Thoughts From Teresa

[I would like to preface this lesson with a short note. I am sharing what God did in my own life and He is currently taking me through a process that I personally need to look to His power and anointing instead of to human or psychology techniques. At this point, I am not suggesting that the techniques are of no value or tht we should throw them away. Since I am in process on this, I don't know what my final opioin will be yet. Please do not take this lesson as a call to get rid of inner healing or self-help types of ministry...]

This week God did something huge in my life. This is going to be more of a testimony than a teaching, but I am hoping you will find my testimony inspiring and helpful. I believe God wants to similar things in your life. Your "issue" may look different than mine, but I think He wants to use His power and anointing to set you free from it.

It all started with two very different things. The first is that over the last 7 or 8 weeks God has been speaking to me that I need to minister from my gifting and anointing, and from His power instead of trying to learn inner healing techniques. In fact, He rebuked me for being involved in a group that two friends were leading that studied a self-help methodology, and God told me to drop out if it. God spoke very strongly to me that I must minister from His anointing and not from the techniques of man. I was afraid of offending my friends so I did not obey Him right away on dropping out of that group. But He continued to tell me to abandon techniques and look only to His power. Last Sunday morning at Church, I finally informed my friend that I was dropping out of the group.

Then on Tuesday, the biggest issue in my life began to surface again. Let me try to give you a brief history on this issue. Some years ago I wanted a mentor and this lady came into my life. At first it was wonderful, she was a dear friend and prophesied powerfully into my life. But over time she began to try to control and manipulate and even dictate how I should run the GodSpeak ministry. I was committed to only do what God spoke personally to me and would not allow her to dictate how to run GodSpeak. That created a great deal of tension between us. I had never been exposed to a co-dependent relationship before and did not recognize the manipulation and control and affection-withholding techniques that the dominant person in a co-dependent relationship often uses. So I became emotionally dependent on her. For a while, she even convinced me that I did not have a prophetic anointing of my own but was operating under hers.

But I would not follow her dictates of how to run GodSpeak -- I would only do things that God spoke directly to me. So the tensions mounted. We broke up and got back together multiple times over about a three year period. At first she would be a friend, but after a few weeks, the manipulation and control tactics and resulting tensions would start up again and I would be miserable again. We finally had a permanent parting of our ways about 4 or 5 years ago.

But even after we were out of contact, she was in my thoughts. I struggled with resentment towards her. I debated if she operated from a spirit of manipulation/control or if she was really representing God and someone I accidentally missed God by disobeying her mandates. Sometimes I was glad she was out of my life and other times I missed her and wanted her back in it. She seemed to be in my thoughts far too often. I would bring it to God. I would choose to forgive her. I would break soul ties and I asked God to help me have attitudes towards her that were pleasing to Him. Over time she became an occasional struggle instead of a constant one, but she never left my thoughts entirely. And this whole thing continued to be a big and unresolved issue in my life. I continued to struggle in my thoughts towards her even though I wanted to forgive from the bottom of my heart.

On Tuesday, I found myself struggling with ungodly thoughts towards this lady. I repented, choose once again to forgive her and asked God to help me have attitudes towards her that would please Him. Then this weird thought came into my mind -- what would I do if she were to try and come into my life again? The very thought scared me and I was afraid that I would probably fall back into her trap again and be miserable every time she tried to coerce me to do something God was not leading me to do. I even told God that I did not think I could handle that well and if it ever came up, would He please help me.

In the meanwhile, I had been trying to handle what I thought was a routine problem in the prophetic chat room. One of the newer people had sent me an email gossiping and slandering one of our regulars, as well as several other inappropriate things. She had a very arrogant attitude and spent a large portion of her email in self promotion before she started to slander the regular. Her email had made me so angry that I had to wait several days to cool down so I could address it in a Christ-like manner instead of from the flesh. I finally wrote her back on Tuesday morning, after going to a GodSpeak board member for advice on how to word the email so that I was Christ-like in my response.

She immediately wrote me back a very attacking/rebuking email. She showed no remorse for her gossip or slander. And she seemed to think she had spiritual authority over me and I must obey her or else God would punish me. I felt her attitudes and behaviors were dangerous and that I did not want her treating others in the room the way she treated me or the person she originally attacked. Also, she was recruiting people from that room to her ministry so she could mentor them, and that broke room guidelines. I decided to ban her from the room. I prayed about it and felt God's confirmation on that decision. I thought it was a done deal and I did not plan to think about it any more.

But something about her email reminded me very strongly of my old mentor. So I reread it. I noticed she used several of the same phraseologies as my old mentor used to use, and the same type of arguments. And she also said, "I knew you a very long time ago from another list and know who you are and what you were and are all about." But I was unfamiliar with the name she gave me and did not feel I had ever been in any type of relationship with her. That was precisely the type of thing my old mentor used to say. Was it possible that she was trying to come back into my life incognito? Or was it two different people but both operating under the same demon? In that case, was a demon claiming to know me? Either way (my old mentor or a demon who thought it knew me), it was freaky... My issues all rose to the surface and I was upset.

So I telephoned one of my close friends, Elvi, and asked her to meet me online in order to help me process this. We went to a private GodSpeak chat room to talk and I forwarded her the two emails this lady had sent me. I asked for her opinion before I shared why I was asking her about it. She came to the same conclusion that I had -- this lady operated from a bad spirit and was dangerous and inappropriate and should not be allowed access to the chat room.

Then I began to share how this interaction reminded me of the old mentor, and how I was trying to sort out if it was the same person or different people influenced by the same demon. We went to this person's web page and looked at her picture, which had been airbrushed. I had this old picture from 1999 of the mentor and we compared the pictures. The eyes and nose were the same, but the hair was different and the picture on her web paged looked younger than the picture I had. Elvi was convinced it was two separate people but the same demon. Personally, I was not sure it wasn't the same person. I had just typed into the private room, "I am not sure which concept is more freaky ... that _____ might be trying to step back into my life or that the same demon is trying to step back into my life through someone else."

A few seconds after I typed that, guess who came into the room? That is right, the person we had been discussing! It should not have been possible for her to find this room, because it was a private and unlisted chat room. But there she was. I had been feeling stirred up ever since I began to suspect this lady might be my old mentor coming into my life again. And when she showed up in the room, I was about to freak. But God told me to calm down because He had brought her here. And some measure of His peace washed over me.

Apparently she had been trying to get into the prophetic chat room (which she had been banned from) and ended up in here instead. She had no idea how she got here. I asked her if she was this other person (the old mentor) and she said no. Then she said that she knew me from before and sited some email list I had never heard of and never participated on. She seemed to think that she had some type of God-given spiritual authority over me. And she began to go off about some nonsense of me hunting up one of her words from some other email list in 2000 and begging her to let me post it on my site. (That never happened, by the way.) But she demonstrated some of the same ugliness and control and accusation and manipulation that my old mentor used to use against me.

And something happened inside of me. I saw the demon and its strategy it for what it was -- and it had no more power over me whatsoever. I was completely free. I was so amazed at what God was doing that I sort of let her ramble on a bit. But Elvi got tired of it and told her we were having a private conversation and asked her to leave. She was offended, but she left.

After she left, I shared with Elvi what God had done inside of me. The biggest issue in my life was gone just like that. We closed in prayer. As we were praying, I thanked God for breaking that issue in my life off of me. The God whispered to me, "See, isn't My supernatural way much better than man's techniques?"

Wow! I was so blessed. But God had even more in store for me. I decided to swing by the prophetic chat room to make sure the ban worked and she was not in the room. She wasn't, but about 7 or 8 other people were there. It was not a scheduled time, but they were there prophesying to each other and the Lord's anointing was strong in the room. I was blessed to see that. Then they began to prophesy to me. (People very rarely prophesy to me in the room, so this was unusual in and of itself.) There were words about God increasing my anointing, and God increasing my ability to move in His power. Then someone who did not know me came in and began to prophesy about how God was very pleased with this room and He was going to bless it and increase it's anointing and scope of influence, and raise up and anoint people who participate in it.

I was so blessed I had to get offline and go pray for a while. And God met me in a wonderful way during my prayer time. I felt so free and I kept rejoicing in that. Then God told me that He was going to prove to me just how free I was. And he did a bit later that evening.

A new email arrived from the lady I'd banned. She did not like being banned and released a strong judgment word against me... basically God was going to defend her by punishing me for not submitting to her authority. And He was going to take my ministry away from me and give it to her, or something along those lines. I still did not know for sure whether or not this was the old mentor or just the same demon operating through a different person. It did not matter. I knew what God had spoken to me personally and also He had confirmed it (and His blessings) in the words given me in the chat room that afternoon. I wasn't even mildly troubled by her email and felt no need to respond to it. Then she wrote me another email the next morning and I did not even feel compelled to read it. So I did not.

I have been enjoying this newfound freedom and I have been marveling at how God was able to completely resolve the biggest issue in my life in a matter of a few hours. He is so awesome! In fact, I am so awed by what He did for me that all I seem to want to do lately is pray and worship. And He has been meeting me in such wonderful ways these past few days.

I feel like I have been truly living John 8:36, "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed!"