Manipulation

Thank you for your prayers.

In the film
My Big Fat Greek Wedding,
Lainie Kazan has a line
that always gets a big laugh:
"The man may be the head of the house,
but the woman is the neck,
and she turns him any way she wants."

That's funny,
until you think about it.
She is describing manipulation.

In the first week of this series
I said that witchcraft is
manipulation,
in order to control,
in order to dominate.

Witchcraft is the desire for power over other people.
And this desire for power will eventually lead to
manipulating spiritual forces.

Any attempt to change things in the spiritual realm
without going through the cross and resurrection of Jesus
is a form of witchcraft.

It's always about power.

And if you look around,
you begin to see manipulation everywhere.

In over thirty years of working with people,
I have learned that people get sick
whenever they don't want to do something.
And some even figure out
how to become sick at will.
One woman I worked with
learned to imitate the symptoms of a heart attack
so that she could get all the attention focused on her.
She was always able to fool the doctors until they ran real tests.
There was nothing going on.

Honestly, people who use sickness to manipulate others
are the most dangerous.
They make you feel and look bad
if you don't show them sympathy.
This sickness is just feeding narcissism.

By far, the most common form of manipulation
is the withholding of important information.
It's common because it is powerful.

The media does this all the time
to control people.
People talk about fake news,
but it's not fake.
It is partially true,
just carefully edited to change your perception.

For full disclosure,
I don't watch news or media in general.

If you live in a major city,
like New York or London,
you learn
that a television camera
can make small things look large.
So a group of 20 protestors,
in a city of 9 million people
can be framed in a news story to look like a giant grassroots movement.

If you notice that all of a sudden
all the news stories are repeating the same phrase,
and repeating the same details,
with no development of the story,
that is a carefully crafted narrative
in order to manipulate you
to behave a certain way,
or believe a certain lie.

When a person does this in church,
they will quietly go behind you
and talk to others
and give a bit of the story,
but not the whole story.
And that becomes a tool
to destroy other people.
Gossip is an effective way to get power over others
and also destroy them.

If you tell stories about other people
with a selective choice of information,
stop it today.

If you are talking about leaders
and not giving all the facts,
stop it.

If you only listen to news and media
that only gives you the facts you like,
and then you use them to sway others,
stop it.

Satan doesn't use unbelievers to destroy the church.
He uses Christians who act as judge and jury,
who spread half-truths,
and innuendo,
in order to destroy the body.
This is manipulation.
It leads to control.
In order to dominate,
and destroy.

When people manipulate others
through half-truths
you are empowering those
who actually are involved in occult activity,
harnessing Satanic power.
That rush of power you feel
when you do these things
is not God.
It's the devil.

Sadly, we see this all over the church,
and we see it in the culture.
It isn't lying,
it is the careful withholding of information.
It is truth with a twist,
just like the snake in the garden.

Next week we will talk about control.

He Never Fails,

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