You’ll see this in 2 Timothy 2. It says in 2 Timothy 2:24 – “And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.” You notice in this verse, you see a person who is taken captive. In other words, there’s someone who has gotten influence over their life, and they’re acting against their will, they’re doing things according to what the devil wants them to do. There’s a need to get out of that snare, or out of that trap.
You notice that the key to getting out is the person has a truth encounter. You share with them the truth. If they acknowledge the truth and come to repentance, then they can escape the snare of the devil. Notice it says in verse 26 “they may come to their senses”. The word literally means “to sober up again”. So, when you share the truth with the person, often there’s a conflict for the person to come to admit that’s what’s happened; that’s when they can come free. As you are working with people, you may find that there’s almost like a conflict going on, like confusion in their mind, until they acknowledge the truth. You notice that acknowledging the truth and repenting, precedes getting out of the snare.
In our process of working with people, we will ask questions to diagnose the problem, present people with the truth, and then show them the journey out of their problem; then confront them with power. Does it make sense? We spend time asking the questions, diagnose the problem to its roots, and help them see the truth. If they’ll acknowledge the truth, and come to the place of repentance, you can set them free. If they don’t acknowledge the truth, or are unwilling to repent, they don’t get free; or if you get them free, they don’t stay free. So, always in our ministry, it’s a ministry of the truth, and then the power.
As I was talking with this woman, and she was a leader of some years, she was very distressed at not being able to have a child. When I said ‘You have 4 children’, you could almost feel like this fog of confusion around her. I had to be quite slow and clear in trying to help her see the truth, because she had believed a lie: this is just something I got rid of, it’s solved a problem in my life; but I had to get her to understand ‘Actually, you have 4 children. They live in heaven’. The reason you have the problem, is because you’ve taken their lives. Of course, she had all the reasons why she had to do this, and how she buried all of the pain related to it.
I said: “We can’t proceed for freedom, until you face the reality. This is what the Bible says about this situation.” You could feel the confusion around her mind, and then suddenly you could see it come clear, and she realised what she’d done. Then, she began to grieve over what she had done; and then we’re in a place to pray and minister to her, because she’d acknowledged the truth and come to a place of repentance. So, always in our ministry, it follows kind of like a process of diagnosing the problem, find the roots, and bring the person to be responsible for what they’ve done. At first she was very bitterly blaming people. I said to her: “While you blame people, you remain a victim. You can’t be free, if you blame someone else. If you blame someone else, then you are giving them the power for the situation. If you take responsibility, you are now becoming empowered.”
So, the first area that you will strike or work with people is, they must recognise and be responsible for their sin. Once a person has recognised and taken ownership, then something can happen. I had one woman that I prayed for, well I was going to pray for, I was asked to pray for her; and she said: “I’ve got this man who wants to marry me. What should I do?” That’s always a trick question! So I said: “Tell me about your situation.” She said: “Oh, well I was going with him for quite a while, about 3 or 4 years, and then we broke up. I went with another man, I had a child to him and now we’re broken up too. So, now this man wants to marry me.” I said: “Can you tell me why you broke up?” She said: “He was unfaithful to me 3 times.” I said: “Sounds like a good reason to break up. Maybe after number 1 would be better. Is he a Christian?” “No he’s not a Christian.”