Me, myself and I
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please (Gal 5:16-17).
Self-centredness, selfishness, self-importance, self-promotion, self-control, self-respect, self-esteem, self-worth, self-image, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, self-belief, self-righteousness, self-help, self-expression, self-gratification, self-indulgence…
You might think that not all of these are bad. But it really depends on what is driving our lives. If we are to reflect the glory of God and flow with His life, then ‘me, myself and I’ will have to die.
Our soul is supposed to get revelation and direction from God, on the inside. Once it finds the true source of life and grows accustomed to drawing from that source, it will not want anything else. But while we keep trying to feed it from two sources, it remains confused. We have to re-train it to receive from the inside out.
We were looking in our previous post at the diagram of our spirit, soul and body gateways, and we understand that we need all our gateways open and flowing freely.
So what might block and close up our soul gates?
Common blockages
Sin: unforgiveness, rebellion, independence, self-centredness.
Strongholds: mind-sets, beliefs, lies.
Negative emotions: fear, doubt, unbelief.
Demonic: familiar spirits, generational spirits.
Deception, confusion, control.
Mind gate: strongholds, words spoken, words received, curses, fear, false doctrines
Imagination gate: images seen or imagined, TV, films, books, fantasy, games, internet
Emotions gate: rejection, disappointments, unforgiveness, betrayal
Conscience: sin, deception, pride, independence, judgment, criticism, defensiveness
Unmet needs affect our soul’s desires and motives. Unhealed hurts affect our emotions. Unresolved issues affect our trust and foster doubt. Sin and rebellion will dull our conscience so that things no longer seem wrong, so that we become comfortable with our weaknesses and patterns of sin, and eventually they seem to us to be normal, acceptable behaviours.
How can we open our gates?
How can we keep them open?
Whatever it is that has blocked our gate(s), we must own, confess, repent of, and renounce. As we apply the blood of Jesus, there is no guilt, shame or condemnation for us: we receive forgiveness and cleansing. Cleansing the gateways by the blood of Jesus is essential to fully opening the flow.
Step 1: Open the gate of first love
This gate is often most damaged by our natural experiences of hurt, pain and rejection. Renouncing inner vows, repenting of fear and forgiving hurts, we invite Him into our spirit and out through our soul and body by deliberately opening the door. Jesus is knocking: the door handle is on our side and it is up to us to open it (Rev 3:20).
We give God first love, first place, first priority
Step 2: Opening spirit gates
In our relationship of intimacy with God, we act in faith and meditate on each gate, surrendering our spirit to Him. We pray in tongues, open it up and welcome the glory and fire of God’s presence to come through.
Here is an example prayer for one of those gates (revelation). These are just words I have used – you are welcome to use or adapt them, but you can find your own if you like:
Father, I choose to open the gate of ‘revelation’ in my spirit.
I open it and yield it to Your glory.
I receive and release the power of God through this gate
I begin to receive revelation of Your kingdom
So that it will change my soul into the image of the Son of God who abides in me.
Persistence and diligence are key. We can work on all the gates, one at a time or in groups, but we must pray until we start to see the results – and then keep going.
Step 3: Opening soul gates
The soul gates are often influenced by demonic familiar spirits and our sin nature (which we know must be crucified with Christ and reckoned dead daily (Rom 6;6, Gal 5:24)).
As gateways begin to open, we can expect warfare from our soul as the kingdom influence begins to exert itself. We have to take back possession of our souls and dispossess anything residing there: demonic spirits, blockages, strongholds, controls, or anything else.
Again we act in faith, this time speaking to our soul and yielding control to the direction of our spirit. We take God’s word as a sword to separate our spirit from the control and dominion of the soul (Heb 4:12), declaring, “Soul, you will not motivate me, control me, or block the flow of the spirit”.
Our soul draws life from our spirit, but it has been used to drawing from the world, through the body. It has been used to ruling, being in control, which is why it fights the spirit when the spirit seeks to assume its rightful place. We break soul ties to our spirit, and break independence by surrendering control to our spirit.
Here is my example prayer for the ‘conscience’ gateway:
I bring my conscience into submission to my spirit.
I release the life of God to flow from my spirit
Through the gateways of reverence and of the fear of the Lord
To a consciousness of God’s righteousness and truth.
Where my soul has been seared by sin,
I now take the sword of the spirit and cleave the gateway open
To allow the flow of God through it, to dictate my actions.
Father, make me aware of my actions
That I may submit to Your authority in my spirit…
Step 4: Take possession of the gateway and place Christ at the center of it
We yield the soul’s gateways to the dictates of the spirit. We allow the life and glory of God to flow through them to the body, influencing and dictating its actions.
Step 5: Repent (change our mind and think about these things the way God does).
We repent of allowing any demonic spirits access through the individual gateways of our souls. We take the blood of Jesus by faith, wipe the gateway clean and redeem it. We acknowledge that we have not been diligent in the past and now accept and fulfil our responsibility for guarding the gates.
Continuing my example prayer over my conscience gateway::
Today in Jesus’ name
I take authority over [the spiritual force or condition]
That is resistant to the flow of God in me.
I loose it and cast it out of this gateway in Jesus name.
I make, and place, Jesus as Lord over this gateway today.
Father I thank You that my conscience gateway is full of Your glory.
I thank You that my conscience receives and releases
The flow of godliness and holiness through it in Jesus name.
My conscience will now dictate my body’s actions in the world.
[Thankfulness is very powerful. I may not feel that my gateway is actually yet full of His glory, but I declare that which is not as though it were, and give Him the opportunity to use my words to bring that about in me].
Persistent, diligent
When the life of God begins to flow, sometimes it is just a trickle. That is better than no flow at all, but we want a flood! This type of praying needs to be persistent in order to maintain the victory and widen the flow. Once our gates are open and functioning, as long as we are diligent and keep short accounts with God, we will never allow sin to block them again. But even if we do, we now know how to get them open and flowing freely again.
We lay hold of the gates of our life by faith as our inheritance, so that we exercise our God-given right to exercise dominion and authority there. We cast out any spirit seeking to exercise authority in those gates. Jesus is Lord of the gates only as we give Him the right to flow through them. In the spirit, by faith, we raise the banner of victory over each gate as a declaration that Jesus resides there.
God’s desire is that we manifest His kingdom, so that the world can see His love, His grace and His mercy, flowing freely to them through us. Let’s begin to enforce the kingdom of God from the point of authority in our spirit, so that it floods into our soul, through our body and out into the world.