I recently had a conversation with a friend that I have known for a while. I’ve never actually met this man in person, yet I’ve known him for 2 years.  I am going to post an edited and cleaned up version of this conversation.  I edited some of it because it is not mine to tell. I am responding to his request to be one of my MSN Messenger contacts.  This occurs after I post in my groups FE forum that I’m quitting FE.

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Me: So, I’m curious.  “amazed and shamed”  What do you mean?

Friend: I am amazed that you have the ability to keep it up, ashamed that I don’t.  I’m a classic backslider.  I’ve given up on games many, many, many times and still find myself back.

Me: Do you read?

Friend: As frequently as I can.

Me: What has been revealed to me, at least for myself, is that the sin I’ve been dealing with has been the sin of escapism. It is the sin of seeking pleasure and joy and meaning through the pages of books or the social aspects of the gaming world.  I have found myself retreating and reveling in the fictional world rather than living and reveling in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.  Because of that, it is a sin for me.

There is a competing idea going on in my head.  One, these things are fine in themselves and there is nothing inherently wrong in them.  Yet, for me, it IS wrong because of the way in which I use them and make them part of my life. So, it is very hard to give it up, because I don’t see anything wrong in it and I do greatly value them.

Friend: I get that completely.

Me: Yet, I’ve found that I’ve come to value living after and following Jesus more now. In order to make that stick, I had to renounce those things, break them off and ask for forgiveness of them.

Friend: My main problem is that many times, I’ll find a way to justify it even though I know it’s inherently wrong.  For a long while, there was a guy I played with who lived in Pakistan.  He was a Muslim and asked a lot of questions about Jesus and Christianity. I used to have long conversations with him, clearing up some mistaken ideas and the like all the while thinking… giving up everthing else is worth this conversation.

Me: Of course.  I did the same thing with FE (Fallen Earth). “If I can keep it to one day a week, it will be ok” is what I told myself.  What a lie that was for me.

Friend: But in truth those conversations, while they happened occasionally, were not the norm.  The sad part is a lot of the time it’s just an escape and only marginally enjoyable.

Me: Yes, I felt that way too. 

Genesis 4:7 … sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.

This is conflicted with the reality that we are in bondage to sin, tied down to it.

Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Jesus came to set us free from not only the positional bondage of sin where it means death for us, but also the daily captivity of sin where it means we are ruled by our sin.  He also gave us the tools to do so and I did not know these tools for a long time.  On top of that, I was culturally a Christian rather than a Christian in reality till fairly recently.

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At this point I share a personal story with my friend, one that I don’t yet have the freedom to share in such a public venue.  A lot of important stuff is here about my personal conviction of the reality of Jesus Christ and the spiritual realm and I pray I do have the freedom to share this at some point.

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Friend: I’ve devoted myself to Christ several times in my life, usually to wind up slipping away for various reasons.  At the moment, unfortunately, I’m at one of my low points, not in my faith mind you, but in my living it.

Me: As I’ve grown and studied and basically gorged myself on reading the bible and reading other Christian books, I came to the realization that it was not myself that was driving me to backslide, it was the influence of an evil spirit that I had never gotten rid of that was driving me.

When I started this journey, I also was at a very low point.  I was addicted to pornography and masturbation.  I was enthralled with EVE and escaping from my failing reality.  I was angry, resentful, full of hate and fear and running away from it all.

In the midst of ALL that I cast a demon out of someone.  I bound it, barred it and cast it out in the name of Jesus Christ. – (Highly edited here, again not mine to tell yet)

That convinced me that there are evil spirits and there IS a Jesus and everything in there that I heard in Sunday school and didn’t care about is true.  I don’t think I was a Christian then, regardless of earlier professions. I was like the seed that was in the thorns consumed with daily life.

Now, of course, that didn’t stop the addiction to pornography or masturbation or escapism.

However, I ordered 3 books and started reading them.
•    Deliverance from Evil Spirits
•    Pigs in the Parlor
•    Healing

Friend:  Out of curiosity, what made you pick those books?

Me: My mom recommended them.
I ordered the books and waited over a month before reading them because I was shamed into not reading them.

A little over a month ago, I get in an argument with my wife and out of anger, start reading Pigs in the Parlor.  What I read in it rings so true to my ears and my life that it scared me, it gave me the shakes, but it started me down the road.  I try casting more demons out, but I try in ignorance and it doesn’t work.  I get frustrated and my mom encourages me and I finally realize after reading some more… What use is it to cast demons out of others when I do nothing for myself.  I’m the guy with the plank in the eye after all.

Friend: Ah yes, the invisible log.

Me: So one night. I ask God for grace, I ask for forgiveness. I verbally renounce pornography and masturbation (the obvious ones first here) and I say “I know your there and this is no longer your home.  In the name of Jesus Christ and by the authority he has granted me as his child and follower, Pornography, Masturbation, I cast you out”. Then I yawn real big for an extended period of time and I feel cleaner.

And the desire I gone, the pushing in the back of my head, the restlessness, the first initial impulse that you’ve followed so long you do it without thinking, it’s all gone!

I go a week like this and at the end of the week; I have a fight with my wife.

I accidentally bring up one of the sites that I know because it’s in the browser history and I haven’t taken any action, other than verbal, to protect myself from temptation.  Well, I’m mad and despondent.  I backslide for the weekend.  I avoid talking to my mom.  I’m miserable and just a plain lousy person to be with that weekend.  I make a decision to backslide because I was mad.

Unbeknown to me, my Mom feels a pressing need to pray for me all weekend while I avoid her.  So Monday comes around and its evening and I finally talk with her. I lie to her. Tuesday comes; I feel convicted but ignore it. Wednesday comes around and finally I confess, repent and ask for forgiveness. It immediately comes on me that I cannot continue to play with my faith. I have to go all out.

EVE Online pops into my head. Immediately I go and cancel my accounts, uninstall EVE.  I was talking to my Mom in IM when this came upon me and she asks what I’m doing.

“I’m quitting EVE” I write.

“Your game? Why?” she asks me.

“Because how can I follow Christ when I’m escaping into EVE every single night”

And that was my reason for quitting EVE.  Yet… I couldn’t give it up completely.  I continued to visit the forums, I continued to hang out at both the groups and the official EVE forums and give input or stay attuned, I kept that little bit of connection back to the world of escapism.

So, when Fried (the leader of our group of players) announces that he and a bunch of others were going to FE (Fallen Earth) I thought, “Hey, it’s not EVE, I can do that and I can just do it one night a weak”.

Well, that was obviously a lie to myself in retrospect.  How hard did I start playing FE, playing and posting and being involved?  It was more intense than EVE ever was.  However, God honored the quitting of EVE even though I chose different opium.  He blessed me with a growing desire for him. I bought a journaling bible, started doing quite time, praying, seeking, talking, thinking all the time about following him and growing in him.

All this happened while my evenings were spent escaping to FE, making art, etc…

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Again it’s not my story here but suffice it to say, my wife and I got into a fight.  Out of that fight I was convicted of my need to repent and quit FE.

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The next morning, I quite FE, posted my post on the forums and my blogger post.  That morning I also verbally renounced Escapism and cast it out and asked for forgiveness.

Now all of that was to get to this.

Demons are real. They can oppress you and drive your natural inclinations to be stronger to the point of irresistibility. However, Jesus gave us a means to fight them and the authority to fight them.

Mark 16:15 Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands and if they drink and deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover.

So, Jesus gave us, as Christians the authority and power to cast out demons in his name.  We have the tools to fight our enemy and we have the grace to overcome our nature.  Now, of course, we are not always successful, the great commission there is a commission and doing the work is hard than knowing we have the tools to do the work. But we will always fail if we don’t use the tools given to us or fail to see that we have the tools.

Friend: I think that I was right to want to chat with you.  It’s time for me to stop making excuses myself.  I see a lot of parallels between you and I and I’m encouraged by your candor.

Me: Its simple yet profound.  Jesus says if you have the faith of a mustard see, you can tell this mountain to pick itself up and move over there.

Friend: yes I know.  The part that troubles me is that even his disciples, who lived and breathed with him, had trouble with that amount of faith.

Me: How much less faith does it take to call upon the name of Jesus, ask for forgiveness and then tell your enemies to get out!

Friend:  I went ahead and closed my accounts, its time.

Me: remember to renounce it, ask for forgiveness, and if you can cast it out of you and bar it from returning. Also, I would ask for grace from God to be upon you.

Friend: I got some strange looks from a guy who walked by my door. But I did that.

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This basically ended the conversation as we both had work that needed doing.  I talked with my friend again tonight and he said he experienced a weight lifting from him when he prayed and cast out.
In all things God bring blessings on us.