Jesus frees banker from slavery to destructive patterns
J was in bondage to destructive relationship patterns, resulting from Satan’s stronghold in her life through generational curses from her family’s worship of idols and witchcraft, as well as an abusive childhood. After a painful breakup, she began to humble herself before God and realised God had never left her. J is now on a journey to full freedom in Christ. Praise God!
(See Chinese versions: 简体中文 > 耶稣使银行从业员得释放 | 繁體中文 > 耶穌使銀行從業員得釋放)
God found a way to bring me home to Christ even though I strayed far away from Him.
Anxiety has always been my closest companion and depression has been the biggest part of my life since I was a child.
I grew up in a very abusive home where I was full of fear. Over the years, I became used to feeling like someone’s commodity or an object for their anger, jealousy, bullying, and verbal abuse.
My guardians did not protect me.
My elder sister was jealous that she had to share her parents with me, so she bullied me constantly. My mother feared my sister and hence couldn’t stop her. Dad had his own issues, so he was ignorant to the whole situation. He became very abusive whenever he needed to release some stress and to let go of his anxiety.
Sexual perversion was so common in that household that when I was molested by a cousin when I was four years old, I did not dare speak up. I felt so dirty and did not know how to love myself and my body. I felt cheap.
It was a dysfunctional family upbringing where the wicked ruled the household.
Both my parents, our relatives, and our ancestors worship idols at home. Several, including my grandmother, regularly go to a shaman to ask for life’s directions for us all. Our family has given our lives to Satan – the devil has a very strong foothold in our family members.
All my life, I thought money was the most important thing and a measure of success. My parents, grandmother, and aunties worship whoever who seems to be earning the most money – be it legal or illegal.
There was no law in that household.
When I turned 13, I met my first Christian friend in school. Her mother took me as her fifth child and was kind to me. Not long after, I accepted Christ at a youth church camp without hesitation. Home was a painful hell on a daily basis and I longed for a Saviour. I thought I finally found hope.
But life did not get easier after I accepted Christ. Little did I know about generational curses or repentance at the time.
Trouble seemed to always find its way to me.
In my late teens, I was bullied at school and that became a different hell altogether. I was called ‘dramatic’ or ‘emotional’ by numerous sources and felt like an outcast a lot of the time. But no matter how deep of a problem I was in, God always provided a way out.
Because I never loved myself, I would often self-sabotage in order to gain attention and love from others.
I allowed men to take advantage of me physically because I felt that I needed a way out of the hell in school and at home. Little did I know that I was signing up to another hell. I met a boy at church that I unknowingly placed first above God. The relationship turned really toxic and it lasted for five years.
Over time, I became bitter just like my father.
I started comparing my life with others and I blamed God for allowing things to be so difficult for me and so smooth sailing for others.
Whatever that I judged my parents and my sister for – their toxic relationships, their sexual perversions, their manipulation, their bitterness, their failures, their love of the world and of money – I found myself walking the same path in the end
I hated them so much and swore that I wanted to be nothing like them. My heart had become as corrupted as theirs.
1 John 3:15 NLT Anyone who hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them.
Galatians 6:7-8 ESV Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
Later, I moved to the UK to study and before I was not plugged into any church, I began to date a non-Christian out of loneliness and a yearning for a sense of belonging.
By that time, I did not believe that God had the best plans for me.
I started believing in myself alone though I still turned to God as my “doormat” whenever I couldn’t settle a problem on my own. I eventually stopped going to church altogether because I felt that it was irrelevant to my life and that no one in church would understand my struggles and why I would be yoked to a non-Christian. I was judging myself but I felt that the world was judging me. More importantly, I believed that God did not love me anymore due to this decision of mine.
2 Corinthians 6:14 ESV Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
Satan’s lies kept me isolated from Christian community, close friends, and healthy relationships.
During my nine years with my non-Christian boyfriend, I found evidence that he had cheated on me four times. Instead of admitting it, he would gaslight me each time into believing that I was imagining things and that I had mental health issues. He also manipulated my friends and family into believing that I was ‘the’ problem.
This man gradually took over full control over me, even down to the detail of my clothing and the words that I spoke.
He was both mentally and physically abusive. There were a few occasions where he just repeatedly hit me so hard that the next thing I knew, I was on the ground, scared and panicked, unsure of what has happened, just crying and screaming.
Yet somehow, the fear that “no one else will ever love me if I did not stay with this man” never left me, and I kept returning to him.
Due to my long-standing issues of not loving or trusting myself, I made him ‘god’ in my life.
After a few years, I got engaged to him, intentionally ignoring the Holy Spirit’s prompting to leave him. My world at the time was all about this man and marrying him. I felt like I couldn’t breathe if the wedding plans weren’t in place – but little did I know that he had already chosen a new target and was ready to discard me at any time.
It was by God’s grace that many obstacles helped to delay my marriage with him.
It was also by God’s grace that I found evidence of his affair with my best friend. That was the last straw. I packed my bags and left.
Whenever I cried out to God during those times, I always saw an image of Jesus standing outside of my garden but I felt that He was distant. Even though I felt I had completely lost my dignity and sanity, there was always a yearning in my heart that I have to go back to God.
God has always been standing at the gate and knocking.
Revelation 3:19-21 ESV Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.
I began to seek God again afterwards, but still felt very much addicted to seeing my ex and pleasing him. No one (including myself) could understand why. Thankfully, a friend connected me to someone from church whom she thought might be able to pray for and counsel me.
This prayer counsellor was about to go on an extended sabbath but was prompted by the Holy Spirit to set time aside from her sabbatical to love me. That was the first time that I felt God’s love for me in a tangible way.
When she prayed about helping me, she saw an image of my hands being tied up. In fact, that is how I have felt for my whole entire life.
Even though Christ has set me free, I still returned to some ‘familiar’ place of being someone’s prisoner. Later, as we tracked the roots of all my spiritual bondages to Satan, I realised how God had come to save me from generations of ancestors who worshipped Satan.
Even so, I was still so hateful towards my family members and I blamed them for all my bitterness. My prayer counsellor made me realise that they too, had been in bondage by Satan all their lives and that they have provided the best they could to me – even though they were constantly living in fear. For example, they tried to provide the best education they could possibly afford for me.
I was encouraged to forgive them after repenting for all my hatred towards them as I laid down all their wrongdoings towards me at Jesus’ feet.
After that, I felt like I had won a battle against Satan through Jesus. I learnt to love them and forgave my family members as God had forgiven me. It was a tough battle but I no longer blame them and I no longer believe the lies from Satan has used to separate me from my family. I have learnt to see my family members with love and pray that one day, they too, can come to Christ and find freedom, hope, love and peace like how I have.
Later, I agreed to go for a renewal prayer where I repented and cut soul ties with all the occult, witchcraft and idol worship of my family and ancestors.
One revelation from the Holy Spirit during the prayer session is that I had also bowed down to the spirits my ex and his family follow.
They too worship idols and consult shamans regularly. My ex used to make me swear that my body, which is to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, belonged to him in a semi-joking manner and I would oblige him because I did not want to displease him.
The Holy Spirit also revealed the presence of a Jezebel spirit in my life and also among people around me, like my parents and my ex. As we prayed and commanded these spirits to leave me, the prayer counsellors sensed dark spirits flee from me and witnessed that my complexion became more radiant.
I felt much lighter afterwards.
As I was kneeling before God, one of them saw an image of Jesus behind me, weeping over me. God assured me that I am not ugly, and that I am made in His image. This meant a lot to me. All my life, I have been told by numerous sources of how ugly I am. My sister would not let me go unless I admit and acknowledge that I look like a pig or a monkey. I now no longer believe in Satan’s lies.
The Holy Spirit gave me a new name that day, Esther, as one who would walk in the darkness of the world but shine and persevere with His joy and peace.
My ears were apparently blocked as I have listened to the world and I have stopped listening to God.
I was also given a new heart by God and reassured of His love for me, He had promised to never forsake me and to redeem me with triple blessings. God forgave me for prostituting myself to different idols and revealed that He has a plan for me, one that I can’t imagine.
After the renewal prayer, I saw the bigger picture of what was really happening and what has been really happening in my life.
God had repeatedly tried to redeem me from Satan but I did not put God above worldly things and people.
Hence, I chose the world each time I was tempted by Satan to go back to my ‘old ways’. Satan is sly and knows exactly on how to use lies and my biggest fears to tempt me away from God.
I was busy looking for solutions on my own instead of trusting my Heavenly Father to provide. I found myself exactly in the same path as my mom and becoming more and more like her while I judged her – it was a downward sloping path to the destruction of my soul.
Though losing the relationship with my ex was so painful – I felt like my world had literally collapsed on me – I have now regained eternity from God, something I can’t buy from this world.
The renewal prayer helped me to remove many spirits that were blinding my spiritual eyes and now, I no longer listen to Satan and his lies. I have found my hope back in Christ and I am no longer being held by slavery to addiction. I finally feel at peace, anxiety has fled. I do not find the need to look for my ex again.
I no longer worry about my life on earth as this is just temporary – this is not the end.
For the first time in almost a decade, I can feel God’s unending love for me in a tangible way and I believe that there is a greater purpose as to why I had to go through so much suffering in my life and I will never again place anyone else above God in my life.
I am finally on my way to freedom through Christ.
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