This is a delicate topic about which I do have some experience and a few learnings. Nineteen years ago I cleaned up my life and Jesus came into my life. Thank-you Lord for your saving grace, for I was not worthy, on my own. I was working still then as a professor at a California University.
But after getting off drugs and doing the Christian twelve steps I still dealt with one big problem. Anxiety.
I was anxious much of the time and it caused much trouble for me physically. I learned over those first few years that anxiety was a real physical illness and that it needed treatment. Anxiety when left untreated can cause serious disease and even death.
At that time my doctor put me on an anti-anxiety med. It helped and I used it for over ten years. I used it every day until about 2005 when I learned that anxiety was many times a fear based condition and that in the spiritual world there was the "spirit of fear". That was a huge eye opener for me and I started studying about it.
About that same time a freind of mine whom I had met in bible college wrote and article in his web based ministry. Thomas' article was called "Break the Bondage of Fear-God's way". i think. We hadn't seen each other for a few years and one weekend I drove to Arizona to see him. Thomas explained to me what He had learned since those early days in bible school. (He had gone on to receive his degree in Theology)
What he said made so much sense. Anxiety isn't a disease or root condition it is a symptom of a deeper problem and that much of the time it caused by fear. The spirit of fear. And that there is a solution in the bible concerning the spirit of fear.
What was recommended was a prayer process called deliverance. Deliverance from the spirit of fear. Boy, was this an eye opener. Fear is almost always caused by a separation from Jesus or God. Deliverance, when done right, restores the correct relationship with Him. All by His power and under His authority. I didn't understand that I wasn't submitting in the ways the Lord asks us to.
Yes, my brothers and sisters, I can testify to the truths of what the Lord has done in my life. He has delivered me from the "spirit of fear" and thus healed me of the anxiety that plagued me for all those years. Thank-you Jesus. I give you all the praise Jeshua! I now am free of those anti-anxiety meds and all the issues that come along with them.
The only thing I am sorry for is not lbeing taught about these principles twenty years ago. But the Lord has his ways and his reasons. I may not have been ready for the peaceful life style I now enjoy.
Search for "Break the Bondage of Fear" by Rev Thomas Holm. You will be thankful for the solid biblical teachings and very possibly for being free of your soul binding anxiety. It is an ebook and is probably on Kindle also. Maybe your pastor has a copy!
God Bless everyone,
Brother Steve
Rumbling Spirit
No doubt about it, there is a "spirit of fear" but not all fear is caused by demonic attacks. I think I've dealt with that in another recovery thread recently.
Vitamin Deficiencies can cause physical symptoms that are diagnosed as Mental Illness. Bipolar, and some forms of Schizophrenia, Depression and Anxiety can be treated with vitamins.
Demonic attacks cannot.
Years and years ago, at least when I was younger, the church seemed to believe that all mental illnesses were either demonic or real mental problems.
When they came out with white denuded and degerminated, bleached flour and started producing white bread and pasta that was not whole grain, and when they started selling white rice that was denuded, people started going insane because of a niacin deficiency. The mental disorder is called pellagra. That is why,
by law, all foodstuffs made with white flour and all white rice have to add niacin to the product.
They aren't required; however, to replace all of the other vitamins that are removed.
It took me over a decade of prayer to work through this stuff as I had one health problem after another from severe malnutrition. I was fat, crippled to the point that I needed a cane to walk with and my joints made so much noise people across the room could hear them crunch and grind. The doctor finally told me I had no cartilage left or very little.
That's from acidosis, which is what happens when people and animals eat partial grains.
Amos 8:4-6 AMP
4 Hear this, O you who would swallow up and trample down the needy,
even to make the poor of the land to fail and come to an end,
5 Saying, When will the New Moon festival be past that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath that we may offer wheat for sale, making the ephah [measure] small and the shekel [measure] great and falsifying the scales by deceit,
6 That we may buy [into slavery] the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals; yes,
and sell the refuse of the wheat [as if it were good grade]?
Gods says this "refuse of wheat" causes His people, the poor and needy to fail and come to an end.
White bread and white rice are cheaper than whole grain. They sell it to the poor and needy because it is cheaper while they reap the profits of making other products from the rest of the grain that they removed.
And now, after many generations of children are born to mothers who are malnourished, they have trouble digesting whole grains because they don't have all of the amino acids and bacteria in their gutts that they need.
So instead of people writing books about malnourishment and the need to get their internal organs in prime shape by supplementing them with what they need to digest the wheat, they tell them not to eat whole grains!!!!
Why?
Awe, because if enough people figure out that they are being ripped off and they force the FDA to change the laws then there goes all of their profits for their junk food!
My cartilage has been almost completely restored. I no longer walk on a cane. I don't have the extremes of bipolar any more. I lost 50 lbs. without being able to exercise and eating all of the sugar/sweets that I want (no HFCS or other related partial grain sweeteners).
The anxiety is gone and so is the depression and manic episodes.
God heard me literally crying out to Him and He answered me from His Word. I must have gotten that passage about 4 times before I realized that God was speaking to me.
