Following are snippets of the top stories posted this week on mycharisma.com. We encourage you to visit the links to read the stories in full.
10,000 Hear the Good News at Franklin Graham’s ‘God Loves You’ Tour
They came by the busload from all over England and Wales to hear a gospel message. Approximately 130 coaches carried 5,000 people to the outreach from as far away as Liverpool.
People streamed out of buses and trains into ExCeL London, eager to hear powerful music from Christian artists—CeCe Winans, Newsboys and Michael W. Smith—and a message of hope from Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
The evangelist returned to London, England, after last summer’s outreach, and more than 10,000 heard him preach the Good News on Saturday evening. The crowd exceeded last year’s attendance by several thousand.
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LIVE With Greg Locke: 7 Bible Proofs of Demonic Warfare
The critics of deliverance ministry most often point to this argument: They claim it is impossible for a born again Christian to suffer demonic oppression, and in their estimation, they believe the Bible itself says so.
The first verse these critics will point to is 1 Corinthians 6:19, which says believers are the “temple of the Holy Spirit,” which we absolutely are. But in the context of the passage, we see that Paul is explicitly talking about sexual immorality and is reminding us that we should never desecrate our bodies (our temples) with perversity like fornication. Moreover, verse 19 never states that such perverse contact is not possible for one who is indwelt with the Holy Spirit, just that it must never happen.
In verses 15–18, he is talking about the way we treat our bodies through idolatry and the perversity of the culture. Not one time in either of these passages does the Word of God say that a Christian cannot be under the influence of a demonic spirit. In fact, since we know that idolatry and perversity are an example of how “we wrestle” against spiritual wickedness (Eph. 6:12), we can see that such struggles are evidence that evil spirits can without question attack our minds and our bodies. In his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul states it plainly:
John Ramirez Exposes the Price of Temptation
In one of his latest messages, Evangelist John Ramirez exposed the price behind temptation as he asks one of the most important questions about the enemy’s tactics: “What is he tempting you with?”
“Temptation comes with a price,” Ramirez said. “What is the price of your temptation? Temptation comes with a price because the biggest weapon the devil [has] against the body of Christ is temptation.”
Ramirez warns that just as in the biblical stories we see about angels falling from heaven after Satan’s temptation, Adam’s fall into sin and Peter’s denial of Jesus three times, we too are tempted by the devil to fall for his schemes that lead to destruction.
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How Can a Christian Be Cursed?
Something so many Christians and non-Christians alike overlook is the legality involved with sin. Mankind legally gave up our earthly authority to Satan during the fall, legally allowing him to become the prince of this world and unleash the sin upon the world. That’s the whole point of the Law of the Old Testament. There are legal repercussions that occur when one hands over their authority to someone else.
It’s the whole reason why Jesus was the propitiation of our sins. What happened on the cross was as much of a legal exchange as it was an offering of grace and mercy.
Because there are legal exchanges in the spiritual world just as there are in the physical world, there are times that we either knowingly or unknowingly allow the enemy to have access into our lives.
LIVE With Greg Locke: 3 Foundational Parts of Deliverance Ministry
Deliverance ministry encompasses three distinct aspects of spiritual warfare: casting out demons, dismantling strongholds and breaking curses. Generational curses, demons and strongholds are three very different things, and we have to approach them as three distinct facets of the enemy’s arsenal against us.
To put it briefly, demons are expelled through deliverance, strongholds are brought down through discipline and curses are broken by decree. When we learn how to take down each of these facets, we can experience personal and community-wide revival.
In all three facets of deliverance ministry, that authority is given by Jesus through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. While a person afflicted by demons or evil spirits requires deliverance—casting them out in Jesus’ name—those dealing with strongholds must apply greater discipline to dismantle them.
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