Silas
Beloved of All
Thank you for trusting us with this painful and sensitive request, and thank you for recognizing God's mercy in delivering you. To look back and see that God kept you from being drawn into bondage is a reason to give thanks, and we join you in thanking Him for His protection over you.
What you have described shows how central our relationship with God truly is. That vertical relationship is the axis upon which all of life turns. When that relationship is out of order, every other relationship becomes out of order as well. When a person's relationship with God is not right, his relationships with other people will not be right either. The manipulation, the psychological abuse, and the desire to control and lead others that you saw are not isolated flaws. They flow from a heart that is not rightly related to God. Trying to fix horizontal relationships while the vertical one remains broken only leaves everything more unbalanced. What is needed is to come back to God Himself and get that central relationship corrected, and then the other relationships begin to come into balance.
This is also why false religion is so dangerous. God does not desire a ritualistic or legal bondage that puts people under rules and routines. He desires a living, loving relationship, where we know Him as Father and come to Him through the atonement He has provided through the blood of Jesus Christ. Sin separates us from God, and only Jesus gives us a righteous standing before Him. A system that offers ritual or secret knowledge or the charisma of a leader instead of that loving relationship through Christ keeps people in what Scripture calls weak and beggarly elements. It promises life but brings bondage, and its natural fruit is control and deception rather than love and truth.
So we will pray with you along these lines. We ask the Father to expose and stop what is false and to restrain any influence that would deceive or harm others. We pray that the Lord would bring down every deceptive teaching and prevent this man from drawing others after himself. Above all we pray for salvation, because effective prayer and true fellowship both begin with a real relationship with God. We ask that He would open eyes to see the need for forgiveness through Jesus alone, that your ex, his loved ones, and everyone involved in this group would come to know Jesus Christ as Savior and enter into that close, intimate relationship as children with their Father, serving Him in newness of life. That new relationship bears natural fruit, and what striving could never produce, His Spirit produces as a consequence of being rightly joined to Him.
We also pray for you, that the Lord would continue to heal you from what you endured, and that your own walk with Him would grow deeper. As your relationship with God is kept right, He will bring health to every other area of your life. He will give you wisdom, guard your heart, and make His love and beauty visible in your life. Keep seeking Him early and closely, as a child with a Father, and trust Him to keep you and to use your deliverance as a testimony of His grace.
May the Lord give you peace as you rest in His care, and may He in mercy draw many out of darkness into the loving fellowship He desires to have with them.
What you have described shows how central our relationship with God truly is. That vertical relationship is the axis upon which all of life turns. When that relationship is out of order, every other relationship becomes out of order as well. When a person's relationship with God is not right, his relationships with other people will not be right either. The manipulation, the psychological abuse, and the desire to control and lead others that you saw are not isolated flaws. They flow from a heart that is not rightly related to God. Trying to fix horizontal relationships while the vertical one remains broken only leaves everything more unbalanced. What is needed is to come back to God Himself and get that central relationship corrected, and then the other relationships begin to come into balance.
This is also why false religion is so dangerous. God does not desire a ritualistic or legal bondage that puts people under rules and routines. He desires a living, loving relationship, where we know Him as Father and come to Him through the atonement He has provided through the blood of Jesus Christ. Sin separates us from God, and only Jesus gives us a righteous standing before Him. A system that offers ritual or secret knowledge or the charisma of a leader instead of that loving relationship through Christ keeps people in what Scripture calls weak and beggarly elements. It promises life but brings bondage, and its natural fruit is control and deception rather than love and truth.
So we will pray with you along these lines. We ask the Father to expose and stop what is false and to restrain any influence that would deceive or harm others. We pray that the Lord would bring down every deceptive teaching and prevent this man from drawing others after himself. Above all we pray for salvation, because effective prayer and true fellowship both begin with a real relationship with God. We ask that He would open eyes to see the need for forgiveness through Jesus alone, that your ex, his loved ones, and everyone involved in this group would come to know Jesus Christ as Savior and enter into that close, intimate relationship as children with their Father, serving Him in newness of life. That new relationship bears natural fruit, and what striving could never produce, His Spirit produces as a consequence of being rightly joined to Him.
We also pray for you, that the Lord would continue to heal you from what you endured, and that your own walk with Him would grow deeper. As your relationship with God is kept right, He will bring health to every other area of your life. He will give you wisdom, guard your heart, and make His love and beauty visible in your life. Keep seeking Him early and closely, as a child with a Father, and trust Him to keep you and to use your deliverance as a testimony of His grace.
May the Lord give you peace as you rest in His care, and may He in mercy draw many out of darkness into the loving fellowship He desires to have with them.
