !  He is SO PATIENT and KIND. I also feel in myself at times something rising up to oppose perverted and twisted reasoning that I cannot seem to tolerate it one bit.  I think that on occasion, such inklings may be God’s way of showing us we are battling spirits, not flesh.  So we need to take note the moment we find ourselves in that mode. There are also times when God shows us that we are not going to make a difference in that person’s life.  That we need to let go, and just pray for them, or not. YES, Jeremiah was told to NOT pray for some people.

For example:  I know someone who the moment she tries to control me or my environment…ie YOU SHOULD DO THIS OR THAT... I find myself reacting VERY negatively. I just want to push her out the door, but what I’m feeling is that controlling spirit of jezebel in her, and all the pent up rage and anger, frustration, and it gets on me, and I would react in like kind if I don’t stop a moment to intercede to the LORD.  She tries to get me to think the way she does and into conversations I don’t want to have which are gossip.  So I have to be FIRM and say, “I’m not interested in that, as I’ve told you. I don’t want to offend the Lord talking about other people.”

Now if we go back to the MARKETING of all kinds of items on the TV, media of all types…that kind of mind control can get you manipulated to buy things you don’t need, to think you need something you really don’t need.  We have to take every thought captive to the LORD JESUS CHRIST.  Sometimes we need to just shut off the TV or radio, or computer due to these things or it will just suck you into their world.