DELIVERANCE FROM GRIEF AND BITTERNESS

SCRIPTURES
I Sam. 1:16 - Hannah's bitter provocation (childlessness).

I Sam. 2:33 - Grief over children.

Psalm 6:7 - Eyes consumed because of grief.

Psalm 31:9 - Eyes, inner self & body weakened from grief.

Psalm 31:10 - Life spent with grief.

Psalm 78:40 - God's grief over our rebellion.

Prov. 17:25 - Foolish son is grief to father.

Is. 17:11 - Griefs due to worshipping Adonis.

Is. 53:3 - Jesus acquainted with grief.

Is. 53:4 & 10 - Jesus bore our griefs.

Jer. 6:7 - Jeremiah's grief over Jerusalem's wickedness.

Jer. 45:3 - Lord added grief to sorrow.

II Cor. 2:5 - Grief caused by incest.

Eph. 4:30 - Grieve not the Holy Spirit.

II Cor. 1:3 - God comforts and consoles us in all our troubles.

II Cor. 1:4 - So that we may comfort others in their trouble.

I Pet. 5:6- - Knowing the same sufferings are appointed to your brethren in

11 - the world. God will complete, settle, secure and establish you.

GENERAL
I learned about grief when our son died. In time this grief became dear to me. I was very heart broken when I hadn't thought of him all day.

God met us at the time of Byron's death. He did unusual things to get our attention and to minister to us. This saved our lives but did not remove grief from us. We followed the usual pattern for those who grieve. We used grief and self-pity to manipulate others and disobey God. No one of us was aware of these actions at the time, yet we became expert at using them. Our demons having become expert at using people for thousands of years, have us doing their bidding very well, very quickly.

FAMILY REACTIONS
As we were unable to meet Marie's needs, she felt rejected and went into rebellion and bitterness. She would rebel just for the sake of rebelling. She didn't know it at the time, neither did we, but these actions were the result of distrust because we let her brother die. Parents are to protect children. The demons told her this but she was not conscious of agreeing with them. Clever aren't they?

Gene withdrew from the family, and neglected family problems and needs to minister to others.

I grieved over all the above. I became dominating, a Jezebel, trying to fix everything for everybody except myself. This dominating tended to emphasize everyone's troubles, even creating more troubles.

GENE'S TESTIMONY
After Byron's death, the world seemed unreal. I wanted to leave this world and I asked God to kill us. This was an improper prayer and it was a selfish action on my part. Losing Byron was like losing an arm or a leg. We searched the Bible to see if we could commit suicide, go to heaven and be with Byron, and also to be out of our misery. The Bible says that you have no right to commit suicide and you may end up in Hell. We prayed that the plane would crash in the Atlanta Airport. There were one-hundred tornadoes in Atlanta that day and the plane shook on its take-off. My grief really was for my loss and for myself. God told us that Byron was in Heaven. I would sit and hold Byron's picture and cry; I did this many times. I felt like I had to grieve over Byron's death or I was not showing proper love for him. I would drive to work praying and crying. I cry often now but they are tears of joy. I have found that there is nothing wrong with a man crying in the sight of God.

I did not want to work but God told me that I must support my family. I tried to go to the mission field but nobody wanted me; they only wanted me to go to the seminary. God told me to continue to be an engineer and to start helping others who were in need.

After Byron's death we really started seeking God. Jesus was our Savior but He became our Lord and Master also.

Byron's death caused us to reach out and help others who were experiencing death in their families. God has helped restore our lives as we have helped others. Now we have a ministry of helping others centered around deliverance.

It took four years to write our testimony "From Death Into Real Life" and to overcome our grief. I handled my grief by the following steps: I quit looking back at Byron's death, I ministered to the needs of my family, and I went on with what the Lord wanted me to do.

EARLINE'S TESTIMONY
I grieved over Byron's death and worried over my family. I became a dominating Jezebel, trying to fix everything for everyone except myself. This action tended to make everything worse, even creating more problems. I prayed and fasted a lot to get God to straighten them out, but forgot to ask for wisdom and understanding to straighten myself out. I did not follow I Peter 5:7-11. I would cast my cares upon Him but because there was no quick-fix, I took them all back and did not follow on to believe v.9, that after a while He would finish the work He planned in us. We would be established, secure, settled and strengthened I had been taught about good confessions. I confessed, until I was worn out, that the problems would be taken care of by God. Things got worse rather than better. I did not take scriptural care of my part of the problem. I was ignorant of the Bible's instruction so God could not act. I did not qualify due to ignorance and disobedience (Hosea 4:6). I began to say to God, "If I must go through this, please teach me all that I need to learn. I don't want to go through this over and over."

Grief is a normal reaction to loss or pain . It is not normal grief when two, five or ten years later, it is as great or greater then when it happened. Grief becomes rebellion when it controls our action to the point we do not obey God.

In John 10:10 we find out who wants to kill, steal and destroy us. The Devil never lets up when you have trouble; that's when he pounces the hardest through his demons.

DEFINITIONS
What is grief? Grief is sorrow, heavy, grievous, sad; intense suffering caused by emotions due to loss, misfortune, injury, evil, regret or suffering; to be morbid, to suffer calamity, failure, distress or lament.

Emotions
Grief causes a breakdown in emotional control. Emotions will fluctuate wildly.

Will
You are unable to do what you see you should do or need to do.

Body
Doctors tell us, after many years of study, those who are bitter, in grief or unforgiving create a climate in the body where cancer, arthritis and ulcers thrive. Our body chemistry and functions are out of order due to the stress created by grief, bitterness and unforgiveness.

Mind
The mind should be under control by the person's spirit which should be under the direction of the Holy Spirit. We tend to think of our mind as the supreme part of us but it is not. We are a spirit that has a soul and lives in a body.

INSTRUCTIONS
Just as we do not let our hands or feet do their own thing, neither do we let our mind accept every thought coming into it. A mind can receive more than one thought at a time from more than one source. We hear from God and Satan at the same time. We should examine every thought that comes into our minds. If it does not pass a Biblical inspection, we should reject it. If it lines up with the Bible, we pray for wisdom and act on the wisdom God gives. Many thoughts coming through our minds are not our own but are sent out by evil spirits to snag us. If we accept them and think back with them, we can be led into depression , sins, etc.

Many thoughts coming into your mind are not your own but are sent to entice you. If we accept them and act on them, we can be led into sins in mind or body.

Boys at Louisiana Training Institute would tell me that they had thoughts to do the crime and not to do it at the same time. They did not sort out the good from the evil and made the wrong choice. Rom. 6:16-17 tells us that to whomever we yield ourselves servants to obey, that's whose slave we become; if to unrighteousness - death and if to righteousness - life in God.

John 10:10 says Jesus comes to give life abundantly. My cry was "Lord how do I get life abundantly?" I learned a new song (Is. 60:1), "Arise, shine for your light has come." I tried but I didn't know how to arise or shine. In the Amplified Bible I found the complete directions.

Is. 60:1 - Arise (from the depression and prostration in which circumstances have kept you; rise to a new life). Shine (be radiant with the glory of the Lord; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you).

Now I knew what I was to arise from - depression and prostration. Each time I tried to arise, a ton of weight held me down.

Is. 61:1-4: Jesus came to preach the gospel, bind and heal the broken hearted, proclaim liberty to the physical and spiritual captives, and opening of the prisons and eyes of the blind. To proclaim the year of favor, to grant consolation and joy to those that mourn, to give beauty for ashes, praise for failing spirit and build oaks of righteousness that the Lord be glorified.

Grief does not bring glory to the Lord but joy, praise and righteousness do. Verse 4 says after all this is done, they (the people) will rebuild their ruined lives and cities. This has begun to come true in the lives of our family members.

I realized I was asking God to fix the circumstances around me that I should have been at work on. I was continually asking how? Right off I saw more scripture after I saw the scripture about forgiveness.

Mark 11:22-26 and Matt. 18:21-35 instructed me to forgive everyone who had ever wronged me in anyway, including myself. I must forgive Byron for dying and myself for thinking I could have prevented it, and ask God to forgive me for blaming Him.

Forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting. It means let it drop, leave it and let it go (Matt.6:6-15). Count the offense unimportant compared to what Jesus did for me, (Matt. 18:34-35). As I came to forgive, much of the ton of weight fell off of me. I must forgive to be forgiven. If I regard iniquity in my heart, God will not hear me. Unforgiveness is sin (Ps. 66:18). Many of my prayers were not answered because of unforgiveness, grief or bitterness.

We grieve over many things: our sins, the results of our sins, rejections, worries, neglect, divorce, abuse, death, failure, children's failures, etc.

A spirit of grief is bitter. This bitterness reaches everybody and everything around us (Heb. 12:14-16).

Our grief kept us so tied up in it that we neglected each other and our daughter. She took the neglect to mean rejection and she began to reject herself; after rejection, entered rebellion.

HOW DID WE GET OUT OF THIS MESS?
After two years of fasting, Bible study and prayer, God suggested that I ask Gene to pray deliverance for me. We had never heard of prayers for deliverance; neither did we know what it was or how to do it. Gene suggested we go into our room and ask God to help us. The Bible says we have the Holy Spirit; we don't need anyone to teach us (I John 2:27).

After a very lengthy prayer, Gene began to call out things bothering me. The basis for deliverance is Mark 16:16-20 and Jesus' examples in the Gospels.

As he called out unforgiveness, the faces of people and circumstances flashed before me, and I forgave them. He then proceeded to rejection, bitterness (of which grief is a part) and rebellion.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE CAUGHT IN THE GRIP OF GRIEF AND BITTERNESS Forgiveness (Mark 11:25) - Christians have no choice but to forgive. Matt. 18:34-35: God will send tormentors on you if you don't forgive.

Submit To God (John 4:23-24) - Face up to the facts; do not use grief as an excuse to disobey God, for bad behavior or to neglect duties. Fantasy is deadly. Obey - To establish basis for deliverance, you must obey appropriate scriptures. Honesty -If you love me, you will keep my commandments. God hates lies and lying. Bind up the evil forces working against you. Loose yourself from them and ask God to send his forces to aid in your release: wisdom, discerning of spirits, power and might (seven-fold Spirit of God). Call Out All Evil Spirits From Yourself And Other Family Members

To Stay Free After Deliverance - Control your thought life (II Cor. 10:5). I got very holy asking God to control my thoughts. After weeks of doing this, I heard "Stupid! What is the understood subject of that sentence?" I had my answer; I was to bring every thought into subjection to Jesus Christ. He quoted Isa. 55 to me. Phil. 4:8 gives a list of things you should think on - things worthy of reverence, just, honorable, seemly, pure, lovely, lovable, kind, winsome, gracious; if there be any virtue, excellence or anything worthy of praise, think on, weigh, and take account of these things. Fix your mind on them. This is a commandment! Resist Satan - I never in my wildest imagination could have known how Satan would fight against my desire to obey. I got a lot of experience in forgiving and in thought control right off. People began to say and do things that hurt badly. I used to retaliate ten times for one hurt. But God says vengeance is mine, I will repay.

As I forgave and just simply counted the offense as worthless, a wholesome, clean feeling came to me. I liked it.

I made a list of things God allows me to think on and put it behind the cabinet door in the kitchen. When I got off track, I'd read the list. If what I was thinking about wasn't on the list, I'd stop those thoughts, reject and throw them out.

Continue To Break Old Habits And Obey God - If lazy - Prov. 6:6, & 9; 10:26; 13:4; 20:4; 26:16. If disobedient - I Sam. 15:23; Ez. 20:38; Is. 30:1. If lying - Prov. 6:17; Rev. 21:8. Whatever your problem, find the instructions for the solution in the Bible and follow them. If you fail, get up and try again: II Cor. 4:7-9, Book of James,
I Cor. 10, etc.

RESULTS
God has shown me that we would still be "us four and no more family" except for Byron's death. We avoided people with problems. We had always taken care of our problems as they arose. We had everything: positions, houses, cars, boats, etc. - what this world says is success. We were wretched and poor in God's eyes. Now each time God uses us to help someone, I see it as a result of God's help, our obedience to God, and Byron's death. Much good has come out of Byron's death for many families, children and individuals. Without deliverance from demon bondage, we'd probably all be dead now.

LET'S GET STARTED

Repent
The first thing we need to do is repent for being ignorant of the Bible which contains God's advice and for not following that which we do know; for wanting to or for living in fantasy; for blaming others when it's your problem too; for not trusting God and going on but living in the past; for the unkindness you have done to others; for not believing that this terrible thing that has happened can work together for good and be useful to you, others and

God's plan; for not accepting God's right to use you seeing you were bought with a great and precious price; for not being willing to be hurt as others are; for refusing to be grateful to God in all things; for listening to and following the advice of demons; for failing to consider the others who have also been grieved by this thing which has happened; for holding resentments against yourself, others and God; and for allowing my grief to become excessive.

Forgive
Ask God to remind you of all those against whom you hold unforgiveness. Forgive all  yourself - everyone. Forgive those causing your grief.

Break Curses
Rebellion, divorce, death, occult involvement, inherited curses, domination and bitterness.

Pray any other prayer that will establish the basis for deliverance from grief and bitterness.

Ask God to give you wisdom in correcting your thought patterns, ways of treating others, purpose of your life, the things that have hurt you so much; to help you understand how the other members of you family have suffered; to help you let Him use this thing for your good, the good of others and God's plan.

LIST OF DEMONS TO CAST OUT IN THE NAME OF JESUS