A Fragmented Soul Part 1.
I am by no means a "techy". My husband sometimes thinks I am. Being from a different generation than me, his mind is definitely not wired in a way to understand modern technology and how it works. It's a bit of a running joke in our household. When it comes to computers, he's all thumbs! When I am around those who are younger than me, I probably feel much like he does! I definitely do not know the language but I do know enough to do what I need to do most of the time even if it means doing it the hard way! Sometimes our computers run hard. The changes we make to the files on the computer get stored in different places. So, the files and the computer become fragmented and don't run to full capacity.
The word fragment means "a part broken off, detached, or incomplete. According to dictionary.com when associated with computers, fragmentation means to split a file into smaller parts and store in non-contiguous sectors on a disk, resulting in fragmentation. This causes the hard drive to work harder because those files are broken up and it has to scan the computer to find where they are. People can also be fragmented. We become fragmented and broken up in our souls, the area of your mind, will, and emotions.
When your soul isn't prospering, neither is your body. 3 John 1:2. Up to 95% of sickness and disease is a result of what is going on in your mind, will, and emotions. In spite of teaching, prophetic words, standing in healing lines, having hands laid on us and being anointed with oil, reading all the books, listening to all the Cd's, MP3's and podcasts we can, many of us still have wounded and fragmented souls and may even feel anything but whole. There seems to be something we're missing and yet we also seem to have picked up extra somethings along the way. As a file on a computer, our mind may not be working as it should; we have become frazzled in our emotions. Much like the hard drive on a computer, we aren't functioning to full capacity like we ought to and we're in much need of repair. We can even spend a lot of needless time, energy, and money trying to do fix the problem ourselves.
Before you can be whole, you need to realize that the you that you see when you look in the mirror is not the real you. You are a spirit being with a soul that lives in a body. When you accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and savior your spirit-man became alive to God. John 3:6 says That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. We've been saved yet Paul tells us in Philippians 2:12 to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. How do we work out our salvation? In Romans 12:2 Paul tells us Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Your spirit-man has been born again if you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior. Your physical body will follow after your thoughts. As a man thinks in his heart so does he become - Proverbs 23:7 The battleground is in our soul-nature, in our minds and emotions.
There are many ways we can become broken and in need of healing but there is one specific area I want to touch on because it is very rarely talked about in the church, yet so many believers struggle in this area. What is this thing that causes fragmented souls? Soul ties. A soul tie is simply a wrong relationship that binds two people together in a spiritual hold that causes emotional and even physical damage. It is an unseen control on a person’s life that can powerfully pull them away from the place of peace that God desires for them. There are several ways one can be attached to another through a soul tie but here I want to focus on one through which I see so many in the body
of Christ affected. Sexual intimacy, whether in a marriage or outside a marriage. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23) - So there is absolutely no condemnation if this is you! It's my own experience in this area that compels me to share it with you. Very few of us come to the Lord without a past. It's often the accumulation of things from our past that causes us to be sifted. What is this thing that causes unhealthy soul-ties? It is sexual sin. Very few believers talk about sexual sin in a way that is honest within the church and so we stay bound and never heal from past wounds. The whole reason we bring this to light is not to judge or condemn but so we can be free and then help others become free. 2 Corinthians 1:4 so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. But it's only sexual sin alone. Soul times are formed in the union of a marriage relationship. If that marriage turns out to be abusive, those soul ties cause a fragmentation of the soul and need to be broken
You don't have to look beyond your television, laptop, or iPhone to see how the world would have you think that keeping yourself pure and "saving yourself" for your future spouse is just old-fashioned and religious. Sadly, there are many in the church who have followed the world in this area. These days, girls especially are being taught from a very young age to be sexually aggressive. Sex is considered to be a right of passage. The world says "It's your body and you get to do what you want with it." We've all heard the words "If it feels good, do it." But God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He doesn't live in the realm of time and so He is always current and relevant. Though He is the Ancient of Days, He is never old and out of date!
By the time many of us came to know the Lord, it was too late to flee sexual immorality. We had already sinned against our bodies. If you are fortunate enough to not have, please bear with me. This word is still for you. If you have been divorced or widowed, you may need to break off some soul times. If not, you probably know someone who does. When you remarry after a "one-flesh" experience with someone other than your spouse and it's not dealt with, you will bring that one-flesh experience with you into the marriage bed and it will be defiled. Defile simply means to mar or spoil. We've heard the saying," It takes just one rotten apple to spoil the whole bunch." Let's apply that to our lives. It only takes one spoiled area in your life to negatively affect and spoil all the other areas.
Again, this is not to bring shame but so we can be free. John 8:32 The truth you know will set you free. If this speaks to you, I want you to be free, and believe me, you can be! I know from my own experience that the one-flesh experience can defile everything. It affects how you see yourself and how you see and relate to others. What's worse....the sins we commit, visit our children and our children's children. It's never just about us. It's about future generations being free as well!
God's word tells us not only to avoid sexual sin but to flee from it! Why? Because when you join yourself to someone else sexually you join yourselves not just physically but body, soul, and spirit. Quite basically, the two become one. Mark 10:8 says the two become one flesh. Everyone you have been with sexually, you have become one flesh with and you have united with them on all three levels. Verse 7 says a man will be united with his wife. That word united in the Greek means yolked together. Whoever you join yourself with you are yolked to. In the New Testament being yolked to indicates servitude or bondage. Every time you became "one flesh" outside the covenant of marriage, you literally put yourself into bondage.
Bondage to what? When you sin sexually, you are now bound to gratify the desires of the flesh and those desires are in direct conflict with the Spirit. Galatians 5: 16&17 says So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other...God desires that we would be free from all of that! It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. - Galatians 5: 1.
1 Corinthians 6:16-20 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. In verse 6 the Greek word for joined means to glue. When two human beings are joined in a sexual act there not only are they yolked, they are glued together as one flesh. If this happens outside of the covenant of marriage, a soul tie is formed. Soul ties open the door for continued promiscuous relationships, self-esteem issues, and repeated victimization.
Check out the same passage in the Message translation:
There’s much more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, “the two become one”. Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever – the kind of sex that can never “become one”. There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin, we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for “becoming one” with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit?. Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.
There are some who become one flesh with another person against their will. If this is the case with anyone reading this blog even if it happened during childhood these areas need to be healed, even when they are not fully remembered. If this describes you, you can trust that the Holy Spirit to reveal what you need to remember and He will only reveal to you what you can handle and when you are ready. Whether the one-flesh experience was voluntary or involuntary it's not about condemnation or shame but about the things in your past that are robbing you of your future. Isaiah 43:19 "Forget about what's happened; don't keep going over old
history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands. - The Message
Streams in the wastelands or rivers in the badlands, either way... a wasteland is just that… a waste-land; there’s no fruit. It’s barren. It’s not producing anything. But with God, nothing is wasted. He doesn’t want to restore the former things or your old history. He wants to do something new, something much better than what you had back there. He wants to do a brand new thing! Streams and rivers… suggest vegetation, which suggests fruitfulness and life!! Ezekiel 47:12 talks about a river flowing from the temple: Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.” Wouldn’t that be awesome if we could bear fruit every month, in every season of our lives??
You need to be whole, not just for yourself but you need to be whole for your spouse, your children, your brothers & sisters in the Lord, co-workers, neighbors, and anyone you come in contact with. We live in a broken society and we are called to touch it. So many of us need to break off soul ties and allow the Lord to do a deep spiritual surgery within. What is strong enough to break soul ties? For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow...
What I love about this scripture is that there is no surgical tool or instrument that can divide the joint from the marrow. It is impossible to do but what is impossible with man is possible with God. Nothing is impossible with Him and through the blood of Christ, the Power of the Holy Spirit, and the washing of the water of the Word, complete healing and wholeness is possible! Jesus is the Word! (John 1:4). He is the Father's representation of love on this earth. Let His love wash over you and penetrate every pore of your being. He will penetrate, reveal, and heal the most intimate areas of your heart. He will do what you thought was impossible to do!
How do you know if ungodly soul ties are affecting your life? If you have had a one-flesh experience outside of the covenant of marriage it is a given that you have soul ties in your life. Soul ties can affect you in the following ways: they can cause you to feel a loss of individuality and self-confidence, to have an inability to think clearly and make healthy decisions, to have a lack of peace, to have an inability to truly love and connect to others,
you may experience a loss of spiritual liberty and personal freedom, or suffer from sickness and disease, and to be unable to be close to the Father.
If you have ungodly soul-ties in your life there is hope!
The first step is simple: acknowledgment. If you have had several one-flesh experiences or if you have memories that suggest your innocence may have been lost as a child ask the Holy Spirit to reveal those soul-ties.
The second step involves repentance. True repentance is more than just saying the words "forgive me Lord" but it involves a changing of your mind, a changing of direction. The Hebrew definition of repentance suggests a turning back or turning away. You are no longer going to do that thing. You are turning your back on it. You are turning to the Lord, and with your mouth confessing the sin with that person/people and asking for the Lord to forgive you. 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
The third step can be the hardest, especially if the innocence lost was not voluntary but is so important and absolutely needed for your personal freedom. This step is forgiveness. It doesn't mean that if you were hurt that the deed was okay. Forgiveness doesn't excuse it but it separates yourself from it. Unforgiveness binds you to it and so without forgiveness, you cannot break free from a soul-tie. You can't trust your feelings either because it is an act of the will. I had a difficult situation in my life that required forgiveness toward someone that I once was very close with. This person hurt and traumatized two innocent people in my life that I love more than anything. I had to come to a place of forgiveness. The Word of God helped me to divide my will from my emotions.
Look at the parable of the Unforgiving debtor in Matthew 18:23-31 Message translation: “The kingdom of God is like a king who decided to square accounts with his servants. As he got underway, one servant was brought before him who had run up a debt of a hundred thousand dollars. He couldn’t pay up, so the king ordered the man, along with his wife, children, and goods, to be auctioned off at the slave market. “The poor wretch threw himself at the king’s feet and begged, ‘Give me a chance and I’ll pay it all back.’ Touched by his plea, the king let him off, erasing the debt. “The servant was no sooner out of the room when he came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him ten dollars. He seized him by the throat and demanded, ‘Pay up. Now!’ “The poor wretch threw himself down and begged, ‘Give me a chance and I’ll pay it all back.’ But he wouldn’t do it. He had him arrested and put in jail until the debt was paid. When the other servants saw this going on, they were outraged and brought a detailed report to the king. “The king summoned the man and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave your entire debt when you begged me for mercy. Shouldn’t you be compelled to be merciful to your fellow servant who asked for mercy?’ The king was furious and put the screws to the man until he paid back his entire debt. And that’s exactly what my Father in heaven is going to do to each one of you who doesn’t forgive unconditionally anyone who asks for mercy.”
I can tell you that I do not have a warm fuzzy feeling towards the person that hurt my children but I have chosen to apply the Word and to cancel the debt that this person owes me. There are some sins so damaging that there no way you can possibly make up for the harm done. I have to choose to forgive, trusting God to heal my children and giving over the one who harmed them over to God. In Deuteronomy 32:35 God says It is mine to avenge; I will repay.
Lastly, I have to allow the Love of Christ to flood my heart and by faith, acknowledge and confess that the soul-tie is broken. I chose to step out and confess my freedom. There are times I may be tempted to go back there and pick it up again and I may even need to repeat the steps of freedom, and depending on how strong that soul-tie was, I may even need to repeat the steps every day but I will do it until I am walking in the victory! I will renew my mind. I will allow the Word of God, the Sword of the Spirit to slice that thing off my life and I will confess the word because I know that faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God. Often times I need to hear myself say it. As I believe in my heart so will I become so I keep decreeing and declaring the Word of the Lord over my life and if necessary, I will seek out a mature brother or sister in Christ to agree with me and help me be accountable!
Finally: 2 Corinthians 5:17 If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. I love how the Amplified version puts it: Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life]
