Witches! Now there’s a word that conjures up all sorts of images! ;>)
From bible times, to Shakespeare, to Hollywood, witchcraft has been both vilified and celebrated. There are ‘dark’ witches and covens, reviled for being linked to satanic practices. And there have been portrayals of ‘white’ witches with the new age movement, attempting to bring some sort of innocence to ‘magic’.
Whatever your paradigm, witchcraft is actually all around us, as prevalent today as in days of yore.
In Galatians 5:19-21, we are told: 19 “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.”
Now there’s an interesting list! A list of poor life choices stemming from desires and acts of the flesh. Impulsive choices, habits and reactions steeped in our need to get what we want for ourselves instead of relying on God to give us our basic needs. And, there in the middle of all these fleshy reactions is witchcraft… Perhaps witchcraft has a much broader meaning…
Witchcraft is about using external forces to control and manipulate to rob someone of their free will. It is also about sowing fear in others to make them more controllable.
Our very words can be witchcraft!
Instead of asking someone to do something for us, we could gently and subtly manipulate them to try to get them to decide to do whatever for us, and do it so subtly that they think it is their own idea to do it. Witchcraft!
Instead of speaking facts about a situation to allow someone to decide their own outcome, we could use strong emotional language to influence the desired outcome that we want from them. Witchcraft!
Instead of instructing from a place of humility and truth, we could speak loudly, throwing the weight of our God-given authority behind what we are saying, to cause fear to come, to use our authority in an ungodly way to influence entire crowds of people towards believing in our agenda, instead of allowing them to think and decide for themselves using their own cognitive processes, trusting God to work through them by His spirit, revealing truth to them. That’s what Hitler did with an entire nation and look at the awful results! He made himself as a ‘god’ to his nation. Pure idolatry and witchcraft!
We must be responsible with our words. God made us in His image. He spoke, and there was creation. We speak, and we create our world all around us. We have such influence over people! It is a gift. It must be respected. We must be careful to let Holy Spirit do the convincing. We should let God be the one to influence the heart of man and not step into His place. Doing that, we make idols of ourselves. Witchcraft!
The root of witchcraft is in the flesh. Flesh is common to all of us. But praise God for Jesus! You can CHOOSE to operate out of your spirit instead of falling back to operating out of your soul and flesh. You can choose words of life and truth, rather than manipulating people to get what you want.
Let’s stop the witchcraft!
Be encouraged. Be empowered. Be delivered.
Glory Company
helpful!