I honor and respect my ancestors more than I ever have in my life, but I have to say that they knew less of God than any people I know! They were good people—honest, nice, loving, hard-working, good neighbors, loyal and friendly—but their lives were simply wrapped up on those things I have come to know as the demonic. I heard my father accept Jesus Christ as his Savior when he was over fifty years of age!

But the entire family needed deliverance, and I was certainly not to be the one who could facilitate that for them. I didn’t know I needed deliverance until I came into the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. All I could do for them was to pray for their salvation and release, and that they would respond to the care and love of someone loving them.

Saint Paul speaks to this in Philippians 1.19-20: ‘for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.’ Many within my extended family did come into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ—but my only investment in that was through prayer.

Simply put, I had to roll it over on to God, and he had to do his loving thing. We agreed in prayer for their salvation and deliverance, and it worked. Paul concludes: ‘I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.’ I fully expect to see most of my extended family in heaven, where we will all be able to share how we were delivered from the enemy into the hands of Christ Jesus.