If undesirables have moved into our house, it is insufficient to establish that their action is unlawful. Nor is it enough to complete an assertiveness training course. Confirming our legal standing and strengthening our resolve to enforce our rights are both vital steps, but it is futile to stop here. We must actually evict the squatters.

Our spiritual union establishes the illegality of Satan’s move against us. Without this, as the sons of Sceva discovered, good intentions and pious or aggressive ranting achieves nothing (Acts 19:13-17).

In addition, we need prayer to build us up, empowering us for spiritual confrontation. We often so focus on Paul’s itemization of the armor in his classic on spiritual combat that we forget it culminates in ‘praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit’ (Ephesians 6:18). The disciples, bewildered by their inability to expel a demon, needed Jesus’ revelation that there is no alternative to prayer (Mark 9:17-18,28-29). No matter how intimately they knew Jesus, prayerlessness still meant powerlessness.

Yet with our union with Christ resolving the legal issue and prayer girding us with divine strength, insidious trespassers will continue until we enforce our blood-bought rights. Jesus, ‘who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil,’ (Acts 10:38) not only spent entire nights in prayer, he authoritatively confronted anti-God forces. Time and again he rebuked opponents to God’s will, be they fevers, storms, demons or whatever. We must follow his lead.

Taken from Turning Spiritual Attack into Victory

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