How to overcome panic attacks and depression
Proverbs 23:7: You are a product of your thoughts.
As a man thinks in his heart so is he.
This scripture tells us that our life is a product of what we have thought about for the last number of years. Whatever you have been thinking about yourself, positive or negative, that is what you are today.
If the Word says, ‘as a man thinks in his heart so is he’, that is just the way it is going to be. A lot of times we don’t like that, but the fact is, the truth of the Word of God is the truth of the Word of God, and we have to come to the understanding that God is always right……..
If God says, “Light be”, light is.
If He says, “As a man thinks in his heart so is he”, that is the way it is going to be.
We cannot keep fighting that in our human rebelliousness. We have to realize that if God says something, He is serious about it, and He is ALWAYS RIGHT….and He is trying to help us live our Christian lives in peace and Joy and Purpose and fulfillment (Abundant Life).
When people look at this verse , I say: Think about the thoughts you have been having for the last couple of years, even a dominant thought since you were a child. For instance, if someone said to you that you were a dumb child, those things can last a life time. Yes, those words are a kind of curse, but as a Christian you can put that curse away, again because of the finished work, Jesus bore our curses on a tree. Gal 3:13
As a Christian I do not go back to my natural father. I do not.
When I got born again, my Father in heaven recreated me, and that is as far back as I go, and there are no curses from my Father in heaven. Once I know that Jesus bore the curse for me, as a Christian I can get rid of all that stuff. Just like anything else, I accept what Jesus has already done on my behalf, He bore all curses for me, so I resist it and I get rid of it out of my life.
‘As a man thinks in his heart’ is a key area, so I am setting them up to look at their thoughts and understand what their thoughts are all about, understanding that there are usually two voices inside of our thoughts, some people say three, but the point is that there is a force behind these thoughts, either faith or fear, heaven or hell. Sometimes the enemy is so subtle in our thoughts, we have a tough time figuring out which is which.
We need to ask: Is this thought from heaven or hell?
Some think this is a dumb question and may look at me strange, but I tell them the reason they look at me like that is because they don’t know!
I will say: You don’t know, do you? No, and you won’t know unless you know the Word of God, especially the New Testament. Knowing the New Testament will give you discernment, it really will. If you realize that a thought or something someone says isn’t from the Word of God, particularly the New Testament, you will know that thought or statement ISN’T FROM GOD!
People tell me: “You have very good discernment.”
The reason is that I have worked at it. I have really tried to understand the New Covenant. As a child of God, as a son in good standing, one of my responsibilities that my Father expects me to do, is to find out what the New Covenant says about me.
I always ask people that are suicidal, in bondage to depression or are bi-polar:
Do you see yourself as a captive?
If they do, I say: Good, because you are. If you are in any kind of bondage you are a captive.
Romans 6:16: You become the slave of whatever you obey.
Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.
2 Peter 2:19: You are a slave to whatever controls you.
….. a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.
This is a very serious, important spiritual principle.
If a person thinks of themselves in a certain way, they are going to become that.
Thoughts exercise themselves into words, if you believe with your heart and speak with your mouth, (Mark 11:23), you will have whatever you say, negative or positive. You are creating things.
For example, if you get into a rage (which is very common for people with bi-polar issues), you become a slave to that rage. A person does not think where that rage is coming from.
I ask them: Is that coming from hell or from heaven?
When they think about it they say, “It’s not from heaven!”
I tell them: You have never fought this, you have just run with it, and you have become a slave to it, and that rage will get you in all sorts of trouble. The Bible says that anger is a gateway for demons.
Proverbs 6:2: Snared by your own words.
You are trapped by the saying of your mouth
and you are taken by the speech of your lips.
I talk to them about being snared by their words. I tell them:
When I start working with you, I am going to connect how you think with how you speak, and what kind of thought processes you are going through.
I can do this through conversations, or by analyzing e-mails they send me.
I can listen to a person talking about themselves and after five or ten minutes, you can pick up all sorts of things, also the Holy Spirit helps you. This Word of Knowledge and Word of Wisdom and discerning is not that difficult, anybody can do it, and can operate in it.
What you hear people say is usually totally opposite of what God says about them.
A lot of times when they acknowledge the issues in their life, one of the issues is that they don’t like themselves, for a lot of different reasons. So I open up this issue.
I say: When you look in the mirror at yourself (which a lot of people can’t do), Jesus is looking at you because He lives inside of you. When Jesus looks at you He doesn’t see darkness, He sees you completely free. He knows that He paid the price for you to be free and when He looks at you, He sees you covered by His Blood. He wants you to trust Him, get involved with the Word, let the truth set you free, and you begin to fight what is oppressing you.
The finished work of Christ has been done for you and you have to line up to this truth. A prayer I teach people is Thank you Father, your Son has purchased at a high price my freedom, and I am having what He paid for …
Look in the mirror, and smile at yourself, you have to begin to like yourself, you have to begin to love yourself because Jesus loves you, and you have to see THAT truth. Jesus Christ bought you with a price and He is smiling at you. You are holy, and blameless and unreprovable in His sight. Colosians 1:22, if you continue to believe the Finished Work-Verse 23, if you continue ……
Romans 1:16: Supernatural power is in the Word.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes.
The supernatural power is in the Word, and when I am reading you Scriptures, I know that the supernatural power of the Word of God is automatically working in you.
If you speak the word to to someone, there is supernatural power going forth from your lips into that person’s spirit.
When you begin to have some experience at this, you will see this and be convinced that the power is in the Word. Sometimes people only nod their head (in agreement) when you are ministering the Word of God to them, but they are changed, their agreement with the word will renew their minds.
Just as people accept salvation, they accept the Word of deliverance. There isn’t any particular posture or prayer involved. We are over-spiritual sometimes!
There are times I pray a lot, but it is usually when I am by myself. When I am with a person, I want them to feel as comfortable as possible, like we are just having a conversation. I have seen the Word of God work in this type of setting many times.
The Power is in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, (Rom. 1:16), so if you give someone the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that Word all by itself will set that person free. Just by itself, the Word of God. Their mind will be renewed, even if they don’t know anything about the Word, just by listening to it.
The truth will set you free.
So, the first part of the truth is to acknowledge the issues you are dealing with, if you do not, there will be little progress. The truth will only set the person free who agrees and does not get defensive or deceptive when it come to confessing their faults. Then repent and go after changing the way they think and behave. To win these spiritual battles you have to see clearly what you are fighting in the spiritual realm. You need to acknowledge your faults and realize the the spiritual evil realm has been prodding and directing these issues to trap you.
How can you win the spiritual battle if you don’t know what you are fighting in the spiritual realm. People tell me all the time that they have been fighting these issues for years, but how can a person fight these spiritual based problems, if they don’t know what the spiritual problem is and the don’t know how to use to word of God to gain victory. To overcome any oppression, you have to know
1) You need to The word of God
2) You need to know the will of God.
This requires you to have spiritual understanding, and this is why lots of Christian live in bondage, mainly because of ignorance and unbelief.
Just like Paul mentioned in the scriptures, many Christians are boxing the air, and this will not overcome spiritual problems. You have to know the Truth before it will set you free.
James 5:16
Confess your faults to one another and you shall be healed.
This verse is in the scripture for a reason and people are not used to doing that today. We should be open books before each other as Christians. If we are not, how can we hold each other accountable?
We need to spend some time on this point and showing why this is important to healing. Without acknowledging the issues you are having a problem with, how can you get healed of them.
Any kind of deception or hiding issues will result in prolonging the battle, you will start going around in circles, just like the Israelis in the desert.
Common issues that usually come with depression, anxiety, bi-polar, panic attacks.
Cast these out of your live, very powerful spiritually, and designed by the enemy to put any person in serious bondage.
*****Self Pity *****Take Offenses ******Blame others
******Manipulation *****Intimidation *****Threatening
If you have any of these issues you will need to repent and acknowledge that you have these issues and commit to fight against them, and understand that they are spiritually motivated.
Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
This is one of the most important scriptures for any person suffering from any kind of oppression, and most Christians can quote this verse, but few really understand and realize the importance of it when related to the finished work of Jesus.
A lot of us Christian when we realized the truth of this verse, put our heads in the sand and think “I do not want to fight with demons, I am not sure I believe they are real, and if they are I will just ignore them and they will leave me alone”.
We may not want to admit this, but most of us have had similar thoughts on this verse.
Again, the enemy of our souls (especially Christians) have a target on our backs, and they want us to ignore them, think that they do not exist, and this strategy has worked in the church.
Lots of Christians are heavenly influenced by demonic thoughts and they do not even realize that these though are being inspired from hell. That is why most Christian do not live in victory, how can you have victory when you don’t even know anything about the battle you are in, and you don’t even realize that there are specific strategies that are being devised to steal you peace, joy, purpose and fulfillment in life. —-
How can a Christian overcome any kind of oppression, if you do not know and understand what is going on in the spiritual realm and the plans and strategies that have been planned against you.
One of his main strategies is to keep us in bondage. They know where they can influence our thoughts, blame others, get us into self pity, and lead us in unforgiviness………..especially with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, suicidal thoughts and bi-polar issues.
These are spiritual problems in the main (there are physical effects, medical science today have proven that high stress in life will lead to declining health), but if you do not deal with them as spiritual problems, as the world says, there is no cure for these problems, in total contradiction to the words of Jesus, but you must understand these things as it relates to Eph 6:11.
Our battle is not in the flesh, our battle is with spiritual forces, and if you ignore this truth, how can you overcome these spiritual forces. That is the essence of the finished work of Jesus, He has totally defeated these spiritual forces, but just like how to got saved, you have to accept the Truth of the word and then a battle will ensue in your mind, because these spiritual forces do not want to bow their knee to the words of Jesus.
They have learned over the years that if they persist against a Christian, our human nature is apt to give in, that is why courage and persistence is the key to victory of demonic forces and the oppression that they bring, and we have to insist that we will walk in the finished work, we will honor this work by walking in the truth of what has already been accomplished.
Thank you Father, we will have what has been paid for by Your Son, total freedom from captivity and oppression, that come from the demonic realm.
Jesus said, that He has come to give us abundant life, if you don’t have peace and joy, purpose and fulfillment, then you don’t have the abundant Life that Jesus came to give us………………….
[schema type=”person” name=”Pastor Pat Buckley” orgname=”Haven of Refuge Ministries” description=”Free From Depressionn” ]