You are responsible to choose what you do. You can either submit and yield to it. Now a lot of women that live with an abusive man, the whole atmosphere is so full of uncertainty, that forever they live in anxiety and terror and fear and dread, and trying to accommodate the spirit of witchcraft. Let me tell you this. You're wasting your time, and you're damaging yourself. The only way through it is to confront it. You can do nothing else except confront it, because if it's not confronted, you end up in agreement with it. If you end up in agreement with it, you come under it; then you'll go through the cycle that Elijah did, exactly the same things. You'll start to feel pressure, your spontaneity goes, you'll start to shut down, no creativity. You start to feel yourself feeling anxious and on edge, then you start to withdraw and isolate, start to feel shut down.
In other words, witchcraft operating through the flesh, through a person with bad attitudes, has the same sensations as if a demonic occultic attack was coming on you. It may be a little less intense, but it's the same deal, because it's the same spirit. So how can you deal with it? Very, very simple; let me share with you simple keys. I wish I could just say it's a one, two, three thing but it isn't.
But we did see in Galatians that Peter confronted it, so let me give you some things you could do to deal with it. Number one, identify it. Number one, you've got to identify what it is that's affecting me; and some of it will be your own reactions, but try and identify what it is you're feeling. So these are the kind of things I look for: number one, a reserve or hesitancy, or starting to feel like I'm uncertain, and I'm holding back rather than abundant. I like abundance. We're made for abundance, so if no abundance, and abundance is shutting down, you're becoming reserved and withholding and mean, you know something is shutting you down. Ask the question, what is it?
A loss of spontaneity is another one, where you start to feel you can't be yourself, you can't be relaxed, you're having to somehow please everyone. That is a sign something is pushing on you. What is I'm feeling? How's it affecting me? You start to feel another thing, pressure around you to yield and please someone, then you know there's a witchcraft operating. You start to feel fear, anxiety or dread, you want to flee away from it, or you want to die, all of those are symptoms you've got a witchcraft spirit operating. So how is it operating? Where is it operating from? Who is the person that I need to face up to? What is it I need to face up to? Number one, identify it.
Number two, pray. You need to pray. Never try to deal with stuff without prayer. Why? Because you'll react. You've got to deal with your own reactions, your internal reactions of anger, and all kinds of stuff. In Ephesians 6 it tells us: we're not wrestling against flesh and blood, we're wrestling against spiritual powers; so separate the person from the spirit. So pray strong, build up your spirit man, and begin to just take authority. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you what the issue is. God, what is the thing? What is it I'm dealing with? What is it, that I'm feeling is coming against me? Ask Him to show you the thing, show you or help you identify it, the thing you can't see; and don't take action until you can see clearly.
So if you get offended, you won't see anything. You've got to get into God, pray strong in tongues until you start to free up, ask the Holy Ghost to help you see what it is, and just wait until you can see clearly - oh, that's what it is! You actually then have to confront the darkness, so to do that you need to prepare yourself. To prepare yourself in this relational issue - what am I responsible for? What are they responsible for? Then what they're responsible for is what they've got to face. You don't have to face that. What you're responsible for is your stuff. You're not responsible for their feelings, their choices, their decisions, their actions - that's their stuff. You're responsible for your feelings, your decisions, your choices, your actions; so you've got to be clear you're not going to make them change. You're not going to try and make them do anything. What you're going to do is, you're going to speak out, and let the light come into the darkness.