Loosing

Greetings,

                Imagine this. It’s a cool dark night. The clouds are scattered across the sky in dark and eerie formations. Their appearance is but a mirror of your hearts intent. You stand outside of a giant estate, one that you’ve observed for some time, ever since it was assigned to you. Your job: break in and steal as much stuff as possible.

                Your agility is commendable. The fence guarding the property proves to be more of an inconvenience than a boundary. After you scale it, you creep through the trees and head for the side entrance. Everything is going so perfectly. These unfortunate people are going to be robbed blind, and you are going to be promoted by your boss. You are gloating so loudly inside of your head that you fail to notice one last obstacle.

                You make a break for the door, but as you round the corner of the mansion you find that there is a large man. He is standing at the door with four gigantic snarling dogs. They look like wolves with their grandiose fangs and they all begin to bark in your direction. As you prepare for the worst you realize that they are all on leashes. The man is holding them and he is not letting go. How strange!?

                You regain your composure and begin to creep towards the door again. As you close your proximity you realize that the man has no intention of letting go of the dogs. He is just looking at you and crying. You walk right around the dogs in plain sight, pick the lock, and walk in the house according to plan. You rummage through the various rooms and steal the most valuable things you can find. Once your sack is full, you exit by the same door you came in.  You walk past the dogs that are now practically foaming at the mouth. The man just won’t let them go.  You can’t help but hear His cry over your laughter.  “God, why do you destroy my life and take away everything that is valuable to me!” It dawns on you that he may not have even realized he had dogs on a leash to let go of…

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                The purpose of this short story is to illustrate reality for many Christians. The thief is intended to represent the devil’s cohorts that are sent on assignment to destroy our lives. The house represents our life. The things in the house represent the various elements of our lives. The house is surrounded by a fence because although there is protection from God, it does not prevent us from coming under attack. The man represents the Christian and his dogs represent God’s defensive provision. The dogs are on a leash to illustrate the principle of this letter—loosing. Until the man let’s go of those dogs (hence loosing them) there is nothing that they can do to destroy the works of the enemy.

                Last week we discussed binding. Binding is akin to tying up spirits so that they cannot conduct their wicked activity. We also discussed that binding is only one side of a two-sided coin. The other side of that coin is loosing. They go hand-in-hand. Notice how Jesus speaks of both of them in the same breath.

                “And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19)

                This scripture, which deals with binding and loosing, also includes a third element: the keys of the kingdom of heaven. What are these keys? We have to keep in mind that whenever we attempt to deal with something involving “the kingdom,” we are dealing with truths that relate to the dimension where God is King. In other words, we are speaking about realities that find their source from outside of the earth realm. In essence, the keys of the kingdom are the promises of God that can be spoken over things in this world to conform them to heavenly realities. Put simply, they are scriptures. As we begin to engage life by speaking scripture over ourselves and the situations around us, we are also given the ability to bind and loose. We bind from heaven to earth, and we loose from heaven to earth. These operations allow us to enforce the will of God in this world.
                While binding stops certain spiritual activity from taking place, loosing causes certain spiritual activity to start taking place. How is this useful? We don’t just want to stop negative activity; we want to promote positive activity. In other words, good has to replace evil. We bind the wickedness and loose the good so that no gaps are left unfilled.

                When we are engaged in spiritual warfare we are to bind and loose. In a Bible study for example, not only do I want to bind distraction and arguments, I want to loose brotherhood, acceptance, peace, and joy. Basically, whatever things, attitudes or activities that are “of God” in Scripture are things we can pray for to be loosed. We can loose the fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). We can loose the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, the spirit of council, the spirit of might, the spirit of knowledge, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:2). When this type of activity is at work in our lives it is a great benefit to us!

                Moreover, we can also loose angelic activity. In spite of what some people have said, it is possible to loose angels to war in the spirit realm. Some people say, “Why do we need angels when we have Jesus?” Well, if that were a valid question then let me ask you this: why does God bother having an angelic army (2 Kings 6:17, Isaiah 66:15, Revelation 12:7-9)? Why do you think He is called the Lord of Hosts? Do you think they are just there to stand around and play harps! This is what the Bible says of their ministry.

                “But to which of the angels has He ever said: “Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool?” Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?” (Hebrews 1:13-14)

                They minister to us. Part of their ministry is to fight battles on our behalf in the spirit realm. Think back to our story in the beginning of this letter. Many of you reading this are like that poor man that just stands there and cries at God. The thief goes in your house, takes your stuff, leaves, laughs at you, and gets promoted. You on the other hand are literally standing there with access to an army that can be loosed! What can we expect when we begin to loose the ministry of angels to destroy the works of the wicked one? We can expect that the foolish thief will take his nasty self out of your stuff so quick he won’t ever want to go back. He’ll probably get hurt pretty bad in the process of escaping too!

                So let’s get practical. How do we loose? I’ve typed out some prayers below that can be used as examples. Tailor them to the leading of the Spirit for your particular situation and watch God’s kingdom begin to go to work for you like you’ve never imagined. Just like binding, this is not theory—this is a proven art of war.

                “Father, right now I loose joy in this place (house, workplace, church, etc.). I thank you that your kingdom is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, and I declare this place is kingdom territory in Jesus’ name, amen.”

                “Father, right now I loose a spirit of might in my friend (person you are praying for). Just like the spirit of might rested upon Jesus, I thank you that a spirit of might now rests upon my friend. You have not given us a spirit of fear but of power. Thank you for your empowerment in Jesus’ name, amen.”

                “Father, right now I loose warring angels to destroy the works of witchcraft in my neighborhood. I declare that darkness can no longer prevail and the glorious light of Jesus Christ will break through in Jesus’ name, amen.”

                “Father, right now I loose angels of deliverance to break every demonic cord and bondage that the enemy is using to hold my friend captive such as (name specific areas of oppression in the friends life) in Jesus’ name, amen.”

                As you can see, loosing has a wide range of applicability. The trick is not to memorize these prayers, but to see them as a guide. During your prayer times, be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Allow Him to lead you into binding and loosing and you will find that the power of your prayer life will be ramped up by a whole order of magnitude.