For more on this topic, check out Remnant Radio’s episode “Deliverance & Discipleship: A Balanced Pair 🙏✝️👥”

With the rise of online ‘demon hunters,’ the conversation surrounding inner healing and deliverance has been thrust into the spotlight. Movies like ‘Come Out in Jesus’ Name,’ ‘Nefarious,’ and ‘The Domino Revival’ have sparked widespread discussion about demonic entities. In my opinion, this has led to a great deal of unnecessary debate surrounding the issue of inner healing and deliverance. There are now Charismatics who believe everyone needs deliverance, and other Charismatics who think deliverance is only necessary on the rarest occasions.

The constant black-and-white and ‘either-or’ approach to life with no nuance creates confusion and spiritual abuse. Imagine a friend comes to you with troubling news. ‘I have cancer,’ they confess with quivering lips and tears in their eyes. ‘Should I pray that God remove the cancer, or should I go and get treatment from doctors and physicians?’ they ask you. So, what do you do? Do you point them to your God who can heal or the common grace found in big pharma? Well, lots of ink has been spilled by Christians on this very issue, and as it turns out, you can take a ‘both-and’ approach. You can tell your friend that you will pray for them with great confidence in Jesus’ power while they are going through treatment. This does not have to be a binary issue.

Likewise, deliverance and discipleship are two sides of the same coin. If someone is wrestling with an addiction to pornography, drugs, alcohol, theft, lying, etc., you don’t have to take an ‘either-or’ approach when you have access to ‘both-and.’ Look, I believe in deliverance and inner healing; I have seen it heal friends and family of physical, mental, and emotional ailments. I have led ministry time, where we have taken authority over the demonic and seen the tremendous power of the Holy Spirit manifest. However, I have never personally gone through anything resembling ‘inner healing’ or ‘deliverance’ for myself.

This is not to say I have never needed inner healing or deliverance. My close family and friends will tell you that I was such an angry child, full of wrath and rage. Around the age of 9, I was exposed to pornography for the first time by my best friend, whose parents gave him a computer in his bedroom. From that moment until later on in my teens, I found myself addicted to pornography. In addition, my youth was full of ’embellishing’ the truth and dishonoring my parents. With lust, rage, dishonesty, and dishonor at the core of my childhood, it is well within the realm of reason to think I may have needed inner healing and/or deliverance ministry. I may have skipped inner healing because of my skepticism, maybe it was because we did not practice inner healing and deliverance at some of the churches I attended; it was probably a combination of the two. Regardless of the reasoning, I never went through it.

The immediacy of the supernatural that comes through inner healing and deliverance ministries is what makes them so popular. Folks with addictions, bondages, and oppressions are often instantly set free. However, some receive prayer, counseling, and inner healing and still walk away with addictions. What do we do for them? We do for them what my mentors did for me – discipleship. 

Deliverance is not the only way people receive freedom. I understand discipleship to be a sanctifying process that takes place over time, renewing the mind, purifying the heart, and freeing the oppressed and addicted. When we are Jesus’ disciples, we receive and abide in His word; this process of abiding in His word sets believers free (John 8:31-32). Jesus washes His church in the sanctifying power of the word (Ephesians 5:25-26). Jesus sanctifies us in His truth, because His word is truth (John 17:17). Why does the word of God work this way? Because the word is living and active, dividing our thoughts and intentions, and exposing them to God’s perfect will (Hebrews 4:12). This exposure and illumination of our heart, in comparison to God’s perfect standards, cleanses us from what we have done, but it also changes our life moving forward (Psalm 119:105). Some would say that this ministry of the word of God could not and would not be sufficient for this level of spiritual warfare. Except, Paul actually calls the word of God the ‘sword of the Spirit,’ and it is meant to be used in spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6:17).

This discipleship is a long and arduous process that we are all called to. And in the midst of this long, drawn-out endeavor of being conformed to the image of Jesus, we can cry out for the immediate sanctification of inner healing and deliverance. We can approach this process as a ‘both-and’ instead of an ‘either-or.’ Deliverance and inner healing are not at war with discipleship, nor is discipleship at war with inner healing. God delivered Jericho into Israel’s hands in a single day but allowed the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites to be driven out little by little (Exodus 23:28-30). In the same way, you and I have access to the tremendous delivering power of YHWH that can manifest in a single moment, but even if He does not display that tremendous spontaneous breakthrough now, we are all called to mortify the flesh little by little in the process of discipleship.

Guest blog by Joshua Lewis

Pastor of Kings Fellowship Church in Ada, Oklahoma.

Host, Remnant Radio Theology Podcast