Door Openers to Disaster

Galatians 5:19-21 is a list that many Sunday school curricula will title as "Works of the Flesh." 

That is accurate. But is is also true that 'works of the flesh' are exactly the things that unclean spirits can capitalize on and manipulate to wreak havoc in the life of a believer. The works become doors that open a person up to demonic influences.

Below is an edited version of passages found in Galatians 5. I have tried very hard to not change the scripture, but only to change the viewpoint. The reason for doing this is that believers tend to become familiar with scripture over time. That is generally a good thing, but as they do, they also tend to either put the Bible verse in their doctrinal box or allow it to settle into a rut of familiarity that partially blocks receiving fresh and new insight.  So this edited and paraphrased version takes the emphasis off the "sinful works" aspect and redirects the emphasis to "things that open doors to demonic attack."

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not open the door to evil influences. For these devilish influences are opposed to things of the Spirit and will booby-trap you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you will avoid these things.
Now the doors for demonic attack are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
I warn you, as I warned you before, that such things will impede you from inheriting the kingdom of God. ... Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh and slammed shut the door on to these ungodly passions and desires.

When we change our viewpoint, when we see these more as gateways for the destroyer, it can change our attitude about the people who are around us.  We are less inclined to have an Us v. Them attitude. It also gives more insight into why KatieLyn ran off in the middle of the night.


I will copy that same passage below, but this time I will add highlighting to the doors that were opened by KatieLyn's family.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not open the door to evil influences. For these devilish influences are opposed to things of the Spirit and will boobytrap you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you will avoid these things.
Now the doors for demonic attack are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity,* strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
I warn you, as I warned you before, that such things will impede you from inheriting the kingdom of God. ... Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh and slammed shut the door on to these ungodly passions and desires.

Quite frankly, even now over a year later, I was surprised at how many attack routes had been opened up to assail the engagement!  W have discussed all of these at some point in this blog, but I had never seen them laid out in a listing before I saw Galatians 5:16-21 in this new light.

Idolatry — we've discussed how the co-dependency was an idolatrous relationship where KatieLyn ultimately valued her mom's words more than she did what the Lord told her on New Year's Day, 2015.

Enmity*  —  Enmity may or may not belong on this list; it is a "somewhere on the scale" thing. The definition of enmity is "deep-seated, often mutual hatred." It can coexist with deep love, hence we get the term love-hate relationship. I include it here because at some level, enmity was in KatieLyn's mother-daughter relationship at the time Joe met KatieLyn. The hatred was not widespread, but a filament of it ran deep. KatieLyn resented that her mother was holding her back and taking advantage of her help around the home. It appears that Gwen uses filial responsibility as one of her passive/aggressive controls in their codependent relationship.

Strife — KatieLyn's mom provoked fights about the engagement; this created strife.

Jealousy — It was Joe's belief, and I readily concur, that KatieLyn's mom was jealous of her Katie being in love in such an honorable way, (as opposed to Gwen snagging her guy via pregnancy). Gwen was jealous of KatieLyn's success in finding a man and was fearful that she would "lose." She said repeatedly that Joe was "taking" KatieLyn away from her. That is baldfaced jealousy.

Fits of Anger — I did not witness this personally; the closest I came to having first-person knowledge was Joe telling me about a text that he received from KatieLyn's mother along with the testimony of him and KatieLyn about the fighting with her mother being very upsetting.

Rivalries — this is another aspect that stems from the idolatrous co-dependency and Gwen's jealousy of her daughter. It qualifies as a "rivalry" because Gwen felt like she "won" when KatieLyn ran home in the middle of the night. Gwen got KatieLyn and Joe didn't!

Dissensions — a dissension is a difference of opinion. Boy, do I have personal evidence of that!  The emails that Gwen sent me and her confiscation of all means of communication after KatieLyn ran away from her place as bride were just plain nasty. We still have a difference of opinion; I know that KatieLyn rejected the Lord's plan for her life, while Gwen thinks that Katie was smart for disobeying since she was feeling confusion. The confusion had been planted by Gwen during their fights.

Divisions — this came out in the night of KatieLyn's midnight flight.  She chose to divide herself from Joe, with whom she had entered into an engagement promise before the Lord. Her stubborn refusal to allow a Christ-like resolution remains. I have not posted all of the information on this yet, although I have written it up in a draft form.

Envy  —  First, I need to make a distinction between envy and jealousy. Sometimes the two are so interrelated that it becomes hard to know which is which. Jealousy is directed at another person. It could be a fear of being supplanted by someone else, or it could be a resentment of another person. No one gets jealous of a diamond ring because no one want to become a diamond ring. While jealousy is person-directed, envy is greed-related. You could be envious of another person's tangible possessions, like a diamond ring, but you could also be envious of a quality that they possess, a talent or position. Envy can result in covetousness and ingratitude, whist jealousy can result in mistrust or fear of losing a relationship that is important to you.
With that distinction made...
Envy appears to have been Gwen's main motivation for provoking the fights with her daughter. Money was an issue for Gwen the entire time that Joe knew her, but it exploded after KatieLyn ran back home. Gwen was demanding a refund on every penny that she had put into the wedding, which proportionally, wasn't all that much. These issues have been adequately covered elsewhere in this blog and I am not going to belabor them here. 



The Lesson
In the modified version of Galatians 5, I called these behaviors doorways that can give a demon access to afflict you because that is what they do. In the standard version, they are called works of the flesh because that is what they are.  They could also be called sins because that is how the Lord judges them when they have not been confessed, repented of, and placed under the blood.

All of these open the doors to disaster. We thought that because Joe was not experiencing them with KatieLyn, that everything was good. We were wrong.