Hey.
Welcome to Keep It 100 podcast
with Sean and Christa Smith.
Join us in this space where we take on real issues
with real insight and real inspiration.
This podcast is for those not looking for temporary relief
to change circumstance,
but revelation to forever change lives.
Keep it 100.
Welcome to another episode of Keep It 100.
This is your boy, Sean.
Hey everyone, it's Christa here.
It's Christa, we are, as always,
we are super amped to bring you this podcast.
You're our last podcast.
You guys have gotten us to some numbers
that were really exciting for us.
It just encourages us.
So we're back at it coming at you today.
And we are just in a season where we're kind of coming right
out of something big,
but we want to share with you the recap
of our Healing and Deliverance Masterclass.
We just had this in the Bay Area,
specifically Oakland, California, July 28th and 29th.
Christa and I, we spoke and ministered there.
We also brought in great friends of ours,
Joanne Moody and Jeremy Nelson, and it was amazing.
Oh, it was so good.
I love Joanne.
I love Jeremy.
Both of them just brought such great, inspiring teachings,
profound teachings, and then a lot of practicals.
And I love that because I feel like every single person
brought practicals where people walked away equipped.
And that's really what we kept telling people.
We're like, we're gonna equip you to pray
for people for healing.
We're gonna equip you to pray for deliverance.
And I really feel like people got that personally,
but then they also walked away on how to pray
for other people with that.
There were so many great testimonies to your point
of people that got free, night one,
you and I did back-to-back sessions,
and then we went into what we call the Holy Ghost.
After party, we basically ministered.
A lot of people got free, got delivered.
You went after the stronghold of fear and anxiety,
and that really resonated.
A lot of people got free.
We went after some other things,
just of the nature of people walking in purity,
and there were people that got free of that.
It was awesome and amazing.
Then we came out the next morning,
and Joanna gave us back-to-back real practicals
on how to pray for the sick.
So many people pray for the sick.
They don't get the results they want,
but she gave some great stories, great testimonies,
and really helped people even get some words of knowledge
as it relates to healing for the first time.
Then I came back in the afternoon session
and took everyone into a deliverance.
How does deliverance take place?
It just brought you in a session, practicals.
And then Jeremy brought us home.
We're just some powerful stuff
as it relates to generational curses
and then the spirit of Python.
But we're getting so many testimonies.
We had over several hundred people come in person.
We had a large number who streamed in online,
but we're getting a lot of testimonies too, right?
You know what's really cool?
I had gone through some teachings
about how to walk in freedom of past trauma,
some real processes and practicals
on how to break off previous sexual encounters
and sexual partners.
We'll be touching on that a little bit today.
And I gave them some practicals on how to do that.
And a lot of people went home and did that.
And what I love is people came back with testimonies
that they literally felt like
as they were praying those prayers of breaking,
you know, breaking off things from the past
and breaking agreement,
they literally experienced that weight coming off of them.
Some of them felt like they felt like they're,
their brain was clear, their head was clear,
their thoughts were more clear.
They felt like they looked different
when they looked in the mirror.
They felt a lighting and a lifting off of their heart
and their spirit and their emotions.
Some say they like cried, they felt real breakthrough.
Some said they no longer are having those images
or those fantasies.
And so what's really exciting is when you really begin
to see that people walk in freedom.
Oh my gosh, that gets them excited
because anytime you experience freedom from Jesus,
it's what you want to give away.
And that's what I love.
It's like, this is the stuff where we're like,
we know so many people that are walking with, you know,
barriers in their life.
And if we can help them walk in freedom,
this is the stuff we want to give away to people, right?
In a world that has so much bondage, this is exciting.
And so I just love seeing the excitement
and hearing the excitement of this.
And so, you know, we received messages on social media,
texts, shout outs on different things.
And people just saying, oh my gosh,
I feel really changed by this.
And that, that's everything.
If we did it for one, it's worth it, right?
Honestly.
And I think a scripture right now,
and I'm sure you're gonna hit it later,
that I think about that.
And I think the reason why people were helped is,
obviously second Corinthians 10-5 says,
we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.
And it's battlefield jargon.
You get the impression that our, you know,
our mind is this place that there can be a battlefield.
And certain thoughts could be like soldiers, you know,
or enemies, I should say, that they were the soldiers,
but certain thoughts could be like enemies.
And so it was so cool to hear people talk about that.
And so we also want to let you guys know,
here we go, big announcements.
I'm gonna slow down, imaginary drum roll.
Right now is this podcast is coming out.
You can order these sessions online on our website,
Sean and ChristaSmith.com.
And each of the sessions are gonna be available for purchase.
And so even if you missed it, or maybe you made it,
you wanna be able to go back over it,
we will have that available to you
as well as there will be study notes.
We gave it the conference study notes about 60 pages
of study notes.
So so many people were saying,
hey, we're gonna take this back to our church.
We're gonna start our deliverance meetings.
We're gonna take this back to our church.
Love it.
We're gonna start praying for the sick
and in our noontime prayer meeting or whatever.
So you guys check out right now and you can go get those
and they will be available for you and you will be blessed.
Also, we wanna let you guys know,
we got a couple of things coming up.
And September 1st and 2nd, we're gonna be on the East Coast.
Come on, East Coast, Feast Coast.
Come on.
We're gonna be on the West Coast
for the prophetic masterclass.
Many of you can remember,
we did one on the West Coast,
but we're doing now one on the East Coast in Bowie, Maryland,
just outside of Washington, DC.
Christa will be speaking.
I will be speaking as well as we're gonna have
Julie and Adam's back,
but we're super excited about taking this to the East Coast.
You know, we really recognize this is the hour that we're in
and training and equipping the army of God.
We have a harvest that's gonna happen, right?
We have a move of God that's taking place in our nation.
And there's a harvest that's coming in,
but we need a people that are ready
in the areas of healing, deliverance,
and now in the prophetic.
And so Sean and I are really committed,
and I love this,
because Julian has very much the same heart.
He's amazing.
And the three of us are just committed
to really see a church raised up in this hour,
really confident in that prophetic gift.
And I love that because when you get the prophetic culture
integrated into a church,
it literally breaks open such an area of freedom,
of breakthrough,
but also it releases destiny and purpose over people.
That is probably one of the biggest things
that the prophetic does is it releases purpose
and it releases destiny.
And with a generation that's so longing to know,
why am I here on planet earth?
And they get the word of the Lord over their life.
It's life changing.
So if you can, and if your schedule's busy right now,
I'm gonna be bold and say, clear out your schedule,
rearrange your plans, friends, you will not be disappointed.
Get there on September 1st of 2nd,
and bring your group, bring your group of friends.
I mean, honestly, we have pastors that are already coming
that is bringing their core leadership.
We have people that are bringing small groups.
We have young adult ministries coming.
We have people bringing their youth group.
It is open to all ages, anyone.
You know, we're really saying, if you feel like you're,
cause we've had people say, can we bring our kids?
If you feel like your kids are mature
and can pay attention or gonna, hey, we welcome them.
We want everyone in the kingdom of God
to get equipped in their area prophetic.
And here's what's cool.
It's not just for seasoned prophetic people.
It's for entry level.
It's for intermediate and it's for seasoned.
Literally, we have it really organized
to wherever you're at in your prophetic journey.
I promise you, you're gonna get something out of it.
You know, and it's super significant on many ways,
because right now the world is desperate
to hear the authentic voice of God.
And if we as a church, we're gonna be reckoned with,
and if we're gonna become agents of influence and change
as a transformative voice of this next generation,
then we need to be tuned in on what God has to tell us.
And so do you find yourself struggling here, the voice of God
and get clarity, but you want it?
Are you curious about the prophetic?
Wanna be empowered to flow in a gift?
Do you desire to have deeper access to the thoughts of God
and long the impact of the people's lives?
If you answered yes to any of these questions,
this is the event you've been waiting for,
prophetic masterclass, two day intensive.
There will be activation September 1st and 2nd.
Again, you can go register right now
at seanandchristasmith.com.
We're super excited.
And then for West Coast people,
but what do we got for them?
Okay, in August, because we try to do something
every single month in the Bay Area,
because we're really believing for a move of God in the Bay,
and we begin to see the beginnings of it.
I mean, I'm literally in awe
every time we gather of God's presence.
It's beautiful.
August 25th, it's a Friday night.
It's just a few weeks out as Sequoia Community Church.
It's where we've been having our momentum nights.
We're gonna have our August momentum night.
And what's so beautiful is we're having
a special worship leader, a special guest.
Yep, Heath King, he is a spiritual son to Eddie James.
This guy, oh my goodness, he's the real deal, you guys.
This dude is the truth.
He will lead us, and we're gonna have
a worship and flow night.
So although we will probably give him
maybe a brief alter call for people to come to Jesus,
we're gonna let him worship.
It's gonna be a night of worship,
so we're gonna go deep, cut him loose.
And then, Christ and I, we're gonna get up
and just flow, prophetically flow in the spirit.
We're gonna continually go down the veins
of seeing people get free, people getting filled,
people getting healed, people getting imparted to.
So August 25th, it is free.
You do not have to register for this, show up.
We got people that fly in for these nights.
Because they're that profound, feel free to fly in,
and then all over NorCal, come on down.
All our Redding Peeps, y'all come down.
LA folks, drive up Central California,
San Joaquin Valley, SAC, and of course the Bay,
come on in, it is gonna be an amazing time.
It really is, and for those that need a fresh encounter,
come, for those that are in a hard place, come.
For those that need healing and breakthrough, come.
I tell you what, God is gonna be in the room,
and I always know that whenever God's in the room,
anything is possible.
And so, like Sean said, it's a worship night,
it's a Holy Ghost night, it's a spirit-led ministry night.
So friends, come, bring your friends,
bring people that need a fresh encounter.
We're just believing it's gonna be a night of just marking,
and it's gonna be a night of breakthrough.
So we're excited, but you know what else I'm excited about?
I'm excited to dive into this podcast.
Let's do this.
Let's do it.
And so what we're doing on this podcast is we understand this
before you can have freedom as a lifestyle.
Before you can get freedom in your lifestyle,
you must first get freedom in your head.
And so, Christa did her second session on this.
She's gonna give you a bit of a teaser,
but a little bit more than that
because we really wanna help those
that are part of the Keep It 100 Tribe.
And so I'm just gonna start,
I'm kinda gonna talk to her interview style,
but at the same time, I'm gonna be throwing in some stuff,
just kinda let you know where we're going.
So anyway, one of the topics that you hit,
or actually it was a trio of topics that you hit
that got a lot of acclaim.
A lot of people are talking about it.
A lot of people were impacted by it.
I mean, I kept hearing, oh man, Christa,
when she said something in this area, man,
when she said something like this,
you talked about three areas
that really formed the main battlefield for us
as this generation.
What are those three things?
And could you describe them?
Absolutely.
And if it's okay, I'll back up just a little bit
because I want people to understand
that what I'm gonna talk to you about,
really it comes down to strongholds.
And I'm gonna be talking about root systems
that the enemy creates in our lives
that create a stronghold.
And just for a simple definition,
just so you're tracking, a stronghold is a mindset.
We have to understand, stronghold is a mindset
that is contrary to God's word.
And you find that scriptural reference
on where I'm creating that definition out of,
is out of 2nd Corinthians 10, 4, and 5.
And so we have to understand that strongholds
actually form in our minds in a few different ways.
We might talk about that in a little bit,
but really what I love you're asking me about, Sean,
is the area of kind of the root system of strongholds
that we discover in our life, right?
And one of those areas is a soul tie.
And that might be new verbiage to people,
but again, I wanna define what is a soul tie,
just so our listeners really understand
what I'm talking about.
And a soul tie is an attachment of our soul
to a person or an object, both thoughts and feelings,
which is your mind and your emotions,
and the choices of our will.
And we have to understand we have good soul ties, right?
You have, those are godly soul ties
and they're based on God's covenant and those are good.
Simple ones would be like your spouse, your family,
your friends, godly leaders that are good and healthy.
And of course, God himself,
you have godly soul ties in your life.
Those are awesome.
But the demonic root systems that we can see
in the area of soul ties in our lives
are destructive soul ties.
And destructive soul ties can look like sexual immorality.
It can also look like adultery.
It can look like the worship of false gods.
It can look like rape.
It can look like images and pornography.
And we have to understand that soul ties,
physical sexual soul ties are not just
what we've done physically,
but it's also what we've allowed our eyes to see, right?
And it's what the images,
what images we've been exposed to.
And some people are exposed to things against their will,
but it can actually still create a stronghold
because it's images that they've seen.
So we have to understand that when you break a soul tie,
you break those connections,
whether it's in your mind, right?
When you're having a cleansing of your mind,
a cleansing of your imagination,
you're breaking soul ties,
or it's a soul tie that you've done with your body.
And some of those have been done by your choice.
And some of those have been done against your will.
But we have to understand it still creates a soul tie.
And a soul tie, if you wanna create kind of a picture,
and I hope I can do this justice,
you have to imagine that the average American
has 10 to 11 sexual partners within their life.
Think about that.
So that can be higher for some people,
that can be a lot lower for some people.
But what we have to understand
is a lot of people have had multiple sexual partners.
They get saved, they're authentic in their salvation,
they come to Jesus and they are so sincere.
They meet another godly person,
they're gonna get married,
and we're looking at them, Sean, we know this.
We've, you know, we've walked life with a lot of people.
You've done student ministry for years,
high brand schools of ministry.
We've walked journeys with people
in their process of what it is to follow Jesus.
And they find themselves constantly tripping up
or sabotaging relationships,
or having images constantly flashing in their mind
or intrusive thoughts.
And they're like, this isn't me.
I don't know where this is coming from,
or why I feel so much shame,
or why I feel like I can't walk in purity,
or why I keep tripping up sexually.
And often it comes down to,
we'll have you broken soul ties.
Because we have to understand that until you clean house,
you're carrying that baggage with you, right?
And so a really good illustration of that
is you just gotta imagine like locked arms, right?
So just imagine a soul tie.
Every time you have a sexual interaction with someone
that is out of covenant,
I'm talking about an ungodly sexual interaction,
you're like, if you link arms with them,
imagine linking arms with 10, 11 people,
or how many partners maybe you've had in your life.
And until that is broken,
that stronghold, that soul tie is broken,
you're literally carrying that around.
And so Sean, I'd love to hear your viewpoint
on kind of the destructiveness of an unbroken soul tie.
You know, I think it's what you're talking about
is so like now, that is a now word.
But how many times maybe listeners
that you have said or you're aware of people like,
why do you keep going back to that guy?
Why do you keep going back to that girl?
They don't treat you right.
Or how come you're obsessing over them?
And it's been nine months since you broke up or whatever.
These are evidences of soul ties.
You hear people say, I just can't get over,
I've seen people literally their lives fall apart.
And they just from that point on,
if they can't get back the person
they've had a soul tie with,
then it's almost like they're drawn to someone
that treats them the same way.
So true.
Or reinforces what that other person said about them.
And it doesn't make sense.
It's not logical.
And I think it's because it isn't rational,
it's trans-rational, it is a soul tie.
And so what I'm seeing,
there's a lot of people that say, hey,
I need to get free of these people.
Like we think of,
and obviously we're gonna talk about strongholds,
and that's probably obviously something
that it's a more of an interaction of the demonic,
which is not to say soul ties aren't demonic,
but soul ties more often than not,
it seems like it draws you to a person
in the enemy piggybacks that.
And I thought it was interesting too,
you said, I know a lot of people that,
like people they've never met before,
rather that celebrities or people that obsess
over folks online or like you said, pornography,
is that people can be bound to people
and those people are real to them,
although all they've ever seen is a digital
or cinematic visualization of them,
but the soul tie is real and it gives you that real feel.
And so you feel like the word says soul tie,
you feel tied up.
And so there's such a need for you to get untied
when you're tied up in that kind of situation.
It's so true, because we all know the person
that is attracted to the broken person, right?
We all know the person that's in a repeated cycle.
Like growing up, there was always my friend
that was always attracted to the bad boy
and he would treat her terrible, he'd treat her awful,
they'd have a sexual encounter
and she kept repeating that cycle over and over.
Well, that is a soul tie in action, right?
So when you're in a constant cycle
of destructive self-sabotage behavior
and you can't get out of it,
even though you know in your head,
it's not healthy, it's not right,
but you're still making that choice,
it's because there's a soul tie there.
There's a stronghold in that area of your life
that needs to be broken.
And so there might be some of you that are listening today
and they keep wanting to try,
but a light bulb's going off, right?
And you're like, oh my gosh, that's why I'm in this cycle.
Absolutely.
I just wanna tell you, with the blood of Jesus,
that soul tie can be broken.
That's the cool thing.
You don't have to live underneath that.
What Jesus did on the cross is enough
to break every single soul tie.
And I want you to know, I've prayed with people
that have had many, many partners,
lots of sexual interactions,
and it's like, I want you to know
there is no soul tie that cannot be broken
with the blood of Jesus.
No matter what you've done in your past,
no matter how dark it has gone,
no matter how many sexual partners you've had,
when you call in the name of Jesus
and you go through the process of breaking soul ties
in your life, the blood of Jesus is enough.
You know, it's so true because even when the Israelites,
cause I always think about,
are there types of this in the Bible in the Old Testament,
there's absolutely a type to that.
When one of the sons, Ray Tamar, says his soul was knit to her,
and so he just really, and then he turned on her.
There was times when the Israelites
were going into the Promised Land,
and God says that if you look upon their idols,
they're gonna become thorns in your sides,
and I think one translation is like pricks in your eyes.
In other words, it's gonna fasten itself to you visually,
and it's literally gonna vex you.
And so we just see that over and over again.
And it's so cool because what you covered,
and obviously we probably won't be able to get into this
right here in this particular podcast,
but it's available on the online,
is you gave specific prayers to break soul ties,
which I think is super awesome
because there really is freedom,
and some of you are still in mourning right now,
and you just need to get over it.
Now, when I say that,
I'm not saying that in an unsympathetic way.
I'm saying it in a sense of calling you to freedom.
You gotta get over that.
You gotta get on with your destiny.
You gotta get on with, man, the people,
yours are called to help,
and the activity that God ordained for you in the earth,
and the good works he's called you to.
So you can't be stuck in that,
and God just wants to get you into this next place
where you're not tied to the things that pull you down,
but you have the yoke.
You know, the opposite of a soul tie in the spirit is a yoke,
and obviously a yoke would put oxen together,
but the Bible says that we're yoked to Jesus.
So we want the yoke, not the soul tie,
the godly yoke that Jesus brings.
I love that.
And for any person that's engaged right now
and wanting to step into marriage,
or you're in a marriage,
and intimacy has been difficult for you,
I just wanna encourage you, go through the process,
really get those prayers and take time.
I kinda explain how to, the entire process.
I explain it, listen to my session, go through the prayers.
I tell you what, I have had so many powerful testimonies
of people's intimate life within their marriage,
changing, them experiencing really beautiful intimacy,
them experiencing freedom, shame coming off,
images that were incredibly intrusive
from things they were exposed to, even against their will,
those things leaving, they had them,
they had no recall of those things.
There is freedom that's available through the blood of Jesus,
but we have to go through the process of breaking agreement
with those things that we've allowed into our life.
Even if it gets your will, you've been exposed to it,
maybe that's a more conducive word for you,
you've been exposed to it, we gotta break the stronghold,
we gotta break that access point
that has been given in your life,
because when you break access, you then access freedom.
Ooh, so good.
You know, along with solitize, you also hit,
I kinda think there were a trio of things you hit
that were really powerful.
Another one of the ones that you spoke of a lot of people
really was giving testimonies,
is you talked about false belief systems.
Can you break that down for us?
Absolutely, you know, false belief systems,
and I think we have to really understand,
false belief system is not the knowledge you have,
but the false belief system is actually what you believe,
right?
So I think we have to like pull those two apart
for people to really understand what I'm going after,
because you can have the knowledge, like a good,
we all have the knowledge if we go,
okay, what does the Bible say?
The Bible says that Jesus is my deliverer,
he's my healer, you know, that God is faithful,
he's Jehovah Rafa, he's my provider,
he'll never leave me or forsake me.
We know that we have the knowledge of it
with the word of God says it, we might even profess it,
we might sing about it, we might, you know,
say we know, say we believe that's true,
but we have to understand, but if you actually believe,
do you believe that?
Because if you don't actually believe
that he's your deliverer, right?
If you don't actually believe he's your healer,
and so anything that is a false belief system
is opposing God's truth.
So that's then considered an ungodly belief system.
So we have godly belief systems and we have ungodly.
So if I just said the previous things ungodly,
that he's your deliverer, he's your healer, he's faithful,
all the things I just said, he's your provider,
he'll never leave you or forsake you.
If you have ungodly belief systems,
then you're believing, well, he doesn't heal me though,
he's not gonna deliver me, he might heal and deliver others,
but that doesn't apply to me,
or he's not gonna come through, he's not gonna provide,
I'm not gonna have enough, he is gonna leave me,
I am gonna be alone, I'm not okay, I'm not safe,
et cetera, et cetera.
So the difference between this is you can have knowledge,
but that doesn't mean you believe in your heart.
So if you actually don't believe in the goodness of God,
in the faithfulness of God,
that God is who he says he is,
you've believed a lie somewhere along the way.
And a stronghold in your life, a root system,
remember we're talking about demonic root systems
in your life, a root system is where you've believed a lie,
and that lie becomes a stronghold, right?
So if it creates a new belief system,
you actually have to tear that down.
You know, I think that's so profound,
what you're saying about false belief systems,
because I believe that you have false beliefs
in terms of that, some of that relates to you,
you see yourself as not worthy,
you see yourself as a servant rather than a child of God,
but I would say that maybe some of the most destructive
is the false belief systems that you're talking about God.
I think it was A.W. Tozier says,
whatever it is that comes to mind when you think about God
is the most important thing about an individual.
And I think of how often sometimes,
you know, even people that preach sermons
can be guilty of this,
of presenting an emotionally distant God,
that you just have to make sure you check all the boxes,
you do the do's, don't do the don'ts,
and it's kind of more about this behavior improvement,
but they lead us away from relationship.
And I was thinking about what Jesus did
when he spoke to the woman at the well in John 4.
He said, true worshipers worship God in spirit and in truth.
So truth is what is true about God.
And we were talking about this earlier in Matthew 25,
it's the parable of the talents.
One dude got like five talents
and he went and, you know,
used those talents and brought increase
and got dividends paid.
And so when the master came back,
he was pleased with him, gave him more.
And there was one dude that was given one talent
and he came back and the guy as an excuse,
he buried his talent.
So here's the parable of the talents,
the master symbolizes father God.
The guy says, I knew you were a harsh or hard and exacting master.
So I was afraid I went and hid the talents.
And obviously the master rebuked him,
but I thought that is a classic example in Bible,
of unhealthy view of God.
If you think God is hard, you think God,
if the enemy can get a false belief system
that God wasn't there for you when you lost your mom
or you went through that emotional breakup,
when that disease hit this person, you lost your job,
you got an accident.
The enemy can get a false belief system.
Instead of flourishing in the kingdom
like this dude should have did,
the dude had one bag, but I'm like, amen, multiply that bag.
That ought to be a phrase, multiply your bag.
He went and hid it, that a false belief system
can keep you from flourishing in the kingdom.
It can keep you from getting on with your destiny.
It can keep you most importantly of drawing near to God.
Because the number one priority of God
and the number one priority of us is relationship.
And this dude thought God was an unreasonable master.
He was afraid and what was obvious, he didn't trust him.
He didn't think the master was fair.
So he wasn't motivated to do anything for the master.
It wasn't a positive relationship.
And this was all based on a false belief.
What are some, even if you're listening right now,
what are some false beliefs?
And I love the way Christ has said, it's not about knowledge.
It's your go-to of what you adhere to, maybe in a crisis,
maybe in a time, in a tough place,
those things you believe about God.
And if you're believing and have an unhealthy view of God,
it can get you to question stuff
that God has already made apparent.
And it really isn't him.
Like the enemy paints a caricature of God
and gets you offended with that caricature.
And an argument is called a straw man's argument
of a person that will make up what you're saying.
You're not really saying it to assassinate
and argue it against it.
It happens all the time in modern debate
is the straw man's argument.
The devil's trying to get a straw man's argument
against Jesus, don't fall for that.
You know, I love what you're talking about
because we have to understand
that strongholds develop in our lives.
And if we don't deal with them,
it's what you're talking about, it will literally rob us.
And the enemy loves to steal from us, right?
He is the thief, right?
He's always looking to who he can devour.
And he wants to devour your destiny.
He wants to devour your purpose.
And we have to understand when we're talking
about strongholds, I want us to really understand
how scripture tells us how strongholds form in our minds.
And some of you might be wondering,
okay, you guys are talking about soul ties,
you're talking about false belief systems.
Sean, Christa, I hear you,
but how does that actually happen in my life?
I kind of want to break this down if that's okay.
The enemy, it begins by the enemy first telling you a lie
and a lie is anything that contradicts God's word, right?
But we have to understand a lie is just a lie
until it's believed.
Catch that, a lie is just a lie until it's believed.
And once a lie is believed, then it becomes deception.
And that deception becomes a mindset
through which all of our thoughts are actually processed.
And then that deception, if not dealt with,
then leads to feelings and those feelings lead to actions.
Those actions become habits and those habits become cycles.
And that's what Sean's talking about is that guy,
you know, the parable really showed us a man
who had a cycle of not believing that God was good, right?
That he wouldn't provide.
And so most believers, we can relate to that guy
in the parable, right?
He's relatable to us
because most believers try to address habits, right?
We try to address the symptoms in our life,
but we never address the deception that caused the habits,
right?
We never address actually the root system of the stronghold.
We dress the symptoms that we see in our life.
We dress like, well, I'm afraid of this person.
So I'm going to try to like push through and connect with them
and be open for relationship.
Or I'm going to try to be vulnerable
and actually that people really get to know me,
but you're actually have to go after the root system
of abandonment in your life, right?
Because otherwise you're going to keep hitting those same
old cycles with people in your life
until you actually deal with the root system.
And we have to understand that because people may not address
habits that actually cause the stronghold,
you can fix things for a day, a week, maybe a month.
That's good.
But it's not going to be permanently,
you're not going to walk in permanent freedom
until you actually deal with the root system
of your stronghold.
That guy that Sean's talking about in the parable
is never going to walk in the fullness of what God has for him
until he deals with the false belief system.
That is so good.
And that really moved us to the third point
of what I was going to talk about.
I wanted to ask you about soul ties,
false belief systems and strongholds.
How do strongholds develop in our lives?
Can you speak to that?
I know that you had talked a little bit about foot holds.
You know, the Bible says, do not give the devil a foothold.
And you kind of made this point.
Foot holds become strongholds.
And so what are some of, I guess what I'm asking,
what are some of the common foot holds
that can become strongholds in our mind?
You know, you can really discover foot holds in your life
and then become a strongholds when you kind of see some cycle.
Some of the common cycles that we can observe in our lives
or maybe in the lives of those that we love
or those that we're ministering to, you know,
generational curses, those are familiar things
in your family line.
They just feel really normal,
but they're actually not sanctified.
They're not godly.
They don't line up with the word of God.
That can be in a lot of different ways.
You know, that could be like that anger or that rage
or those different things.
You're like, oh, that's just in my family line,
but you have to understand like that isn't what God has for you.
That could be the depression from your grandma
to your mom, to your auntie, to you,
but that's actually not God's highest for you, right?
That is a foothold that's now become a generational curse,
which is now a stronghold.
Other ways, which I kind of talked about is sexual sin, right?
I won't take too much time on that,
but it's like anything that's been ungodly,
that's been defiling, whether it's in your imagination
or in your physical body.
Again, soul ties, sexual sin, those can become footholds
that ultimately can become a stronghold
if they're not dealt with.
Other ways we can actually see is like willful,
intentional rebellious living.
Hey, say that, say that.
So your casual in your lifestyle,
you're allowing repeated intentional compromise
and that foothold, what starts, what starts as you go
into the club or the party and a little bit of hookup here,
a little bit of drinking here, a little bit of partying there.
In time, you get an appetite for that, right?
Because whatever you feed yourself
is what you're gonna crave.
And that's true in the natural
and it's certainly true in the spirit.
And so that little foothold can absolutely
become a stronghold of lust, of self-sabotage,
self-hatred, all those things.
You know, to that point, you know,
one of the things that I talked about too
and you really highlighted it and elaborate on it
is that devil is a legalist.
So he's looking for an opening.
So these footholds you're describing are openings
in which the enemy can take the foothold
and it now becomes a stronghold.
You think of someone has your foot,
like if they have their foot in the door,
they're not in your house yet,
but they got their foot in the door.
That's right, there's a crack.
And if you don't push them back and slam that door,
then they get in.
And so what you're describing are footholds
and willful sin is a big one.
It's like God told Cain,
sin is crutching at the door,
it's desires for you, but you must master it.
And he said that to a dude right before the first murder
of the Bible, Cain murdered his brother Abel.
So you're right, willful, continual, unrepentant sin
that is a foothold that becomes a stronghold really quick.
Yeah, I mean, I love that picture of the foot in the door
because that's really what this is.
And if you don't shut that door,
all of a sudden you're gonna have
this enemy camping in your house.
Other ways we see it is fear.
And that's fear of all sorts, right?
It can start off like fear of darkness as a little kid.
But if you don't deal with that fear,
it can trail all the way through your life
into your adulthood and it just gets more invasive
of your life, it just takes more and more territory
because nothing about the demonic is satisfied
with its current place of location in your life.
It's not satisfied with the current amount
of real estate you've given.
The enemy always wants more.
It's the spirit, the demonic is always unsatisfied.
And so if you give it some,
oh, it's gonna take everything it can and some.
And so it doesn't stop at the foothold unless you stop it.
Rejection, and this is kind of interesting.
We're talking about footholds.
Rejection can actually begin at the womb level
if a parent has not wanted a child.
And so some people are literally go throughout
their whole life and they never feel like they fit in.
They always feel like the misfit.
And they've always kind of known
their parents weren't excited about them,
but they don't understand.
There's actually possibly, I'm not saying this is true
for every person, but consider the concept
that there's a spirit of rejection
that's become a stronghold over your life
because when you weren't wanted at the womb,
the enemy man, he went after that.
As soon as you were born, it's like he heard
the conversation of your parents
or he heard the conversation of your mother
or he heard the conversation of the family
that didn't want you.
And that was spoken in the atmosphere over you.
You know, part of that is my story is that
I was born out of wedlock and at least initially
my dad didn't want me later on.
He did, praise God.
But that rejection did fall on me.
And it's funny because you were addressing the fact
of that rejection and what it did is it caused
insecurity in my identity.
Now I came up in a different era
and it was never a battle of mine in terms of
like a question over my sexual identity.
But it was in terms of my value as a person.
Could I contribute?
Was I a person that could go to college and do well?
Or could I, you know, make money
and be able to provide for a family?
Could I even have a family and all that kind of stuff?
And I think that rejection is one of those things
that you were talking about.
It works a narrative in your head
that people aren't rejecting you
but because you rejected yourself
because now it's a stronghold
is it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy
and you read into things like, no, they didn't reject you.
They weren't feeling good.
You know, they didn't reject you.
They had to go home and they couldn't come to your
meet you for, you know, the movie, the lunch,
or whatever that was going on.
And you made a great point of how we deduct
and deduce things not because it's the logical conclusion
but because we have a stronghold of rejection on us.
It's so true.
I mean, we all know the person that,
and maybe we are that person, right?
Let's take some honest self-inventory
that if you have that stronghold of rejection
and it started out of the womb
and maybe you hear some of Sean's story
and you're like, I relate to that.
That feels like my story.
I was born out of a lot of luck.
I never felt like I was wanted
or maybe you want to value on a worth level.
And so everything went through that lens, right?
So anytime someone didn't handle you right
or maybe spoke harshly or, you know,
wasn't kind to you or whatever,
it's like all it did was reinforce that message.
And then you found yourself,
even with people with good intentions,
they, you would misinterpret.
They want something from you.
They're trying to take advantage of you.
You can't trust them.
They don't have your best interests in mind.
And you kind of begin to expect the worst
and you can't actually believe
someone really cares about you authentically, right?
And you live in a place of almost like walls up
a little bit of like emotional isolation
because when you're living from that place of rejection,
you can either go two ways.
You can turn into a perfectionist
and try to be so perfect, to be so accepted
or you can often turn and do the opposite
and to really isolate and disconnect and never really
want to be available for intimate relationship, right?
So until those walls are torn down,
it's going to be really hard to have healthy relationships.
So keep, you know, in the conversation continuing
with footholds becoming strongholds in our life,
we also see this in a world that has really a lot of mixture.
I want to talk about occult stuff, you know, occult practices.
If you've done, you know, tarot cards or Ouija boards,
gone to psychics, gone to mediums,
dabbled in white magic or black magic
or even been involved in hypnotism, be hypnotized
or involved in new age beliefs or in practices,
you know, burning sage and chanting
and all that kind of stuff, transcendental meditation,
whatever it may be, chakras and all the stuff.
Crystals. Crystals.
That is opening up a door to a demonic realm.
And so you have to understand those are footholds
that can become strongholds
that need to be broken down in your life.
Those are not no big deals.
Those are very big deals that people have to understand.
There is darkness and there is light
and you're opening up a door of darkness.
I remember one time in campus ministry,
I was minister and deliverst her girl
and that she said, she's a witch,
but she was in white magic and she says, I use it for good.
And so she was cool with it
and somehow she made it out to one of our meetings
that we are having at the junior college.
Anyway, she came back to another meeting
and there was some anointing in the room
and she hit the floor and full blown manifestation
and she got free of that to all of a sudden realize
that the spirit guide, small ass counterfeit spirit guide
had misled her and kind of thought,
I'm giving you power to do good.
White witchcraft is okay.
And it's funny, like it's so popular to do the chakras
and the crystals and all the chance.
She was doing all of that in white magic
and here she was on the ground.
And so some of the stuff we're talking about,
we literally have minister deliverance over people
and ran up against them being out of control
and a demonic attachment on folks.
So it's not just something we could outline in scripture
which that ought to be enough.
But by experience, these things we have seen it move
from a foothold to a stronghold to a demonic attachment
because that's where the enemy's all,
like you said, the enemy's never satisfied.
He's always wanting to take it to the next place.
And hypnotism, I was reading a thing someplace,
it's on the rise right now.
Cause a lot of people are trying to get out of anxiety,
trying to get back into a place of confidence.
And so they're going to hypnotists,
trying to deal with stuff that the truth be told.
The freedom, we're going to go there early,
we're going to go there often.
The freedom's found in Christ, only truly Jesus.
Because in that realm, the devil is such a seductive liar
that all they'll do is help you replace bondages.
Like you'll get you out of bondage
to put another bondage on you
that at the end of the day is worse than the original bondage.
You went to the so-called cure to get rid of.
And so only in Jesus is there going to be found freedom.
I love that.
And just a couple more footholds
that I think could be helpful for our listeners
is just understanding trauma.
I mean, we all have experienced sudden death, accident,
loss or that betrayal of that close one.
Again, you have to be really careful
of how you navigate crisis.
Because that is when you're the most vulnerable.
I mean, Sean, we know this in our lives, right?
When you walk through trauma, we have to recognize
that's when the enemy wants to pounce
is when people are most vulnerable
in those traumatic situations.
And you really have to guard
about what you allow into your heart.
But here's what I love.
Jesus can handle your questions.
He can handle your anger.
He can handle your tears, your frustration,
you know, your shouts, whatever it may be.
He can handle all that, but lean into Jesus.
It's when you pull away from Him
and you look to other sources to be your anchor point.
That's when the enemy really like piggybacks
in those areas of trauma where we see footholds
then becoming strongholds of people life.
And lastly, fornication.
And that's really defiling sexual acts
outside of the marriage.
But we have to also remember inside the marriage.
We have to understand there's still a holiness
and a sanctification that we've got to walk inside
the marriage bed.
And so we have to understand
if someone in a marriage feels defiled,
you shouldn't be doing that in your marriage, right?
You should only be doing things
where both of you feel honored.
It feels pleasing before the Lord.
You feel clean before the Lord.
It feels like, you know, honoring before the Lord.
And then of course, outside the marriage,
you shouldn't be participating in any defiling sexual behavior.
And if you are, whether it's inside the marriage
or outside the marriage, again, that foothold
can easily become a stronghold.
And that really ties back to the conversation
about soul ties.
I was just listening to someone talk about,
they had this lady that came to our church
and this pastor, he just noticed her or whatever.
And then later down the line,
the woman's coming to his office.
He says, you know, before she was attractive lady
and everything, she comes into the office.
He obviously, because it's a woman,
he has a secretary and another intercessor.
So it's not alone with this gal.
But he says that she ended up meeting this other lady
and the lady who seemed real nice and the lady, you know,
she was swaggy, she wore good clothes
and everything else.
Long story short, begin to seduce this woman.
The woman left the church,
end up getting in bed with the woman
and just committing, you know,
indecent acts, a spirit of fornication, all of that.
And then as the woman got up
from one of their initial call,
yeah, yes, she said, I'm a witch.
And this woman is in the office and she's been tormented.
She sees things, walk the walls.
She's been hearing voices, everything.
And then praise God that day, that pastor,
the intercessor, the ladies, all of them,
they minister deliverance over this woman.
She got totally free back in church.
But in the devil, a liar to bring someone to seduce her,
you know, maybe for some,
there could be some mother issues or something like that.
Or maybe you, you know, you see a woman and you think,
oh man, I admire her, whatever.
She's a put together woman or whatever.
And the woman seduced her and it was,
it was a demonic spirit of witchcraft.
And I just think, man, a foothold became a stronghold.
And praise God, this ends in a good way.
But even the woman said it was so close to death,
but Jesus intervened and just,
man made such a difference in her life.
You know, Christa, why don't you give us
kind of before we let any of these people go?
Cause we've talked about some really heavy duty things
as it relates to false belief systems,
as it relates to soul ties and strongholds,
being the parent over it all.
Well, obviously you went in great detail.
So it's going to be hard to win podcasts to do it,
but give them something, give us something that we could use
if we find ourselves stuck in any of these areas.
You know, there's a really simple prayer model
that I lead people through when I'm praying at the altars.
And some of you listening today,
you're like, Christa, you've prayed that with me.
Absolutely.
This is available to every single person,
every believer, whether you want to see yourself get free
or you want to pray with someone for their freedom.
You guys, this is the model I use.
It's super simple and it's all relying on Jesus, right?
So the first thing you want to do is repent.
You want to repent for any lie that you've agreed with.
You want to either forgive anyone that's violated you,
hurt you, take advantage of you, right?
So you want to repent or forgive
and you might be repenting and forgiving, right?
It could be both.
So you want to repent for agreement with the lie
and that brings you into right relationship with God, right?
Anytime you're removing that lie,
you're now like, okay, God, I'm in right standing with you.
The next thing you want to do after repenting is renouncing
and renouncing is where you're breaking all the legal rights
and you're refusing to partner with or agree with sin
and you're breaking off any attachments to sin,
any attachments that the enemies put on you
and you're canceling Satan's authority.
I love this, one of my favorite parts.
You're canceling Satan's authority
and you're commanding it to leave in Jesus' name.
So I love that, right?
We have to understand repenting is directed toward God
and renouncing is directed toward the enemy.
So good.
I love that, right?
It's like you repent, you're like, God, forgive me.
An enemy, now that I'm in right relationship with Jesus,
you have no legal access and you're breaking that, okay?
And that's really important because with your own mouth
is that's where I personally experience a lot of freedom
in my life is because when you declare it with your own mouth,
there is power because you've just now broken
in illegal access, you've previously given the enemy,
you're like, nope, you can't harass me anymore.
I just took that land back, right?
So I love that.
And then lastly, you wanna replace it.
So now that you've removed something out of your life,
you remove the lie, you wanna replace
where that once was with truth
and truth is what we find in God's word.
So you wanna say, okay, God, what do you say about this?
Right?
And it's that simple, friends.
The blood of Jesus is enough as you break agreement
and you call in the name of Jesus,
you are gonna experience freedom.
Anytime a lie pops up, you just say,
repent, renounce, replace, repent, renounce, replace, okay?
And then if you are with a friend
and you hear a lie come out of their mouth,
lead them through that process,
repent, renounce, replace, friends.
It is so simple, but you just enforce
the freedom of Jesus Christ.
What he did on the cross is enough
to break every single stronghold.
I keep wanting to try these truths,
these principles are something that Christ and I
both have implemented in our lives.
We've ministered over others
and we've seen people get free.
We trust and believe that these are gonna be useful tools
and in your tool belt and weapons against the enemy.
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